by Lauren Child
She sat up and rubbed her eyes. Mrs. Digby a criminal? That detective was a prize bozo. Mrs. Digby would never commit a crime — well, not a crime against the Redforts anyway. Ruby’s mind began sifting through worries, exploring solutions, hitting dead ends, and doubling back to square one. She consoled herself with RULE 33 : MORE OFTEN THAN NOT THERE IS A VERY ORDINARY EXPLANATION FOR THE “EXTRAORDINARY” HAPPENING.
But it was no use, she was wide awake.
She got up, pulled on a sweatshirt, and quietly made her way downstairs — she didn’t want to wake Bug. But Bug was already awake and staring intently at the man sitting in the kitchen. Ruby froze: from her vantage point she could see Hitch, perched on a stool, his right shirtsleeve rolled up high to reveal a bandage at the top of his arm, which he slowly began to unwind.
She held her breath and became as still as the walls.
She watched as gradually all the gauze was removed to reveal what could only be a gunshot wound.
Mrs. Digby was crawling out of a flotation tank. She emerged in a polka-dot bathing suit, somewhat dazed and disoriented, finding herself not quite in the Redforts’ spa gym. Certainly most things were familiar, but at the same time everything was very, very unfamiliar. All the furniture was the same, all the objects were the same, all the art was the same, what was odd was that there was no house.
“Where in all heaven have the darned walls gone?” she exclaimed.
She appeared to be in an enormous aircraft hangar containing just about everything the Redforts had ever owned.
The last thing Mrs. Digby had been aware of was climbing into the flotation tank at three o’clock the previous day — she had been suffering from angry thoughts concerning her rival in the kitchen, Consuela, and thought she could do with some isolation time — or who knew what she might do.
Sabina Redfort had had the flotation tank installed only the other month, having taken advice from her personal healer, who had persuaded her that she needed more time with herself.
Mrs. R. always finds it very calming — what harm could it do? I guess it prunes the skin a little but at my age what’s a little pruning?
Mrs. Digby had thought these thoughts as she climbed in, lay down, pulled the door shut, and instantly fell into a heavy sleep.
Boy, had she slept!
What was the day, she wondered? Better not be Tuesday, she thought, catching sight of the Redforts’ kitchen clock. If it is, I’m missing Crime Night, and I never miss Crime Night.
BY DAYBREAK RUBY WAS UP, showered, and pulling on her clothes despite the fact that there was no one to nag her. Ruby was no early bird, everyone knew that. In desperation her parents had given her an alarm clock which showed a bird pecking at a worm. It made a pleasant tweeting sound if set for any time before 7 a.m. — later than that and it made a sort of strangled squawking noise. Ruby walked into the bathroom and was surprised to see, laid out in neat piles, jeans, T-shirts, over-the-knee socks, and other essentials. On closer inspection she saw that these garments were more than acceptable; in fact, they were exactly the clothes she might have chosen herself. There was even a T-shirt printed with the words, keep it zipped.
This could not be the work of her mother.
She spotted a typed note next to a pair of size 5 Yellow Stripe sneakers.
Hope you approve. Had my stylist friend Billie pick these things out for you — she’s good at that kind of thing. Hitch.
Airhead he might be, but he was certainly good at his job. Ruby moseyed downstairs to say thanks and found Hitch examining a piece of toast very closely, almost as if he were reading it.
He looked up, startled, and immediately began to spread it with peanut butter.
“Toast?” he said.
Not just an airhead but a weirdo too, thought Ruby.
Today, Ruby felt like taking the bus. She made it to the stop in plenty of time, clambered aboard, and sat down, barely acknowledging her friends Del and Mouse. The two girls tried to get her attention.
“Hey, Rube,” called Del.
Ruby didn’t even look up.
Del looked at Mouse. “Was it something I said?”
Ruby was staring at the card she’d picked up in Organic Universe and chewing furiously on her pencil — what was it she wasn’t seeing? What was there to see? Just the words Don’t call us we’ll call you and the simple decorative border — nothing to give any indication as to where the meeting would take place.
