by Lauren Child
Martha was forgiven her ungodly lies because no one could doubt that she had been through a trauma so terrible, she could no longer speak the truth. Her mother dead, her inheritance lost. She never spoke one word more about those dark days of seafaring terror. And as for the story, it gradually became myth. The treasure, the Seahorse, the pirates? Perhaps the boat had just been hit by a terrible storm.
Ruby closed the book and sat back in her chair. She remained there for some time, quite still. She thought about Martha – her long, long-distant relative, her long-dead relative whose voice she almost thought she heard. Believe me, it seemed to say, listen, I tell the truth, I cannot lie. Ruby opened her notebook and wrote:
QUESTION:
Why would Martha lie?
ANSWER:
So the search would continue for her lost mother? Because she could not bear to face the truth, that her mother was truly dead?
Possible of course.
But what if Martha was telling the truth?
What if her mother was carried off to join the pirate band?
What if the pirate caves did exist?
What if the Seahorse really did sink somewhere near the Sibling Islands, and for some reason the currents were still then too, like they were for my parents? Like they are right now?
And if it WAS the asteroid that calmed the waters for them, could the same one have passed by the earth all those years ago?
Ruby was well aware that asteroids can come back again and again, in very long orbits. Two hundred years didn’t seem impossible. And Martha did talk about seeing a falling star as she lay on the shore…
Then of course there was the matter of the whirling thing.
A giant whirlpool?
It was certainly possible.
The cave?
Perhaps the huge rock Martha heard crashing down covered the cave entrance so it could no longer be seen.
The sea devil?
Maybe the lightning had conjured the illusion of a sea monster by casting strange shadows on the cave walls.
The whispering and mournful sounds?
Just voices of woe and fear combining with the sound of sharp splitting rock as the cave collapsed and the water rushed in, no monster, no supernatural being, just weather and sea colliding.
The picture was getting less blurry. Ruby and Blacker’s theory about ships being rerouted to keep them out of Sibling waters, the calmed currents… someone out there wanted something from the Siblings seas, and if Ruby Redfort could believe in the treasure of the Seahorse, then maybe she wasn’t the only one.
Maybe, a mere 200 years later, someone was trying to dive the wreck and secure its sunken bounty.
The only thing was how to prove it.
Chapter 29.
A schoolboy error
WHEN RUBY GOT HOME, SHE WENT IN SEARCH OF HITCH: he was nowhere in the main house so she guessed he must be downstairs in his apartment. She could hear him playing music – the clarinet, something he often did if he got more than a few moments to himself. He claimed it helped him think, but Ruby wondered if it didn’t help him block out the noise of the day, the tricky thoughts that must buzz endlessly around that head of his. The music, his own form of white noise.
He didn’t seem to hear her knock, but the door was ajar and Bug, who had followed her down, pushed his way in. Hitch continued to play until he noticed Ruby standing there in the doorway.
‘Hey kid, you not out cycling the streets of Twinford fighting crime?’
‘No, I’ve been at the library.’
‘How very civilised. Any new books I should be reading?’
‘Maybe an old one,’ said Ruby.
‘I’ve always enjoyed the classics. What’s it about?’
‘Pirates, treasure, sea monsters – that kinda stuff,’ she replied.
‘Sounds gripping,’ said Hitch.
‘Yeah, it was,’ said Ruby. ‘I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.’
‘I look forward to it kid. Oh, by the way, I got you the radio tapes, left them in your room.’
‘Thanks,’ said Ruby. ‘I’ll go check them out.’
She spent the rest of the night listening to the tapes, to the eerie music, the music that wasn’t quite music. Eventually, the cassette clicked off and she fell asleep, her head resting on Bug, and for a couple of hours they both slept well.
The next morning Ruby felt terrible – she was suffering from lack of sleep and was kinda grouchy. The tiredness was building up in her and she was finding school a chore. All she really wanted to do was prove herself right: this Chime thing had to be more than it seemed, it had to be a code. It was the only way to make sense of it.
