The House of Puzzles

by Richard Newsome

  Gerald was not surprised to see Ruby’s hand in the air.

  ‘Yes, Miss Valentine?’ the teacher said. ‘What can you tell us?’

  Ruby’s spine straightened. ‘King James VI of Scotland was born in 1566 and died in 1625. He became the king of England after the death of his cousin, Elizabeth the first, who was the daughter of the Tudor king Henry VIII, thereby bringing together the realms of England and Scotland to form the United Kingdom.’ Ruby cast a smug look back at Gerald and Felicity. Gerald screwed up his face in response.

  Miss Whitaker tossed her hands in the air. ‘Oh, dates and deaths—how very dull. I want something interesting. Something that will light the fires of our imagination. Did you know that James kept a hunting estate just up the road? That’s at least a little bit interesting. Surely one of you knows something more interesting than Miss Valentine’s vomited-up calendar bile.’

  At that moment Gerald would have gladly signed away half his fortune in exchange for a photograph of Ruby’s face. Felicity leaned in close to Gerald and whispered, ‘I told you she was one of my favourite teachers.’

  Miss Whitaker strode down the centre aisle between the desks. ‘Come along! Give me something to chew on!’

  Kobe Abraham raised his hand. ‘Wasn’t he, like, a little baby when he became king?’ he said.

  ‘Yes!’ Miss Whitaker cried in a voice that would have been heard from the front gates. She spun on her toes and advanced on Kobe. ‘How old was he? Do you know?’

  ‘Uh, maybe a year old?’ Kobe replied, his eyes registering alarm at Miss Whitaker’s sudden burst of speed and enthusiasm.

  ‘Thirteen months,’ she said. ‘King of Scotland and still filling his nappies. Can you imagine it?’ Miss Whitaker turned her attention to Sam, who was daydreaming at the next desk. ‘You! Boy!’

  Sam jolted upright. ‘Yes? What?’

  Miss Whitaker descended upon him like a vampire at sunset. ‘Who invented the submarine?’

  Sam blinked up at the teacher. At the back of the room, Gerald suppressed a laugh. Even by Sam’s standards, that was a particularly random question.

  ‘Go on. Who invented the submarine?’ Miss Whitaker said.

  Sam wrinkled his nose. ‘Um…King James of Scotland?’

  ‘No! Of course not,’ Miss Whitaker barked. ‘He was the monarch, boy. Not a bloody inventor. What a ridiculous response. Naturally King James didn’t invent the submarine, but he hired the man who did. Cornelius Drebbel, a Dutch dabbler of no fixed address, became a great friend of King James. He was appointed royal inventor and even took James for a ride in his submarine in the River Thames in London. He was the first ruling monarch in history to travel underwater.’ Miss Whitaker stood with her feet apart and fists planted on her hips in triumph, as if she had just felled a charging rhino with a single shot and the force of her convictions. ‘Now, how’s that for interesting?’

  At the back of the class, Gerald’s head rose from where it had been resting in the cup of his hands. His eyes glazed as the gears in his head spun. Something Miss Whitaker had said sent his mind whirring.

  Sam beat him to it.

  ‘Cornelius Drebbel?’ Sam said. ‘Didn’t he invent a perpetual motion machine?’

  The cogs in Gerald’s brain engaged with a jarring clunk, which could probably be heard from the front gates.

  Cornelius Drebbel.

  Gerald’s mind shot back to a night a few weeks before in a snow-frosted village in the Czech Republic, to a small hotel and a fireplace and an old man telling ghost stories while his wife hung a string of garlic from the front door. The old man talked about Cornelius Drebbel.

