The Complete Ruby Redfort Collection
Page 104
If Braille is based on binary then perhaps this new touch code based on ternary numbers should be called “Traille”. Here are the numbers from 0 to 30 written in Traille:
Traille: Ruby's Ternary Touch Code
Marcus has filled in the table up to 30. Can you crack the last two yourself?
A note on parkour
Parkour is a way of moving around one’s environment without limitations on movement. The name comes from the French word parcours meaning ‘way through’ or ‘path’. It was originally developed in France in the lead-up to World War I as an obstacle-course military training exercise, and has since become standard military practice. In its modern, popularised form it dates from the 1980s – but Ruby is ahead of her time!
These days parkour is an activity, a youth movement, even a philosophy, usually practised in and around urban environments, as can be seen in the thousands of videos on the internet showing practised parkour practitioners leaping huge distances, up and over walls. The idea is to use the obstacles in your path to increase your efficiency of movement, the rail that you leap onto becoming the object you use to propel yourself forward.
Some forms concentrate on this aspect of efficiency and speed of movement, others more on fluidity and self-expression, but for all those that practise freerunning and parkour, it is more than just a physical activity – it is a philosophy, and a way of life. It accepts fear as a useful warning and an essential part of being in the moment, but through practice, training and awareness, offers a way to move through fear. It is a new way of seeing one’s surroundings – the belief that there are no obstacles in your path, physical or otherwise, that cannot be overcome. No true parkour practitioner is a thrill-seeker – but rather someone who seeks to master her or himself in all environments.
* * *
Parkour is a highly skilled discipline and should not be attempted unsupervised. To find courses and classes near you try leading organisation Parkour Generations www.parkourgenerations.com
A note on *
While US military ‘stealth technology’ has succeeded in creating materials that can hide a tank or a fighter-jet from radar, full invisibility – that is, invisibility to the human eye – has until recently proved impossible, involving as it does a different part of the electromagnetic spectrum: light.
In 2007, a team of engineers at Purdue University in Indiana made the first big breakthrough when they developed a ‘metamaterial’ made out of nanoneedles that create an electromagnetic field with the ability to bend light around the object, in much the same way that water moves around a rock in a stream. Unfortunately, however, this metamaterial does not grow on trees. It has to be engineered at the nanoscale (one billionth of a metre) which means that so far the problem has been creating an ‘invisibility cloak’ big enough to hide anything that isn’t already too small to be worth hiding.
In 2014 a major breakthrough was made in the race to achieve full invisibility. Researchers at the University of Florida announced that they have developed a means of mass-producing metamaterial using a type of 3D-printing process. Though the printed material itself cannot serve as an ‘invisibility cloak’, the printing process does allow for the faster creation of a material with that capability.
At the same time, Professor Chen Hongsheng at Zheijang University in China announced a similarly huge breakthrough when his team succeeded in making a goldfish and a cat disappear, also using a device that bends light. The professor’s team is one of over forty research teams currently funded by the Chinese government to develop full invisibility.
Who will win the race, however, remains to be seen. While the mood in China is confident, former US Naval SEAL officer Chris Sajnog commented: ‘The general public doesn’t know how far the US has really got with this technology because it is – and will remain – classified.’
*Invisibility
A note on The Gorilla Test
The Gorilla Test or ‘Invisible Gorilla Test’ originated in the mid 1970s and was updated in 1999 by Christopher Chabris of the University of Illinois and Daniel Simons of Harvard. The test involves showing a short video in which two teams of three people, one in black shirts, one in white shirts, pass a ball between themselves. People sitting the test are asked to silently count the number of passes made by the white team. At some point during the video, a man in a gorilla suit walks into the centre of the room, beats his chest, and walks off again – hard to miss, you would think. However when the test was originally done at Harvard University, half the people who did the test and correctly counted the passes missed the gorilla. The test was created as a demonstration of selective attention – how, if you are focusing hard on one thing, you may well miss something else, something big, like a gorilla.
http://www.theinvisiblegorilla.com/gorilla_experiment.html
* AS ALWAYS, THIS IS A VIGENÈRE CIPHER. YOUR CLUE TO KEY WORD: IT’S UNDERCOVER BUSTER.