She was sitting in Mrs Drisco’s class listening to the noises in her earpiece. She had this neat little device, very discreet – a tiny tape player tucked into her satchel. In her exercise book she wrote the notes she was hearing. The tricky thing was that she kept having to stop and start the machine. This made a rather obvious clunking sound, a sound that did not escape the sharp ears of Mrs Drisco.
Ruby felt a yank as the little speaker was pulled from her ear, and she looked up to see Mrs Drisco’s face level with hers, the teacher’s eyebrows arched in the angry position.
‘Can you explain yourself?’ said Mrs Drisco in a chilling whisper.
Ruby looked down at her satchel, and her alphabetic notes and excuses folder. She had a good one from Dr Franton at the lice and flea clinic, asking her to please avoid all cheerleading activities or indeed anyone involved with cheerleading – but it wouldn’t really work for this occasion since cheerleading was not the issue. And the note from the president was far too useful to be sacrificed merely to prevent a detention.
Ruby paused. ‘If you could give me a little time Mrs Drisco,’ she said. ‘I’m a little fuzzy today, so I might need a few minutes to come up with something good.’
‘That’s it!’ boomed Mrs Drisco. ‘Principal Levine’s office now!’
Ruby sighed. She would take the punishment; she could do with a little quiet time. What did it matter if it involved sitting in a dreary classroom on her own? But what she had forgotten was that the tape player, and more importantly the tape, would be confiscated by Mrs Bexenheath. A schoolboy error on Ruby’s part.
Darn it Ruby, you’re off your game.
She would need to enlist the help of a couple of her friends. When Clancy came by the detention room (as she knew he would), she passed him a coded note under the locked door. He read the note, which told him all he needed to know, and immediately snapped into action.
Clancy knocked on Mrs Bexenheath’s door and began some complicated story about a water bubbler that wasn’t bubbling in the lower hallway. He was halfway through this unnecessarily detailed explanation when Red Monroe knocked on the door, supposedly to tell Mrs Bexenheath about a pigeon that was flapping around in the girls’ locker room, but in fact she was actually there to ‘accidentally’ knock the large piles of carefully sorted mail onto the floor.
While Mrs Bexenheath was picking it up and Red was apologising and Mrs Bexenheath was struggling not to curse, Clancy Crew was opening the ‘confiscation cupboard’ and retrieving the tape player.
He ran to the window and threw it down to Del, who sprinted round the back of the building and passed it to Mouse, who was standing balanced on Elliot’s shoulders.
From there, Mouse managed to just about pass it up to the window of the room where Ruby was enjoying detention. A small hand reached out and took the tape player from Mouse and… mission accomplished.
Of course no one but Clancy knew what was on the tape – Mouse, Del, Elliot and Red just assumed it was some music and that Ruby needed it to relieve the tedium of several hours of isolated study.
Ruby listened to the tape over and over. She worked hard and felt she was getting pretty close to cracking the code. She looked at her watch: forty-seven minutes before detention was over, then wrote her 3,000-word essay on why it was a good idea to pay attention in
class – not an essay Mrs Drisco was likely to enjoy.
When she was released, she went to meet Clancy at the Double Donut. He was moaning on about physics class. ‘Mr Endell just went on and on and on about YKU 726,’ he said, slumping down in his seat and resting his forehead on the table.
‘You mean YKK 672,’ corrected Ruby.
‘I mean he just went on and on about how super interested we should be because this only happens once in a blue moon.’
Ruby shrugged. ‘Well, I guess he’s right. It is kinda rare for a small part of the ocean to stop moving.’
‘Yeah,’ said Clancy. ‘It’s interesting to mention this once, twice, even thrice, but not like sixty-seven times.’
‘Well, Mr Endell is kinda obsessive,’ said Ruby. ‘Did he mention how often YKK 672 happens to pass by the earth?’