  Miss Whitaker swooped on Sam like a seagull on a hot chip. ‘Yes! That is also an interesting fact,’ she said. ‘Among Cornelius Drebbel’s many employers was the Bohemian emperor Rudolph II. Now, Rudolph was a fascinating character—a man obsessed with collecting. He amassed a cabinet of curiosities that was the envy of every ruler in Europe, and part of the collection was rumoured to be a perpetual motion machine built by Cornelius Drebbel.’ Miss Whitaker prowled down the aisle. Every eye in the classroom was on her. ‘Cornelius left Rudolph’s castle in Prague under strange circumstances and along with him went his amazing machine. It was suspected, but never proved, that Drebbel gave King James the world’s first and only perpetual motion machine as a gift. But its location, if it ever existed, has been a mystery ever since.’

  The teacher crossed to where Ruby and Alex were sitting and gave Ruby a look laced with meaning. ‘You see, Miss Valentine? Your brother has the right approach. There is more to history than simple regurgitation of birthdays. Do you know another quite interesting thing about King James?’

  Ruby’s lips were pulled tight across her teeth. ‘I’m sure we’re about to find out,’ she said.

  Miss Whitaker’s eyes flashed wide. ‘The King made a trip to Copenhagen in his younger days, to collect his bride to be, a young lady named Anne of Denmark. Can you guess who he met when he was there?’

  Ruby looked at Miss Whitaker with scathing eyes. ‘I have no idea.’

  Miss Whitaker smiled pleasantly at Ruby. ‘Why Tycho Brahe, of course,’ she said. ‘Isn’t that interesting?’

  Ruby’s response earned her a Saturday detention.

  Chapter 11

  That night, after dinner, Ruby could barely string together a coherent sentence.

  ‘I’ll tell you something interesting,’ she said in a passable imitation of Miss Whitaker’s Scottish trill. ‘Here’s something I bet you didn’t know. I’ve got a big bum face. That’s right. My face looks exactly the same as my bum. That way you don’t know whether I’m coming or going. Ha!’

  Everyone around the table stared at Ruby like she was a blocked kettle about to blow its top.

  ‘You heard right,’ she said, taking a moment to regather the strands of her rage. ‘Bumface!’

  Gerald gave Felicity an encouraging nudge. Felicity swallowed tightly then reached out a hand to pat Ruby on the arm. ‘It’s only a detention,’ she said, as if she was negotiating with a sugar-loaded toddler carrying a bulging water balloon. ‘It’s not the end of the world.’

  Ruby turned manic eyes to Felicity. Gerald had never witnessed the actual moment a normal human transformed into a flesh-guzzling zombie, but he expected it would look pretty much like Ruby at that moment.

  ‘Only a detention?’ Ruby said. Her eyelids drew back to reveal more eyeball than was comfortably necessary. ‘You don’t understand: I never get detentions.’ She clamped a hand on Felicity’s arm. ‘Never.’

  Felicity’s mouth formed a tight O shape. ‘Ow! You’re hurting me.’

  Ruby gripped tighter. ‘Never ever.’

  ‘Fingernails!’ Felicity squeaked. ‘Fingernails!’ She whipped her arm free, rubbing a neat semicircle of talon marks.

  Sam looked up from a notepad where he had been keeping himself busy with a pencil, a compass and a ruler. ‘This detention will be a first,’ he said. ‘It’s been a point of pride for Ruby, like a perfect driving record. This will be her first ever speeding ticket.’

  Gerald looked back to Ruby. Her arms clamped her knees to her chest, and her
breathing came in shallow pants.

  ‘Is she going to be all right?’ he asked Sam.

  Sam studied his sister for a moment. ‘Who knows—we’re entering uncharted territory. You know those old maps that showed the edges of the explored world with drawings of hideous winged beasts and the warning, Here there be dragons?’

  ‘What about them?’

  Sam cocked his head towards Ruby. ‘Dragon.’

  Gerald, Sam, Felicity and a shell-shocked Ruby sat in a collection of mismatched armchairs around a coffee table in one of the many lounge rooms at Camp Oates. There were similar clusters of beanbags and couches around the room, all warmed by the well-stocked fireplace. Outside, a frigid gale clawed at the windowpanes.

  Felicity gave her forearm another rub. ‘We don’t have a lot of time,’ she said. ‘Professor McElderry is in real danger. And we have to finish the Triple Crown as well as solve the code. Mason Green was very clear on that.’

