Ribblestrop Forever! Read Free

okay?’
    ‘Don’t go!’ said Miles. ‘Don’t leave us!’
    ‘I’m right here, but Sandra’s taking over communication now. She’s more familiar with your craft than I am.’
    ‘I’m right here, Miles,’ said a woman’s voice. It was deep and wonderfully sensible. ‘I’m with you, okay? I’m with you all the way. We’re going to
get through this together. We’re clearing an emergency landing site for you in Bristol; the only problem at this stage is the airfields you’re passing are all short runways. Now, in
normal circumstances, a short runway would be fine for your craft, but—’
    ‘You think we can land this?’ said Miles.
    ‘We’ll talk you through it. We’re with you every step of the way.’
    ‘We’re going too fast!’
    ‘No, no. We’re going to find a nice, long airstrip for you. We’re going to practise your approach, give you a couple of dry runs. It’s much easier than you think.
’
    ‘What about petrol? The pilot said we were flying on reserve.’
    ‘Flying on reserve. Are you saying your first tank’s dry?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘How do you know you’re on reserve?’
    ‘The pilot told me. He didn’t fill up. He said he normally would, but he didn’t want to miss some wind or other.’
    ‘And he said you’re flying on reserve?’
    ‘That’s what he said. What can we do?’
    There was a pause.
    ‘Miles,’ said the voice. It was just a little firmer. ‘We’re going to try something a little bit different in the light of what you’ve just told me. Can you take a
look at the reserve gauge? That’s three dials to the right of your altimeter. It’s a needle over a white strip about three centimetres long – have you got that?’
    ‘The needle’s at half,’ said Miles. ‘Is that good?’
    ‘The needle’s at half of the white area. So you’re how far from red?’
    ‘About one point five centimetres.’
    ‘Okay.’
    ‘It’s bad, isn’t it?’
    ‘No, it’s—’
    ‘We’re running out of fuel! Oh God!’
    ‘No, no, no. There’s enough fuel, just not enough to give us too much leeway. We’re going to have to make some more emergency arrangements. I’m going to leave you for a
moment. I’m going to brief my colleagues and scramble a helicopter.’
    ‘Don’t go!’ cried Miles again.
    There was no answer. He glanced at Millie and saw that her face, like his own, was a mask of terror.
    ‘Are we going to die?’ she said.
    ‘I think so,’ said Miles. ‘We’d better tell Sanchez.’

Chapter Two
    Sam saw the little plane through the window of his father’s car.
    He didn’t mention it to Ruskin, who was sitting next to him, because he seemed to be dozing. Oli was in front, deep in an instruction manual and definitely not to be disturbed, and his
father had his nose close to the windscreen. He pulled the new phone out of his pocket and polished the display panel with his tie. His parents had told him that he was to hand it straight in to
the headmaster when he got to school, and he was wondering if he was going to obey them. He had promised he would – it had been a condition of his keeping it. But what was the point of having
such a thing if you couldn’t actually use it? Anyway, he was still getting used to the device, which seemed to have so many different functions. It was quite a large phone, and a sticker on
the box had said,
Special offer, line discontinued
. He needed two hands to operate it, because it was as heavy as a brick. It had a stopwatch and a countdown facility. It had a calculator
too, but that was quite tricky to operate and seemed to get even the simplest sums wrong. It had an alarm clock, and you could also check which year you were in.
    As he held it, it vibrated and emitted a piercing bleep.
    ‘Oh!’ he said. ‘I’ve had a text.’
    Ruskin opened his eyes. ‘Another one? That’s number seven.’
    ‘How do you get at it?’ said Sam. ‘Do you have the instruction book?’
    ‘You just press the . . .