Ruby was not really that interested in what the man had to say. It was the way he said it. It had all the usual tone of voice that adults adopted when speaking to a young child. She heard it all the time because she was a child and that’s what adults did. Well, most adults. Her parents had long ago come to the realisation that Ruby was not like other children her age. She was not like most adults either. She was exceptionally bright but more than that she was completely perceptive. Not a little bit perceptive, completely perceptive.
Her perceptive powers bordered on pre-cognative ability, or that’s what Ruby believed.
he said it rather strange. She would have to agree that the man might find it hard to say much with a sideboard on his legs. But that wasn't it - it was something quite different that meant she gave the man her full attention. She had even put down the gaffer tape to listen really properly.
The man was talking in that adult to child voice that she heard very often. Anyway back to the man, that sideboard and the gaffer tape. The man was clearly upset but was straining to be extra nice to the little girl who could phone the emergency services. Wise plan but flawed. It was flawed because Ruby had put the sideboard on the man's legs for a reason. The reason was not to see the fire brigade again this month.
"Please - little girl," said the man through gritted teeth, but Ruby could tell he had never heard of a glottal stop. "Please can you bring me the telephone? I need to call the nice fire men and ambulance people to help get the sideboard off me. Please, be a good girl?" He nervously eyed the gaffer tape. Ruby shifted her weight from one foot to another and looked at the man on the floor of the lounge.
She had not said anything yet and the man, Terrence, was beginning to wonder if she could speak at all. This was not what he had planned, he thought. Mind you he would have had to employ imaginative powers far beyond those he actually possessed to have planned ending up under a solid oak sideboard. No, that was not what he had planned at all. A quick bit of chucking stuff around, a quick bit of gratuitous use of the word "Bollocks" in spray paint on the walls and a quick grabbing of the thing in the study and off. That was his plan.
Actually Terrence was not really a planner. He was a doer. He did what others planned and schemed. His plan really was to follow his instructions and not "mess it up". Very wrong, in many ways. Terrence could not remember quite how the sideboard had ended up on his legs. There had been a loud noise, a very bright flash, then silence and darkness. After that he remembered opening his eyes to find the sideboard across his legs and a little girl looking down at him with and bemused look on her face.
Ruby picked the gaffer tape up again and hesitated for a second before speaking. She knew exactly what to say, the pause was for dramatic effect.
"I do not think, that on reflection, the gaffer tape will be entirely necessary." She spoke slowly so that the man was listening to each word. The man seemed relieved but somewhat confused at the same time. His relief was short lived but his confusion had a good deal of company joining it, puzzlement and lack of comprehensibility turned up and made the situation much clearer. "Now, I will come back and lift the sideboard off when I have called the police. I think you have a rather nasty fracture on your right leg judging by its angle to your knee, so you're not going to go anywhere in a hurry." She smiled again as if things were now really clear for all.
The little girl left Terrence and went to the hall. He could here her calling the police. At one point during the conversation he thought her heard her say that the man, presumably Terrence, would need an ambulance.