“Tomorrow night at eight for eight” was all the voice on the telephone had said.
What am I missing?
“So Ruby, I see your toe is all mended,” said Del.
Ruby looked down at her foot — she had forgotten all about her fake injury. “Oh, yeah,” she answered.
Mouse looked at Del and sort of widened her mouth and rolled her eyes — this was her silent way of suggesting that all was not right with Ruby Redfort. Even Clancy Crew couldn’t get any sense out of her — and when Vapona Begwell dared to suggest that Ruby’s “recovered” broken toe was either a miracle or she was some cowardly faker who had chickened her way out of the basketball game, she barely even blinked.
“Hey, Redfort,” sneered Vapona. “Did those burglars steal your guts along with the furniture?”
Clancy couldn’t believe it. “You gonna let her get away with that, Rube?”
“Look, my mind’s got bigger concerns than Bugwart right now.”
“Has something else happened?” said Clancy eagerly. “More burglars? Something else go missing?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.”
“What?” said Clancy.
“Mrs. Digby,” replied Ruby
“Mrs. Digby?” mouthed Clancy.
Ruby nodded. “She isn’t at cousin Emily’s and she isn’t back home. We don’t know where she is.”
Clancy’s eyes were saucers. “Do you know what I think? I think the butler who isn’t a butler took her.”
“And why would he do that, Clance?”
“So he could get her job — get her outta the way.”
“My mom didn’t give him the job because Mrs. Digby had gone — she didn’t even know Mrs. Digby had gone when she hired him.”
“Yeah, well, I still think he’s bad news,” Clancy said firmly.
“Yeah, well, maybe you’re right ’cause guess what? I saw his injured arm — he doesn’t know I saw it but I did and I am telling you. Clance, that’s no housemaid’s elbow he is suffering from — more like gangster’s shoulder.”
“So I was right,” marveled Clancy. “He was in a shoot-out.” His face lit up. “You know he’s probably on the run, hiding out at your house, stealing your stuff and selling it.”
“Clance, that brain of yours never ceases to amaze.”
But she couldn’t help thinking he might not be so far from the truth.
Ruby pretty much sleepwalked through her morning classes, so distracted was she by the puzzle she needed to solve. And then at 2:30, during History, she suddenly saw what it was she couldn’t see before.
Mrs. Schneiderman was giving a very tedious lecture about the ancient Greeks, and those students who weren’t staring out of the window were busy painting their fingernails with Wite-Out and generally working hard to keep from falling asleep. It wasn’t that anyone didn’t want to be interested, it was just that Mrs. Schneiderman was one of those people who managed to make even the most interesting things sound very dull indeed. It was something to do with her delivery; she tended to ramble. Ruby was brought out of her thoughts and back into the classroom by the sound of one hundred thumbtacks falling to the floor. Ruby looked across the room and saw the ever accident-prone Red Monroe frantically trying to scoop them back into their container.
“Sorry, Mrs. Schneiderman,” she said. “They just sorta fell off my desk.”
The tacks had rolled right across the room, and a few had ended up under Clancy’s chair. As he stood up to help, a couple of them lodged themselves in the sole of his left sneaker. Mrs. Schneide
rman was trying to regain the attention of her students and rapped her ruler on the wall. Ruby looked up and saw, projected on the screen, a slide showing a simple repeat pattern, the famous Greek key pattern used on pottery, mosaics, and it seemed, almost everything ancient Greek.
“This is a decorative border called meander, first used in the Greek Geometric period,” said Mrs. Schneiderman loudly. “The name meander conjures up the twisting and turning of the Maeander River. ‘Greek key’ is a modern term used to describe the pattern. It is always useful to remember that, in history, decoration is very rarely purely decorative, it is usually there to symbolize something or convey a message.”
Ruby was suddenly very alert. She reached behind her and felt for the jacket hanging on the back of her chair. Locating the left pocket, she pulled out her notebook containing the little white card — the one from Organic Universe. On it were the six words, don’t call us we’ll call you, but it wasn’t the words that Ruby was interested in. The thing that got her attention today was the pattern decorating the edge of the card. She had previously overlooked this, considering it to be simply decorative — thus forgetting one of her own rules, RULE 13 in fact, THERE IS MORE TO MOST THINGS THAN MEETS THE EYE.
Now she studied the decorative border carefully. It was made up of interlocking figure eights which repeated all the way around the edge of the card.
“Tomorrow night at eight for eight . . .”
Ruby knew the time was set for eight but what if the destination was also eight? “Be lucky,“ the voice had said. Why? Why did she need to be lucky?
After school, Clancy and Ruby picked up Bug and biked out to the ocean. Ruby found that watching the husky racing in and out of the waves helped her mind relax, but still she had no answer. It wasn’t until they started off for home that something clicked. Ruby was riding very slowly along the sidewalk. Clancy was on foot; his bike chain had broken and he was telling her about how this oil sheik had been on the way to meet with Clancy’s dad when he ran out of gas.
“Imagine the scene. He is an actual oil baron and he runs out of gas!”
“That’s pretty funny,” said Ruby.
“But that’s not all, his chauffeur flags down this old truck and who does it belong to?” Clancy didn’t wait for her to guess. “Only old Mr. Berris who owns the local gas station, that one that’s closing down due to lack of business. Old Mr. Berris has a spare can, fills up the sheik’s car, and the sheik makes it to dinner on time!”
“That’s really something,” smiled Ruby.
Clancy couldn’t get over the irony of the situation. “Here is a guy with all the fuel he could ever want but he has to borrow a can from some little old guy who is about to close down due to no one buying his gas!”
“He certainly got lucky,” said Ruby, and then she stopped — she had stumbled on the final piece.
“What’s up? What did I say?” asked a bewildered Clancy.
“Sorry, Clance, gotta split. I promise I’ll tell you tomorrow!” she said, steering herself off the curb and back on to the street. “Drop Bug off, would ya,” Ruby called as she turned in the direction of Mountain Road and pedaled like crazy up the hill.
“What?” shouted Clance. “What just happened?”
“I think I just got lucky!” she shouted back.
RUBY PULLED UP AT EXACTLY THE SPOT where she was sure she was meant to be. It was just out of town on Mountain Road, at a place where the road bent around to the left. It was the site of the old gas station. The only thing remaining of it was the faded sign that still pronounced, BE LUCKY, TREAT YOUR AUTOMOBILE TO SOME LUCKY EIGHT GAS.
It had been an unusually sunny afternoon, and the road still felt warm under her feet. She took a look around.
Am I meant to be meeting someone?
There was nothing in any direction, nothing at all. Ruby was about to admit to herself that she had made a mistake when she noticed a manhole cover. She walked slowly over to it and brushed the dust from the cover with her hand. The manhole cover had a company logo on it — a picture of a fly with the words Bluebottle and Lava underneath it. Around the edge was the same repeating pattern as on the card, and there was a number in the middle: 848.
Eight for eight.
She waited, only taking her eyes off the manhole to check her watch. At precisely eight o’clock she began working on getting the cover open.
There was a trick to it, and after only a few minutes she had worked it out: eight turns clockwise, four counterclockwise, and another eight clockwise — bingo. With some effort she lifted the lid and peered down into complete blackness.
Ruby Redfort’s one real fear was a small confined space. Not cupboards or tiny rooms, or tunnels she knew her way out of — no, it was a small dark space she had never before encountered . . . a small dark space with no way out . . . with no oxygen . . . that’s what she was scared of.
She stared into the void for five minutes, thirty-two seconds before she got a grip on herself.