‘Did he mention it? Are you kidding, he didn’t stop mentioning it! Once every 200 years – this fact is now etched into my memory.’
Ruby smiled. Her theory was correct.
‘So what were you doing while Mr Endell was boring me to death?’ said Clancy.
‘Well, I was writing an essay about paying attention to Mrs Drisco,’ said Ruby.
‘Yeah, but what were you actually doing?’
‘You remember I was telling you about the Chime Melody interference?’
Clancy nodded.
‘Well, what if it wasn’t interference? What if someone was using music to deliver a message?’
‘What kind of message?’ said Clancy. He was staring at her, his eyes saucer-like.
‘Like locations, information, instructions,’ said Ruby. ‘This someone is giving them all in code to someone else.’
‘You think these someones are the pirates?’ Clancy looked puzzled.
‘No,’ said Ruby. ‘I mean yes and no. The pirates don’t strike me as capable of thinking up this kind of code or of deciphering it – not from what my mom said anyway. Those guys sounded kinda Neanderthal.’
‘So you’re saying there’s more than the pirates out there?’
‘I’m saying there is more than likely someone who is kinda in with the pirates, but not part of their band. Someone super smart. Then there also must be someone else on the outside who’s issuing the orders. One super smart person sends out the code on the Chime Melody airways and one super smart person working with the pirates deciphers it.’
‘So where have you got to? With the code I mean?’ asked Clancy.
Ruby bit her lip. ‘That’s the thing, I haven’t got it yet. I’m just guessing at this point and it’s making me crazy.’
Clancy patted her on the back. ‘You’ll get there Rube, no doubt about that.’
‘Yeah but when?’ She sighed. ‘Maybe only once it’s all too late.’ She stood up and slung her satchel over her shoulder. ‘I better get going, got a lot to do.’
‘You can’t go,’ said Clancy. ‘It’s Friday night, we were gonna hang out, remember?’
‘Clance, I got a job to do, it’s kinda important, you know?’
‘Yeah, for your information I do actually! The job is more important than anything else including your friends, including me. I got that, OK? Loud and clear!’
Ruby felt guilt wash over her, but rather than say the right thing, she said exactly the wrong thing. She regretted it as soon as she uttered the words and saw him flinch.
Clancy didn’t reply, his face said it all, and Ruby, she just turned and left the diner, not once looking back.
By the time she made it home she had a horrible little voice jabbering in her ear, telling her what a crummy friend she was. She ignored it, and instead allowed the white noise of her busy brain to block it out. Up in her room she turned on the mini cassette player and pulled on her headphones. The awful music played on and did nothing to ease her mind.
Then at about half past four that morning she got it.
1. She still holds her secret
2. She lies where the toes of the sisters meet
3. She won’t be accessible for long – act swiftly
Chapter 30.
The toes of the sisters
WHEN SHE FELT SURE SHE WAS RIGHT, when she was positive the code worked, that what she was putting together made sense, Ruby went down to find Hitch.
It was 5.05am on Saturday morning and he was sitting in the kitchen drinking a very strong-looking cup of coffee. He watched her as she placed the cassette player on the table. She pressed the play button and out scritched the unharmonious sound.
When the piece was through, Ruby took out various pieces of paper, placing them in front of Hitch in order:
First the musical score.
Then the score marked with letters underneath the notes. Once he had taken in how it all worked, Hitch nodded and Ruby laid more papers on the table, each one delivering another short instruction.
He looked at them for a long while, reading the messages over and over.
Finally, Hitch spoke.
‘This “she” that they’re talking about, got any ideas who it might be?’
‘Uh huh,’ Ruby replied.
Hitch looked up, his left eyebrow raised. ‘Go on,’ he said.
‘I reckon she’s a wreck, an old wreck,’ said Ruby.
‘You better not be talking about me,’ called Mrs Digby as she bustled through the room, bucket in hand – in one door and out the other.