Acknowledgments
As always thank you to Rachel Folder for good ideas and writing things in neat handwriting on little cards all spread out on the floor. AD and TC who for many months had to step over and around little cards covered in neat handwriting spread out on the floor. Awsa Bergstrom who talked me through the principles of parkour and many of the various moves – monkey vaults, tic-tacs and corkscrew pops – she is so inspiring that I feel as if I could actually do a corkscrew pop. Maisie Cowell who popped in for a few days’ work experience and left having solved a very important plot twist for me – one smart girl. Marcus du Sautoy because whether he is in a tent deep in the Guatemalan jungle or taking breakfast in Hay on Wye, he is never fazed by the question and has never failed to come up with the answer. Rachael Stirling for reading the Ruby stories out loud for audio and doing such a perfect Consuela Cruz that I am writing her back in, and such a funny Quent Humbert that I can never write him out. Thank you to Philippa Perry because I always forget to thank her even though I can’t imagine being able to do any of what I am meant to do without her – plus she is super nice. To Mary Byrne, Geraldine Stroud and Sam White in HarperCollins publicity for also being super nice and never grumpy (at least never when I am in the room). My editors Ruth Alltimes and Nick Lake for a zillion reasons but particularly because even when a book isn’t finished when it is meant to be finished, and looks like it never will be finished, they manage to stay very calm and do absolutely no shouting and make out that it is actually a good thing. David Mackintosh who knows his way around the tightest of deadlines and can still produce a beautifully designed book with perfect illustrations. And finally my publisher, Ann-Janine Murtagh, who talks me through a problem even when I know she has somewhere else to be and somehow makes time stretch even when there seems to be none left.
I am very grateful to them all.
Dedication
For Louis
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
A perfect storm
An ordinary kid
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
The debriefing
Halloween with a twist
From the Twinford Mirror
Shopping cart
The apple
How to see in four dimensions
Footnotes
Acknowledgments
A perfect storm
WAY OUT TO THE NORTHEAST OF THE CITY WERE THE FLATLANDS, acre upon acre of prairie grass that waved in the warm winds blowing in from the ocean.
The girl was taking the long road to her grandmother’s ranch house. She imagined it would take her no more than an hour, so she would still be in good time; she had promised to be there by noon. The weather station had warned of an electrical storm and dark clouds were already forming in the great skies above her.
The girl had tried to coax her dog, a young husky pup, to travel with her in her bicycle basket, but the dog had looked up at the sky and howled when she tried to carry him from the house, his fur standing right on end.
It was as if he knew what was coming. There had been talk of a tornado looking to bear down and she had a mind to see it begin to pick up before it whirled in. Timing, she knew, was everything when it came to tornadoes. They could whip up quick and vanish in minutes, the average for these parts being around twenty. You had to be careful – you mistime it and you might be snatched up inside that wind funnel, for you could not outrun a tornado, only sidestep it; this her nine-year-old self knew for a certainty.
She hadn’t travelled more than halfway there when she realised she had left it too late. Turn back, keep going, it didn’t matter – she was never going to make it to the ranch before the storm struck. A lone tree grew out from the only raised piece of land in more than a hundred miles, a tree bent sideways by the relentless west wind and the only landmark on the whole horizon other than the marching telegraph poles.
But it was a good landmark. She remembered how the tree grew out of rock, not a cave exactly but a pile of stones so heavy that they looked like they hadn’t moved in more than ten thousand years. The girl saw at once that if she could make it to those rocks and climb between them then she would escape the tornado’s hold.
She let go of her bike and abandoned it right there, where it fell, on the tarmac road. She began to run across the open grassland, feeling the whipping wind as she fled. She ran, ran like the devil himself were chasing her, ran like all hell was biting at her ankles. The coarse grass was slurring her movement, wrapping about her legs, but she wouldn’t let it pull her down. There were the rocks and the half cave. She threw herself in just as the whirling funnel picked up over her head, and through the crack in the stone she saw her little green bicycle hooked up by the finger of wind and pulled high into its centre.
She didn’t notice the hissing thing: the wind drowned out its sound. Nor did she notice it raise its head and open its jaws wide, exposing those perfectly sharp prongs of teeth. She felt it though: a sharp pain followed by a sickening ache. A strange sensation.
She turned to look it in the eyes. Black eyes set in an arrow-shaped head, dark diamonds running down its brown back. She looked at it, unblinking, as it slowly wound itself back into the shadows.
Suddenly everything became hyper real, the strange crag of the rocks, one jutting stone looking almost like a dog’s head – she thought of her husky and wished he was at her side. She tried to steady her breathing and reached for the notebook and pencil she had tucked inside her pocket. She drew the head shape and the markings, making a note of the colours, and once she was sure she had all the information, she removed the sneaker from her left foot followed by her striped sock, cutting away the toe part with her penknife. Then she pushed her arm into the tube of knitted cotton and slipped it over the wound, not too tight but enough to support her deadening limb.
Slowly she began to move herself towards the road, keeping her arm down so that the bite wound was below her heart.