  ‘And Sergei Baranov was equally clear that we shouldn’t finish the Triple Crown,’ Gerald said. He tossed his pencil into a nest of screwed-up balls of paper and empty mugs. ‘I don’t know what’s driving me more nuts: the Baranovs or this stupid code. Unless we find the keyword we’ll never solve it.’ Gerald stretched his arms wide to ease the crick in his back. ‘All I can think of is poor Professor McElderry. It was like he was lost in time.’ He looked over to Sam who was drawing circles with his compass. ‘What are you working on?’

  Sam rubbed an eraser on his pad, sending a shower of bits across Gerald’s shirtfront. ‘Sorry about that,’ he said, not sounding the least bit sorry. He held up his notebook, revealing a sketch of an elaborate piece of machinery.

  ‘What is that supposed to be?’ Felicity asked.

  Sam rolled his eyes as if it was the most ridiculous question he had ever heard. ‘It’s a perpetual motion machine,’ he said. ‘I’m designing one.’

  Felicity reached over and patted him on the arm. ‘Of course you are.’

  ‘It’s based on magnets, see? A whole series of them on a tiny ferris wheel. And what do we know about magnets?’

  Felicity narrowed her eyes. ‘Opposite poles attract,’ she said.

  ‘Very good,’ Sam said, as if talking to a three-year-old. ‘So when we set the wheel spinning, the magnets around the outside are attracted to this magnet that’s fixed at the top. But when they get close, the influence of the opposite pole takes over and pushes the wheel around. The wheel will keep turning forever and ever.’

  Felicity’s eyes narrowed further. ‘I topped my year in science, Sam. You do know that, don’t you?’ she said. ‘Perpetual motion is not possible because it violates the basic laws of thermodynamics.’

  Sam looked at her as if she was blowing spit bubbles. ‘Turning forever and ever and—ow!’

  Sam clamped his hands over the spot on his forehead where Ruby had cracked him with a teaspoon. ‘Don’t be such a wally,’ Ruby said. ‘Felicity is way smarter than you could ever hope to be.’

  Sam glared at his sister. ‘You’ve crawled out of the dragon’s nest, have you?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking, dopey drawers,’ Ruby said.

  ‘Really?’ Sam brandished the blueprint for his machine. ‘And what do you call this?’

  Ruby glanced at the drawing. ‘Daycare for kindergarten kids,’ she said. She turned to Gerald, all business. ‘I’m sorry for being so insensitive about Professor McElderry. A weekend detention doesn’t even begin to compare with what he is going through. Now, this is what we should do. On Saturday, Gerald and Felicity are going to find that symbol for the Triple Crown. I’m stuck in detention but I think I can get Miss Bumface to give me access to the library. Maybe I can find out something about Jeremy Davey that will help crack the code. With a bit of luck we can complete both tasks on the same day.’

  Sam gave his forehead another rub and inspected his fingers for any sign of blood. ‘What about me?’ he said. ‘What am I doing?’

  Ruby leaned across and patted Sam on the arm. ‘Why don’t you spend the day in the camp workshop and see if you can build your perpetual motion machine?’

  Sam’s face lit up. ‘Great idea!’ he said.

  Ruby took a slow breath. ‘Weekend daycare,’ she muttered to herself.

  Professor McElderry visited Gerald’s nightmares that evening. And the dreams grew increasingly gruesome as the week wore on. In them, the professor blundered across a bleak landscape. Gerald tried to guide him to safety, but every time Gerald thought he had his friend out of harm’s way, the professor would slip his grasp and be swallowed by a billowing fog. If that wasn’t disturbing enough, the thing that most freaked out Gerald was McElderry’s eyes. They were sealed shut, leaving him blindly shuffling through an endless night of despair. Gerald got to the end of the week having had almost no decent sleep.

  ‘You look terrible,’ Ruby said as she joined him in the breakfast queue on Saturday morning.

