Odile Ripley
Odile Ripley is a fossa and the purser of TransZoo 106 in We Can Fix Pawbert, introduced in the W-Series. She runs the cabin of the charter that brings Perkins and Botasky home from Vladifrostok, from the safety briefing to the count on the deck of the workboat that takes the survivors out of Sandy Cove.
Background
Odile has flown medical charters before. On TransZoo 106 her only working colleague is a sheep named Teo Kesh, and the two of them make up the whole cabin crew of an aircraft carrying eleven souls.
Series History
W-Series
In "Souls on Board" she decides on sight that the two rabbits on the litter frames are hers, settles and briefs them, and turns up a second pillow for Perkins. She spends a full minute refusing to take no from Reacher until a cargo strap has him fixed to a hardpoint on the galley bulkhead, and she steps over his legs for the rest of the flight. When the cargo fire starts, Captain Ilva Drossen calls her to the interphone; she listens, says yes, hangs up and turns to Teo with her face composed, and Luther, watching, thinks a good deal more of her for it. She is down on the stripped-bay floor beside O'Donnell working on Ansel Quirke, bagging the airway, and she argues when he calls it. Her account of the interphone call, Drossen's voice going flat and metallic partway through a sentence and Drossen confirming to her that the mask was delivering, is what lets O'Donnell work out that the crew oxygen was bad. She and Teo carry the first officer into seat 11A, belt him in and cover him to the shoulders. Given three minutes before the water, she walks the cabin end to end twice through the smoke, strap in paw, with no fear that anyone watching her can see; she braces Teo, straps Drossen onto O'Donnell's spare frame with her head to the side and her jaw forward so the airway stays clear, ties O'Donnell in beside her on the seat track with another of her straps, and crouches between the rabbits last to tell them they are going into the water and will stay exactly where they are until someone comes to get them. Luther sends word down from the flight deck that she did a good job. After the tail hits she puts Teo down the slide first and refuses to leave until the cabin is empty. On the deck of the Marie Delphine she does the count out loud, a shoulder at a time, and gets ten when there were eleven, and she is the one who says where the missing mammal is. When Reacher brings Ansel Quirke up from the fuselage she kneels and rests a paw on his chest, then gets up and counts the deck a second time, and the number comes out at eleven. Asked afterward what the ditching was like, she will describe it as "like being thrown down a flight of stairs by someone enormous."
Key Relationships
Jack Reacher
She out-refuses him over the strap, and the strap turns out to be the one thing that day he ends up grateful for. He is the one who carries the rabbits out of the cabin, and it is her count of ten that sends him over the stern rail for the first officer.
Perkins and Botasky
She claims them the moment they come aboard. She briefs Perkins for the water and makes him say it back, and she puts a paw briefly on Botasky's forehead before the impact; he is unconscious, will not remember it, and turns his face toward it anyway.
David O'Donnell
He is the one who tells her to stop working on Ansel Quirke, and she is still kneeling over a mammal who had stood beside her for the safety briefing that morning. On the deck of the boat he answers her count with the plain fact that it is right.
Key Quotes
| Quote | Context |
|---|---|
| "Gentlemammals. We are going into the water. It will be very loud and very fast, and then it will be over." | Briefing Perkins and Botasky before the ditching ("Souls on Board") |
| "There were eleven." | The count on the deck of the Marie Delphine ("Souls on Board") |
| "He's in seat 11A." | Telling the deck where the missing mammal is ("Souls on Board") |