Catch Your Death - Lauren Child

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      The merest hint of anxiety in his voice.

      ‘What could possibly go wrong?’ said Ruby. She felt the huge force of the wind as the doors were wrenched open.

      ‘Any last wishes?’ said the guy in charge of the jump.

      ‘You got a pair of earmuffs I could borrow?’ she replied.

      He removed the blindfold from her eyes and she looked down into the moonlit dark.

      ‘Ah, stop whining Redfort and get outta here.’

      And so she did.

      As she tumbled through the night sky, thoughts unravelled and joined and twisted themselves together, and all the time she fell and fell until, with a jerk, her parachute shot open and now she was drifting jellyfish-like through the dark.

      She strained to make out any part of the landscape. Then, all in a rush, she touched earth, a textbook landing. She detached herself from her micro-chute, folded it and neatly repacked it into the rucksack. It weighed very little.

      She knew exactly what to do next.

      SURVIVAL RULE 10:

      STOP. In other words:

       S tand still. Take stock. Orientate. Plan.

       S TAND STILL.

      Ruby had no idea where she was – it could be Canada,

      Alaska or perhaps just some other state. That was the point of the exercise: drop you somewhere, in the middle of nowhere, where you knew neither terrain nor climate, and see if you survived. What Ruby was sure of was that she was not in Twinford any more. Far too cold. Twinford had been experiencing a heatwave, the hottest summer for fifty years, and the heat just seemed to keep on building.

      This brief plunge in temperature should have come as a relief – might have been just what she was looking for if only she had been better prepared for it. Spectrum had dropped her with next to no information about where she was landing, but then that was the idea; could she get out of here alive? She instinctively gripped the small survival pack issued to her and walked to a small clump of trees out of the wind.

       T AKE STOCK.

      The night’s icy fingers grabbed and prodded and made her bones ache. The first thing she did was to unpack her kit and put on everything that might keep her warm and dry. So far so good.

       O RIENTATE.

      She shone her mini-flashlight on the basic map she had been given. She had to make straight for the hill, or was it a small mountain? In the dark it was hard to tell. In any case, straight up and over was the only way to go.

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       P LAN.

      Ruby made the decision to keep moving. It was too dark to make a shelter and in any case the trek would serve to keep her warm. She judged that there was little of the night left, since the sky already appeared to be getting lighter, and navigating was no real problem since up was really the only way to go, plus, with the help of the moon, which every now and again slipped from behind the clouds, there was little chance of getting lost.

      The dawn came when she was about halfway to the top and she was glad she had made the decision to climb – an hour later and the sun was already beginning to make the ascent hard work. She covered her head to prevent the chance of sunburn and drank the water contained in the survival pack. She needed to make sure she kept herself hydrated.

      SURVIVAL SUGGESTION #13:

       Keeping Healthy

      SURVIVAL RULE 12:

      Keep glugging water. Staying hydrated helps you stay alert, control appetite, and maintain concentration and energy levels.

      Once she made it to the summit, which was really a ridge, Ruby rested in the shade of a large rock and ate one of her energy bars. From this mountaintop vantage point she could see the ranch below where she was expected to rustle a horse. She could even see the snaking ribbon of the first river twinkling in the distance, the same river she would need to cross on horseback. Far beyond that was a whole terrain she had no chart for: just markers, features of the landscape that would serve to guide her.

      She called up the list of tasks in her mind.

       Task one:

       Make your way to the ranch unseen.

      Once she had regained her strength, Ruby looked for a spot to camp out in, making sure it was on the north-east side of the mountain well out of view of the ranch; she didn’t want them picking up the scent of a campfire.

      The woodland was perfect, allowing for cover and plenty of materials from which to construct a shelter. There was a small creek and a clearing nearby and this was the area Ruby chose. She gathered slim fallen branches which she lashed together with creeper plants to create an A-frame, and then she clad the whole structure carefully with fir branches which she cut using her Spectrum-issue knife. She was pleased with the result. She then made a platform to sleep on, raised a little off the ground to prevent the cold getting into her bones – this she covered in dry pine needles and leaves.

      SURVIVAL SUGGESTION #1:

       Basic skills

       1. SHELTER

      SURVIVAL RULE 7:

      Make your shelter as watertight and draught free as possible. If you do not create a secure and stable shelter, you could end up in an unnecessarily dangerous situation, exposed to the elements.

      Once she felt happy with her shelter, Ruby began collecting fuel for a fire and got it going without any trouble. Then she spent some time searching for food and successfully gathered some edible plant life.

      SURVIVAL RULE 13:

      Don’t forget to eat. Without food, you are putting yourself at risk of fatigue and sickness.

      Everything went according to plan and Ruby soon had water boiling and a little while later a root tea stewing. Once she had cooked and eaten her gathered ingredients (not delicious though nourishing), she picked up her binoculars and headed up to the ridge again and down the south-west side of the mountain, keeping the ranch in her sights. When she felt she was near enough, but still at a safe distance not to be observed, she hunkered down.

      Ruby spent the next few hours surveying the ranch, watching the ranch hands coming and going, working out when they were on duty and when they were off, and how often they stepped outside the building to check on the livestock or to have a smoke. When she was entirely satisfied that she knew all she needed to know, she went back to her shelter and turned in.

      She slept well for several hours and woke at exactly the time she had planned to. It was good and dark, but with enough light to see what she needed to see. She gathered up her stuff and scratched camp so she would leave no trace.

       Task two:

       Rustle a horse from the corral.

      Ruby Redfort was light on her feet and had no trouble moving without sound. As she approached the corral where the horses were held, she got down low and moved into the shadows.

      If she had timed everything accurately and was correct with her observations, then there would be only one man patrolling the ranch and he

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