  Gerald stared ahead through hard-boiled eyes. ‘Thanks. And your face could stop a clock,’ he mumbled.

  Ruby smiled to herself and nudged Gerald with her shoulder. ‘You’re in a great state to find that checkpoint today.’

  Gerald blinked. It was like someone had lined his eyelids with sandpaper. ‘You seem ridiculously happy for someone about to do a day’s detention,’ he said.

  They moved forward in the queue. Ruby rose onto her tiptoes to see what was on offer for breakfast. ‘It’s not so much a day lost indoors as the chance to find out more about Jeremy Davey,’ she said.

  ‘More?’ Gerald said.

  ‘All right,’ Ruby said. ‘Something. In fact, anything would be better than what we’ve got now.’

  Gerald took a plate and asked the woman behind the counter for scrambled eggs and a double serve of bacon.

  ‘Busy day ahead, dear?’ the woman asked as she piled rashers onto a mound of watery eggs.

  ‘It has disaster written all over it,’ he replied.

  ‘That’s nice, dear,’ the woman said.

  Ruby filled a bowl with porridge and followed Gerald to a table.

  Gerald picked at his eggs. ‘Do you really think you’ll find anything about Jeremy Davey in the library. It’s a long shot, isn’t it?’

  ‘Put it this way,’ Ruby said. ‘I’ve got a better chance of doing that than Sam has of building a perpetual motion machine.’ She shook her head. ‘He is a lovable dolt.’

  Gerald shifted in his seat and accidentally brushed up against Ruby’s leg.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said.

  Ruby flashed him a smile. ‘That’s all right.’

  A familiar warmth flooded Gerald’s chest. It dawned on him that the two of them were alone.

  No interruptions.

  No distractions.

  ‘This is nice,’ he said.

  Ruby glanced at the grey splodge of warmed-up oats in her bowl. ‘I’ve had better.’

  ‘Not the breakfast,’ Gerald said. ‘This. You. And… you know…me.’

  Ruby bit her bottom lip and her cheeks deepened a shade. ‘Oh…’

 
There was an awkward pause.

  ‘I once knew a girl named Ruby—’

  Ruby turned to face Gerald front on. ‘Look, what is it with all the attempts at limericks?’ she asked. ‘It’s a bit bizarre.’

  It was Gerald’s turn to blush. ‘They’re poems,’ he said. ‘They’re meant to be charming.’

  Ruby thought about that for a second. ‘No, they’re just bizarre. What are they for?’

  ‘For?’ Gerald said, louder than he had intended. ‘They’re for you. But every time I start we get interrupted or a madman with a gun bursts through the door.’

  Ruby pressed her lips together. ‘That’s very sweet,’ she said, not daring to make eye contact. ‘Can I hear one?’

  Gerald shuffled in his seat. ‘All right. It’s still a bit rough.’ He cleared his throat and stared hard at his plate of bacon.

  There once was a girl named Ruby,

  Who played video games like a newbie

  She could hike miles and miles,

  And just one of her smiles,

  Makes my stomach go scooby-dooby-doo-bee…

  There is nothing as dead as the silence that follows a love poem in the form of a badly rhyming limerick. Gerald raised his eyes expectantly towards Ruby.

  Ruby was pressing her lips together really hard.

  Finally, Gerald broke the silence. ‘Ruby, I’d really like it if you would be my—’

  Ruby shot out a hand and clamped it over Gerald’s mouth. ‘Mmmmwwmmfffmm,’ he said.

  Ruby spoke slowly and distinctly, as if talking to someone who had lost his hearing aid. ‘I have to go to my detention now,’ she said. ‘I can’t be late. You have a good day with Felicity and come back with that stamp, okay?’ Ruby’s hand tracked up and down as Gerald slowly nodded his head. ‘Good,’ she said, her cheeks deepening another shade. ‘Good. We can talk about your…um…poetry later. Oh, crumbs.’ And then she was off, weaving through the maze of tables and out of the dining hall.