don’t see it myself,’ said Mouse. ‘But if it were a drink then what flavour would it be?’
‘Milk,’ said Elliot. ‘Milk. Has to be.’
‘Why?’ said Mouse.
‘Look at the kid’s teeth. If it was for soda or something then they wouldn’t emphasise how white the kid’s teeth were. They’re saying drink milk and have strong white teeth.’
‘When do they ever advertise a drink and show the kid with rotten teeth?’ said Ruby. ‘Doesn’t matter if the drink is choc full of sugar and treacle, they would still show the kid smiling a pretty smile. White teeth proves nothing.’
‘Who cares what it is,’ said Del. ‘I’d as soon drink a blue slushy, they’re super good.’
‘Think like that, my friend, and you’ll never taste anything better,’ said Red.
‘What’s better than a slushy?’ said Del.
‘You’ll never know,’ said Red.
‘I like slushies,’ said Del.
‘You should broaden your horizons,’ said Ruby.
They sat looking for a little longer until Elliot shook his head and said, ‘I gotta make tracks.’
The bus came into view and Mouse picked up her bag and waited for it to pull into the stop.
Ruby sat a little longer. Cross-eyes, she thought. If it’s a drink then it’s a sharp-flavoured drink. It has bite.
The game itself might only have been forty-eight minutes plus stoppage time, but it was a long and uncomfortable forty-eight minutes plus stoppage time. Vapona Begwell and her team (the Vaporizers) took every opportunity to step on Ruby’s toes, elbow her in the ribs and knock her over.
The Deliverers (Ruby’s team) did not make it through to round two, and so as far as Ruby was concerned, there didn’t seem like a whole lot of point sticking around until the end of the tournament. She certainly wasn’t going to sit there and watch the Vaporizers grab victory.
Vapona’s parting words were, ‘I’m gonna pulp you Redfort.’
‘Yeah, change the record would you, you said that at least forty times.’
Del Lasco didn’t have to suffer the insults and general barging because her wrist was still strapped and she was sitting comfortably on the sidelines.
‘She’s only looking to pulp you because she can’t pulp me,’ said Del.
‘Is that supposed to make me feel better,’ said Ruby, ‘knowing that just being your friend causes me pain?’
MOUSE AND RED HAD STUCK AROUND TO WATCH THE REST OF THE GAMES, but Ruby and Del didn’t have the heart. They now had time on their hands.
‘You wanna go down to Back-Spin and play table tennis?’ asked Del.
‘Oh, interesting, you can hold a ping-pong bat but you can’t dribble a basketball?’
‘Table tennis isn’t a contact sport,’ countered Del, ‘basketball can be.’
‘You don’t need to explain that to me,’ said Ruby. ‘You wanna see the bruises Bugwart laid on me?’
‘I can’t wait for my sprain to heal – I’ll be only too glad to have her try and land a punch.’
‘I’d be happy to point her in your direction,’ said Ruby.
‘Don’t worry about it, I’ll get her soon enough.’
‘You should give up on the fighting, it doesn’t achieve a thing. You think if you punch her she’s not gonna punch you back?’
‘It’s an honour thing,’ argued Del. ‘If I let her knock me down and I don’t retaliate, what will people think?’
‘That you’re not as dumb as you look.’
In the end they decided to give the table tennis café a miss and instead hang out at Ruby’s house. Ruby was keen for Del to keep a low profile and, in any case, Mrs Digby had mentioned that she might be baking. Mrs Digby’s baking was right up there with sliced bread – her cookies were in a league of their own.
When Del and Ruby made it home to Green-Wood house, they found Mrs Digby peering at a large piece of black and white paper rolled out on the kitchen table. She had a comedy-sized magnifying glass in her hand and was moving it across the paper, back and forth.
There was no sign of any cookies.
‘What are you looking at Mrs Digby?’
‘A map of old Twinford,’ she said without looking up. ‘Your father got it for me.’
‘Why dya wanna look at an old map?’ asked Del.
‘I like to see how things once were in this town,’ said the housekeeper.
‘And how were they Mrs Digby?’ said Ruby, her head in the pantry.
‘Better,’ said the housekeeper. ‘Seems every day now they go knocking an old building down or running a road through it. I barely recognise my own neighbourhood, find I get lost in my own city. If it weren’t for the place names, you wouldn’t have a blind clue what used to be there.’
‘So Mrs Digby,’ said Ruby, ‘we were sort of wondering if there might be any, you know, cookies?’
The housekeeper put her hands on her hips and said, ‘Upstairs in your room, and don’t ever go about saying I’m not a slave to your every need.’
It was while they were sitting on the roof eating Mrs Digby’s cookies that misfortune struck.
Ruby had just popped down to the kitchen to fetch some banana milk and returned to find Del peering over the top into the next-door yard.
‘What are you looking at?’ asked Ruby.
‘Your comic – I just put it down for a second while I put on my sweater …’ said Del.
Ruby looked over the roof edge: there was the comic sitting on Mr Parker’s lawn.
‘It was an accident,’ said Del. ‘The wind sorta took it.’
‘You know, Kung Fu Martians is rare – that’s a collector’s edition, plus I haven’t finished reading it.’
‘I’m sorry OK,’ said Del, getting to her feet. ‘Look, I’ll go knock on his door and ask for it back.’
‘You’re