‘Never would!’ Ruby shouted after her. They continued to talk, but with their voices hushed slightly: the housekeeper had sharp ears.
‘The eighteenth-century wreck of the Seahorse to be precise,’ said Ruby. ‘I’ve been reading up about it and I found an obscure account by some old guy called Featherstone which describes the night of the shipwreck as Martha Fairbank told it. She insisted the ship went down somewhere near the Sibling Islands.’
‘Even though every other account says it couldn’t have?’ said Hitch.
‘Yes,’ nodded Ruby.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘So tell me your theory.’
‘We start by assuming that the Seahorse did go down where Martha said it did,’ said Ruby. ‘Where the toes of the sisters meet – the toes of the sisters are the twenty small rocks sticking straight out of the sea a quarter-mile from the islands; the wild currents make it difficult and dangerous to navigate round them.’
‘The toes of the sisters?’ said Hitch.
‘Lots of people used to call the Sibling Islands the sisters in those days; the smaller rocks were called the toes – it’s to do with that old legend about them.’
‘What old legend?’ asked Hitch.
Ruby waved her hand impatiently. ‘I’ll tell you some other time – it’s not relevant to this. What I’m trying to say is that if the wreck sank somewhere in that channel between the rocks and the Sibling Islands, then this explains why the pirates are trying to keep boats out of the Sibling waters or anywhere too close to the islands. They block coastguard signals and redirect cargo shipping way off course – if a pleasure boat comes by, they steal what they want and cut them adrift. It makes for good cover – makes it all seem random and about looting cash rather than premeditated and to do with 200-year-old treasure.’
‘But why now?’ said Hitch. ‘Why look for treasure that may not even be there, in a wreck that has been submerged for 200 years?’
‘Because now they can,’ said Ruby. ‘The currents are calm for the first time in living memory, so it’s actually possible to dive the wreck.’
‘But this theory presupposes that the pirates knew this was going to happen, or made it happen somehow.’
‘Yes,’ said Ruby.
‘They made it happen?’ said Hitch. ‘This band of pirates know how to quell the tides?’
‘No, but they knew it would happen.’
‘How?’
‘Because of something which happens once in a blue moon,’ said Ruby, ‘something that happens every 200 years.’
‘I’m listening,’ said Hitch.
‘In her accou
nt Martha Fairbank described a “falling star” and how the pirates “floated to the island on a raft”. They couldn’t have done that unless the seas were still. The falling star was an asteroid, the same asteroid, the same falling star that we’re seeing.’
‘YKK whatever-it-is?’
‘YKK 672, yes. Well, that’s what’s stopping the currents. It has to do with gravity. Anyone who knew when it was coming back into orbit would know that they could swim the waters and dive the wreck then.’
‘OK,’ said Hitch, ‘but is it likely that these guys would know all this? Aren’t they more brawn than brain? I can’t see the thugs your mother described looking this stuff up in the local library.’
‘I agree,’ said Ruby, ‘which is why I think that guy my mom described – the nicely turned out fellow who was in with the pirates but not like the pirates – has to be the brains behind all this, or at least some of the brains behind all this.’
Hitch nodded. ‘You have to wonder what a clean-cut guy was doing with a bunch of bandits.’
‘Another thing’s still bugging me about all this,’ said Ruby. ‘That treasure might be worth finding, but if Martha was telling the truth, and I think she was, the priceless part of it, I mean the really priceless part, is not underwater at all; it’s hidden in a cave inside one of the Sibling Islands. A cave lost under a rockslide. If this guy is so smart, then why doesn’t he know that? I mean it’s a lot of effort for some old gold and a few gems, right?’
‘Maybe if we take a look at that wreck, we might find the answer,’ said Hitch. ‘You fancy taking a dip kid?’
‘When were you thinking?’ said Ruby.
‘Like the message said, we need to “act swiftly”, so how about just as soon as I can get hold of Kekoa?’
Chapter 31.
