Ruby Redfort 1 - Look Into My Eyes
Page 23
“Gone to a better place?” replied Ruby. “Nah, not me, Clance my friend — it takes more than an evil genius to get me popping my clogs.”
“Which reminds me,” said Clancy, “I found your shoe!”
“Gee thanks, I wondered where that had gotten to — turns out these just might be Dorothy’s ruby slippers after all. Don’t s’pose you got my glasses there too? These contact lenses suck.”
A hand ruffled her hair. “Hey there, Ruby, long time no see.”
Ruby looked up to see the friendly face of Agent Blacker.
“Thought you might possibly want a jelly donut,” he said, handing her a brown paper bag. “Nothing like a near death experience to give you an appetite.”
“Hey, you read my mind,” said Ruby.
Hitch, meanwhile, was talking into his watch transmitter. He looked disheveled, perhaps even tired, but his easy cool was back. “Yes, Baby Face has been apprehended. He’s being taken away right now.”
“And the others?” said LB.
“Capaldi just ran out of lives. But I am afraid the Count, well, he got lucky — slipped right through our fingers.”
“He always does,” said LB, with a sigh.
“Just a minute,” said Hitch. “I got someone who wants to say hello.” He held his watch to Ruby’s mouth.
“Hey there, LB. I got a complaint. Those gadgets of yours — you know some of them are faulty? I coulda been toast, you know what I’m saying? Lucky for you I don’t die so easy.”
The kid’s alive? For one heartbeat LB was speechless — but only for one heartbeat. A second later and she had regained her composure. “I presume you are talking about the Bradley Baker gadgets you stole? They are vintage, Redfort — what do you expect?”
“Bradley Baker’s gadgets? How did you know I even had them?”
“I like to think I know most things.”
LB disconnected the call, let out a deep breath and smiled. That’s some kid, she thought.
Crowds of people were gathered in the square: fire trucks, TV crews, and all the citizens of Twinford. While no one was looking, Ruby slipped under the police tape and up the museum steps. The place was deserted and her footsteps echoed on the marble floor, but as she made her way into the great hall she could see the Jade Buddha of Khotan, radiating its mysterious green light, and there standing in front of it was Ruby’s father.
“Dad?”
“Hey, Rube, do I look wiser?”
Ruby put her head on one side. “Nah, just greener.” Brant Redfort, the lucky soul to look the Jade Buddha of Khotan in the eye at midnight — but then Brant Redfort was born lucky.
“Isn’t it magnificent?” His voice had a faraway tone and he seemed almost hypnotized. “Just look into its eyes.”
And Ruby did.
And she saw that the Jade Buddha of Khotan really was something.
They stood staring at it for a while longer before Ruby said, “What are you doing in here anyway? I thought everyone was out looking at the bank not being robbed.”
“I came to look for you, honey. Your mother and I were wondering where you had gone to. We have been searching all over — thought you might have gotten lost inside the museum.”
“There you are, Ruby!” came Sabina’s voice from across the hall. She was about to be alarmed by Ruby’s appearance, particularly her T-shirt, which now bore the slogan trouble, the in deep bit somewhat obscured by mud, blood, and dirt. However, all that came out of her mouth was, “Oh, my! Isn’t it just beautiful!”
And it was — too beautiful for words.
The tranquility wasn’t to last, though; the Redforts were roused from their appreciation by the following sharply spoken statement.
“Ruby Redfort! I get kidnapped for a few weeks and look what happens — what in tarnation have you done to yourself?”
It was Mrs. Digby, who was looking pretty extraordinary herself, dressed in one of Mrs. Redfort’s evening gowns, a mink stole around her shoulders. Standing by her side was a short man with a huge mustache.
“Mrs. Digby!” said Ruby, grinning. “You look like a million bucks.”
RUBY WAS STANDING OUTSIDE Mrs. Beesman’s house with Clancy Crew.
He was peering over the fence, looking at the debris in her yard. Boy, was it ever a mess.
“We really have to do this?” said Clancy.
“You got me into this, Clance, telling my mom I was such a super nice kid, helping old Mrs. Beesman out. Now I guess I gotta be a super nice kid.”
Clancy sighed. “I was only trying to cover for you, Rube.”
“I know,” said Ruby, giving him a friendly thump on the arm. “Just next time think before you open that big mouth of yours.”
Clancy frowned. “You sure she wants us to clear her yard?”
“I had to talk her into it,” said Ruby. “She took a lot of persuading.”
They were about to push open the gate when they were surprised by a beeping sound coming from Ruby’s coat.
“You’re bleeping,” said Clancy.
Ruby pushed up her sleeve to reveal Bradley Baker’s watch, still fastened around her wrist. The fly was flashing blue. In all the chaos of last night Ruby had forgotten to hand it back to Hitch. With some trepidation she pushed the talk button and held the watch to her ear.
“Where are you!” demanded a gravelly voice.
Ruby gulped. She didn’t really feel up to talking to an irate LB. “Look, sorry about the watch and the whistle — I promise I’ll hand them to Hitch before he leaves.”
“Too late for that, Redfort,” said LB. “He’s back at Spectrum.”
Ruby’s heart sank. Just like old Mary Poppins, she thought, he’s taken off without so much as an adiós. “He could at least have said good-bye,” muttered Ruby.
“Good-bye? What do you mean good-bye?” said LB. “I just wanted him to bring in that watch so we can have one of our technicians take a look at it. A faulty rescue device is no good to any agent.”