Looking behind her she saw the tree was gone, carried away by the tornado.
The farmer who drove by in his truck an hour later was surprised to see this young girl stumbling down the road on her own.
The doctor on duty in the local hospital was astonished when upon arrival she produced a notebook containing a perfect drawing of a Western Rattlesnake.
‘That’s … what … bit me,’ she said, her arm badly swollen by now and her voice losing its strength.
‘Smart of you, noting everything down like that,’ he said as he injected the antivenom. ‘Rattler venom can kill in two hours. If we’d wasted any time trying to identify the species, well …’
Which was why from that day on Ruby Redfort resolved to know every snake by the pattern of its skin – such knowledge might just save your life.
An ordinary kid
WHEN RUBY WAS TEN her father was due to take part in a tasting for the Olivarian Society, so called because in order to become a member of this esteemed club one had to blind taste twelve different types of olive, identifying the variety and the region in which they grew.
For reasons to do with bad weather in Boston, Sabina Redfort had failed to make her Twinford flight and was stranded at the east coast airport. Mrs Digby the housekeeper was on annual leave, Brant Redfort refused to leave his daughter home alone and his daughter refused to have a sitter. Therefore it was decided that Ruby would have to accompany her father to the club on Fuldecker Avenue, a grand old-fashioned building with plenty of carved wood and marble. It being highly irregular to bring a child to the club, Ruby was taken to the small club office, where she might read and wait out the two hours until her father was ready to go home.
Brant Redfort was blindfolded and led to a table on which twelve olive dishes were then placed. There were three olives that Brant Redfort found very difficult to place, but he filled in what he could and, once finished, his completed papers along with the olives were returned to the club office.
Ruby, who was fond of olives, had been his home-study partner and now had a very keen palette and a wide appreciation of olives from all regions. She decided therefore to take the test herself and, finding her father’s answers to be good but not great (considering the time he had given to this pursuit he should really have excelled), she amended his test sheet accordingly.
She detected every herb and every spice, and almost every variety of olive: young, old, barrelled in oak, pickled in sea brine, from the western slopes of Mount Etna and from the northern coast of Corfu.
Brant Redfort was declared a worthy Olivarian and was sworn into the club with a hearty cheer, and Ruby was able to get back to her book.
Some several years later …
Chapter 1.
Wrong place
wrong time
WHEN RUBY REDFORT AROSE THAT MORNING, she could not have foreseen what kind of day it was going to turn out to be.
She certainly hadn’t meant to find herself running for all she was worth down the Amster back alleys, nor had she pictured how grateful she would be to see that dumpster in front of the Five Aces Poker Bar. It just happened that way. Sometimes things unfold in a way you could never predict.
RULE 1: YOU CAN NEVER BE COMPLETELY SURE WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN NEXT.
Actually, at the moment when she left the house, Ruby was expecting her Saturday to be entirely peaceful. Expecting and hoping. She hadn’t been sleeping
well recently, and she wasn’t exactly feeling sharp. She was planning to nod hello to Ray Penny as she entered his secondhand bookshop; if the mood grabbed her she might even ask after his dog, Jake, who was recovering at the vets having poisoned himself by eating an entire bar of chocolate. Then she would browse the shelves for a good thriller and sit down to read. She didn’t feel like too much human interaction today.
True to the weather report, the wind was really beginning to take a hold, and as she headed down Cedarwood Drive her usually tidy dark hair was yanked free from its barrette and was now wildly wrapping across her face and over her glasses, making it very hard to see.
The ‘gusters’, as Twinford folk referred to them, had been blowing for the past fortnight, ever since the night of the Scarlet Pagoda Film Festival, an evening Ruby would never forget, for although it was not the first time she had fallen from a tall building, it was the first time she had been pushed from the top of one.
The building in question had been the Hotel Circus Grande and the pusher had been thief and psychopath Lorelei von Leyden. Ruby had not been the target, she had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time and, now Lorelei was incarcerated in a maximum security jail awaiting trial, Ruby could sleep more easily. Ruby felt Lorelei was one of those people who just might bear a grudge.
As she turned the corner into Main, Ruby spotted Del Lasco striding out of the recently opened Slush Store, her left hand gripping a blue ice drink, her right hand, newly sprained, in a sling and her face wearing a sour expression. Ordinarily Ruby would have been pretty pleased to see Del but on this particular afternoon she sensed something was brewing. Eleven seconds later and this feeling of foreboding was confirmed as Del and Ruby’s Junior High nemesis, Vapona Begwell, marched out of the store followed by several of her cronies. It was obvious to even the casual observer that Vapona wasn’t about to ask Del the time of day.