Was she really going to come this far and no further? Her instinct told her it would be OK, but her body wasn’t so sure. Very slowly she eased herself down into the drain and jerkily pulled the manhole cover over her head. She merged with the dark; no more hands, no more feet — it was as if she had dissolved into black. The panic rose up through her body and started to play its usual tricks on her mind. Her breathing became short and rapid; she felt dizzy and sick.
“Get a grip, Ruby,” she hissed. There was something reassuring about hearing her own voice spilling out into the darkness. She thought of Mrs. Digby. All her life, Mrs. Digby had been there to squash her fears and prop up her spirits. If she were here now she would say,
“Don’t tell me you’re troubled by a little darkness, Ruby? Good gracious! You don’t want to waste your time being scared of the dark when there are so many other bigger things to be frightened of — like for example getting to my age and losing your marbles or being run down by one of those city buses with their maniac drivers. Those are fears — the dark’s the least of your worries, kid.”
Just thinking about Mrs. Digby made Ruby breathe more easily. “Mind over matter,” that’s what Mrs. Digby always said and she was right. Ruby had made it RULE 12 : ADJUST YOUR THINKING AND YOUR CHANCES IMPROVE.
Actually, it was probably the best rule there was.
Never panic!
RULE 19 : PANIC WILL FREEZE YOUR BRAIN. Panic will get you nowhere. Panic can get you killed.
She began to edge forward through the nothingness, and as she moved her senses got sharper. She felt the tunnel getting steadily bigger, and realized that the surfaces were smooth — not gritty as she might expect them to be. It didn’t smell dank; in fact it didn’t really smell of anything. She could feel twists and turns and before long was standing not crawling — yet still there was no light. All sense of time melted away until she could not accurately say how long she had been down there.
She was hot and tired when she stumbled into what amounted to a brick wall. She felt around her, stretching up and reaching across in all directions but there was no way forward, only back. It seemed the tunnel led nowhere — it had all been for nothing.
Ruby sank to the ground, put her head in her hands, and wondered how she was ever going to summon the energy to get herself out of there. How long she sat there she did not know.
A sudden deep shuddering sound, as if the earth were on the move.
A blinding light — light as white as the dark was black.
Ruby was jolted to her feet, eyes squinting, heart racing.
And then the voice.
“So you made it, Ruby Redfort.”
RUBY KNEW THAT VOICE. It was the voice of the telephone, the voice of the codes and the riddles, but she could not see where it came from.
Slowly her eyes began to adjust, and she found that the wall was no longer a wall. She stumbled forward into an entirely white room.
It was a big room, huge, at its center sat an enormous desk. Behind
the desk sat a woman; the owner of the gravelly voice. The woman was older than Sabina but not “old.” Dressed completely in white, she was elegant and strikingly beautiful, immaculately groomed — although in no way “dolled-up,” as Mrs. Digby would put it.
Under the white desk Ruby could see the woman’s feet — she wore no shoes and her toenails were painted cherry red, the only visible color in the room. She was studying some papers that were spread out across the desk; engrossed in these, she was too busy to bother looking up.
A fly buzzed aimlessly around the room.
Ruby wasn’t bad at physics, in fact she was pretty good, but even she couldn’t work out how a space this big could fit into a space this small — it was like she’d crawled through a drain and ended up in a ballroom.
“Wow,” said Ruby. “Your decorators really know how to make a place feel roomy.”
The woman reached for her glasses, then, showing only the merest hint of curiosity, she peered across the desk. She paused before asking in a far from joking tone, “Do you know why you are here?”
“Because you called me up and got me crawling down a tunnel?” said Ruby.
The woman paused again. “Do you know who I am?”
Ruby looked at the desk, then above it at the all-white painting, and then at the carpet on the floor. After some close looking she began to see a pattern in the white mat and gloss paint, and another in the pile of the carpet. The patterns were all made up of the same letters, two letters.
“LB?” she said.
The woman nodded, almost smiling. “LB is correct. I am in charge here.”
“And where exactly is here?” asked Ruby.
“The hub of it all, the hub of intelligence.”
“Come again?” said Ruby.
