or making an improvised compass if you’ve forgotten yours.1 Take a few, and make sure one of them has a very big eye for use with thick threads, or for if you have taken some sinew from a deer to use as thread. You never know, it might happen.
CANDLES are useful for light when you have made shelter. Choose tallow candles, as these are made from fat and can also be eaten in an emergency.
If you can then take a little bit of SALT with you; it won’t take up much space and salt is an essential nutrient and often very hard to find in the wild.
A large POLYTHENE SURVIVAL BAG about two metres by half a metre can be a life-saver. In an emergency you can get inside to preserve heat – but LEAVE YOUR HEAD OUT so you can breathe, bozo. Or, in less of an emergency, you can use it to get water from trees,2 or cut it to make a sheet shelter.3
OK, SO I SHOULD CONFESS HERE that I sometimes get a little helping hand from my spy agency, Spectrum. They supply me with gadgets that have a little more oomph than the regular hardware, if you know what I’m saying.
Here are some examples of handy life-savers that have gotten me out of more than one or two scrapes.
THE BREATHING BUCKLE
To be used underwater. Slip buckle off belt, place between teeth and breathe comfortably for twenty-seven minutes, two seconds. Warning! No reserve air canister.
This gadget may be unexciting to look at, but it sure is a life-saver. Take my recent run-in with a giant strangling cephalopod: I would have been deep down ocean-bound, soon to be sleeping with the fishes, if it hadn’t been for this little baby.
Ruby raised her gaze one last time. Say goodbye to your world, she told herself, and as she did so, she saw a little silver fish swimming down to escort her away to the underworld. It twinkled in the gloom and she looked at it as it moved closer and closer and became not a fish but a buckle.
The Spectrum breathing buckle... She snatched it in her hand and placed it between her teeth. Oxygen filled her lungs.
Air, she thought…
LIMPET LIGHTS
Also known as Hansel and Gretel find-your-way-home glows. Underwater phosphorescent lights for making a trail. Guaranteed not to move. Duration five hours.
These work well in an ocean and are especially useful in rough water since they are tough little suckers and won’t budge for anything… well, not unless you have the special deactivation removal device. They are disguised to look like some strange kind of sea mollusc so, unless you are familiar with limpet lights, you won’t realise they are actually alien to the seabed.
Ruby had been gone far too long and Clancy was beginning to flap.
‘Darn it Rube, I knew this would happen, I knew it.’ He spat these words into the night air as he reluctantly pulled on the wetsuit.
‘When I find you, if I find you, I’m gonna explain just how much I hate you, I’m gonna really spell it out in really big letters.’
Clancy Crew had no more respect for any creature on the planet than he did for Ruby Redfort, but right at that exact minute he wasn’t lying: he did hate her. He slipped into the black water, all the time praying that the two sea monsters currently at each other’s throats (or was it gills?) wouldn’t turn their attention on him.
Clancy ducked under the ocean’s surface and headed for the islands. Beyond this general direction, it occurred to him that he had no way of knowing what route Ruby had taken or where she had ended up.
Drowned probably, he thought. Not only am I swimming off on a wild goose chase, but I am gonna have to be grossed out by your dead body.
He was furious.
But as he swam his attention was caught by small twinkling lights ahead of him: tiny phosphorescent creatures. It was strange how they were scattered at intervals, almost in a line.
He followed their trail; where would it lead him?
Of course! he thought. To Ruby!
So limpet lights are pretty smart, but for my money I think ground glows are smarter still.
GROUND GLOWS
To be used when trekking at night in uncertain terrain. Help the trekker retrace his/her steps, or a specified ally to follow the same route. Made up of two parts: pebble-like glow light and discreet shoe fix activator. Instructions: attach activator to footwear and drop pebble glows as you walk. Pebbles will only light when in range of the activator. Multiple activators can be issued.
WARNING: AFTER HEAVY RAINFALL THEY CAN BE ERRATIC AND UNRELIABLE.
These are clever little illuminators because they have the advantage of only being useful to the user. They are very discreet and very handy if you want an agent to follow your trail at a later time without tipping off an enemy tracker. They have aided the rescue of more than a few Spectrum agents over the years.
GETAWAY SHOES
Depress green button on base of left shoe to convert to ‘roller shoes’.
If you think these are like those lame wheelie shoes this kid at my school has then you have no idea what kind of outfit Spectrum is.
Depress red button on base of right shoe to activate power jets. Maximum speed ninety-one miles per hour for a distance of seven miles approx. Warning! Can cause feet to overheat. Avoid use on rugged terrain.
I’ve tried these and all I can say is they are pretty darn cool even when they overheat.
THE VOICE THROWER
This works in the same way as any distraction device by throwing your target off course. It is a highly sophisticated version of throwing a stone to divert attention away from you.
Something in the gadget drawer caught Ruby’s eye. It was a silver whistle – looked like a dog whistle but the label was smudged. Maybe it was the ribbon, maybe it was the fact that she had always wanted a silver dog whistle, but Ruby found that she couldn’t resist slipping it over her head and looking at her reflection in the glass.
She blew into it – no sound at all. Surely it wasn’t just a dog whistle? She blew into it again and again, still nothing. In her frustration she started blowing and inhaling in the way that one might suck air in and out of a harmonica.
‘Must be busted,’ said Ruby out loud, but her voice seemed to be coming from far, far away. For a second she was puzzled and then it dawned on her: the whistle was no whistle, it was a voice thrower.
She inhaled again. ‘Hello,’ she