Ruby’s mind was working overtime but she couldn’t make sense of what LB was saying.
“You can consider this your week off, Redfort, but I want to see you at six a.m. in exactly seven days’ time, no excuses, no sick notes from your mom. Understand?”
Ruby did not. “My week off?” she stammered. “My week off from what?”
“You want to be an agent, don’t you? Well, being an agent takes a lot of training. Hitch will be in charge of that so you had better listen to him.” LB cleared her throat before saying, “The rescue watch you can keep, but look after it, it belonged to a friend of mine.”
“You can count on me,” said Ruby.
“I hope so,” said LB. She paused. “Oh, and by the way, you did good, kid.”
WHAT I KNOW AND WHAT I DON’T KNOW
...............
OK so I bet you are wondering what happened to Froghorn? Well, he got himself in some very deep water “a good agent should never take his eye of the ball” that’s what LB said. I believe he’s on the coffee-and-donut detail for the next six months. That’s Spectrum speak for stakeout duty.
Why Buzz is called Buzz? It’s simple:
What I can’t tell you is what the Count was looking at with that little laser light thing — who knows if we’ll ever find out but I’ll bet he wasn’t trying to discover the secret to world peace. Clancy’s got a hunch I haven’t seen the last of that fellow. I think he could be right.
Ruby Redfort
CLUE 3:
IF YOU ARE HAVING TROUBLE WITH
RUBY AND CLANCY’S CODE, GO TO
WWW.RUBYREDFORT.COM
FOR HELP.
SOLUTIONS
(1) Solution: First take Trunch across the river. Asimov and Carlucci are safe together. Then take Asimov across but since you can’t leave Asimov and Trunch together you must bring Trunch back. Then take Carlucci across the river. Finally come back for Trunch. Everyone is safely on the other side.
(2) Solution: Put three bars on each sid
e of the scales. If they balance then the gold bar you didn’t put on the scales is the counterfeit. Otherwise take the three bars that are lightest on the scales. Take two of these bars and put them on either side of the scales. If they balance, then the bar you didn’t put on the scales is the counterfeit. Otherwise, the lighter of the two bars is the counterfeit.
(3) Solution: 42
Special thanks to my publisher and editor, Ann-Janine Murtagh, for all her help and support during the many years of thinking about writing and actually writing this book. Few editors can be tougher than her and I am grateful for it. I am also very grateful to Adrian Darbishire and Rachel Folder for reading and rereading the text and talking through countless plot options and coming up with some really good ideas along the way. Thanks to Pete Lambert, Lucy Mackay, and John Perella for discussing Ruby Redfort ad nauseam. Thank you to David Mackintosh for his beautiful and clever design work and to Nick Lake for his thorough and thoughtful editing. Last of all, thanks a whole heap to Trisha Krauss and Lucy Vanderbilt for advice on American-speak.
LAUREN CHILD is the best-selling author and illustrator of the picture books about Charlie and Lola (who also star in their own TV series) as well as the series of award-winning books about the irrepressible Clarice Bean, where the character of Ruby Redfort was first introduced. Since then she has been inundated with letters from fans asking for Ruby Redfort novels, so to all those fans — here it is! Lauren Child lives in London.
Marcus du Sautoy, Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University and all-around genius, helped to create the codes and puzzles in the Ruby Redfort series.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2011 by Lauren Child
Series design by David Mackintosh
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books,
a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
First U.S. electronic edition 2012
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number pending
ISBN 978-0-7636-5120-6 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-7636-5636-2 (electronic)
Candlewick Press
99 Dover Street
Somerville, Massachusetts 02144
visit us at www.candlewick.com
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
There Was a Girl Named Ruby
An Ordinary Kid
Chapter 1: You Can Never Be Completely Sure What Might Happen Next
Chapter 2: There’s a Lot of Truth in Fiction
Chapter 3: Sounded Like Dessert
Chapter 4: Full of Nothing
Chapter 5: More of Nothing
Chapter 6: Fifteen Dollars and Forty-nine Cents
Chapter 7: Don’t Call Us We’ll Call You
Chapter 8: Getting Lucky
Chapter 9: A Small, Dark Space
Chapter 10: The Voice
Chapter 11: The Eyes Followed the Hands
Chapter 12: The Silent G
Chapter 13: As Good as Gold
Chapter 14: Don’t Erase Me
Chapter 15: Strictly Confidential
Chapter 16: Don’t Look Now
Chapter 17: Strange and Uneasy
Chapter 18: If in Doubt, Say Nothing
Chapter 19: One Little Lie
Chapter 20: Unlikely But Not Impossible
Chapter 21: The Blink of an Eye
Chapter 22: Don’t Breathe a Word
Chapter 23: Funny Peculiar
Chapter 24: A Total Yawn
Chapter 25: Some Likely Suspects
Chapter 26: The Little Brown Box
Chapter 27: A Formula for Murder
Chapter 28: Secretly Super
Chapter 29: A Regular Girl
Chapter 30: Room Service
Chapter 31: When You’re Out, You’re Out
Chapter 32: The Advantage
Chapter 33: Crisp ‘n Lean
Chapter 34: They Could Feed My Toes to a Pack of Vultures but I Would Never Blab
Chapter 35: Nine Lives
Chapter 36: A Colony of Vultures
Chapter 37: Time Waits for No Man
Chapter 38: The Sands of Time
Chapter 39: Lucky Twice
Chapter 40: Look Into My Eyes
Cat Woman
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright