by Lauren Child
She was alone and no one would ever find her.
The baby had been left in the care of the housekeeper, who had just put some cookies to cool on the porch when, without warning, the ground began to shift and the buildings began to shake, trees creaked and then cracked. Some of them – the big oak on Amster Green – stood firm, others – the giant cedar of west Twinford – fell.
Sidewalks buckled and streetlights toppled. The earth tremor lasted just a few seconds and Twinford City escaped by-and-large unscathed – a few buildings needed repair, but remarkably no one, not a soul, lost their life. The townsfolk mourned their fallen trees, but counted their blessings: no one had died. There was only one real casualty; the Fairbank house on Cedarwood was completely destroyed. After 200 years of standing just exactly where it was, looking out across the ever-changing townscape of west Twinford, this historic house was gone.
It was the housekeeper who dug the child out with nothing but ‘the hands God gave her’. This woman had endured more than earthquakes in her time and no mere earth tremor was going to have her standing by while an infant lay buried, perhaps dead, perhaps alive. By the time the baby’s parents returned to their home, now a wreckage of wood and brick, their daughter was lying in the housekeeper’s lap quiet as a lamb and smiling up at them. Everyone was very relieved, their little girl saved, not a scratch to her perfect face, no damage done.
Or so they thought, for in that baby’s head a tiny kernel of fear had lodged, a fear which would grow and grow until in her thoughts a monster lurked.
An ordinary kid
WHEN RUBY REDFORT WAS THIRTEEN AND THREE QUARTERS, she found herself confronting the biggest dilemma of her short life. On the desk was an apple split in two. In her hand was a tiny piece of paper.
On the paper were printed two small letters; small letters which spelled something so vast and so terrifying that it made her eyes water.
The letters told of betrayal and murder.
It was the Count who had planted suspicion, posed the grim question and introduced the poisonous thought that the untimely death of Spectrum’s most valuable agent, Bradley Baker, might have been ‘arranged’.
‘The question is,’ he’d said, ‘who pulled the trigger?’
It was the apple, the messenger of doom, which held the answer.
If Ruby was to believe in its truth then life had suddenly become dramatically more dangerous. She looked down at the paper inscribed with the initials of the woman who called the shots, who held the lives of so many in her hands.
The boss of Spectrum 8.
LB.
Ruby looked into darkness and wondered who she could trust.
Trust no one, she thought.
Some several weeks later...
Chapter 1.
A window on the world
RUBY REDFORT WAS PERCHED ON a stepladder looking out of the high landscape window which ran the length of her room. The window was designed to allow the light in rather than to provide a view of the street below, but today it was the view Ruby was interested in. She was looking down at the network of roads and alleys, contemplating the scene below. Mrs Beesman was wheeling her shopping cart down one of the back alleys which ran between the rows of houses. The cart was filled with several cats and some jars, saucepans and a whole lot of random junk. A few of the cats appeared to have socks wrapped around their middles, presumably to keep them warm. Mrs Beesman herself was wearing several coats and a fur hat with earflaps, ski gloves and an extremely long, moth-eaten scarf. Mrs Beesman tended to wear a coat in all weathers, but today, bundled up as she was, suggested that it was a pretty chilly morning. As the old lady trundled past Mr Parker’s yard, so his dog Bubbles began to bark.
On Ruby’s lap was a plate of pancakes: her second serving and it was still only 6.47 am. Ruby had been away from home for the whole of November, and the housekeeper had missed her more than she would ever say. The minute Ruby had walked through the door Mrs Digby had reached for the batter and the skillet and while she flipped pancakes so they chatted. Their conversation had been interrupted by an urgent call from Mrs Digby’s cousin Emily and Ruby, knowing the time these phone calls often took, had carried her breakfast on up to her bedroom.
The pancakes were lasting longer than usual because Ruby’s eating was interrupted by her neighbourhood observations. Every few minutes she would put down her fork and take the pencil from behind her ear and make a note in the yellow notebook which lay in her lap. It was surprising how much was going on out there given the time of day. Ruby had taken up the yellow notebook habit when she was four years old and she now had 625 notebooks full of the exciting, interesting, ordinary and often dull happenings that had occurred in the world around her. She stored the 624 notebooks under the floor, the 625th she kept hidden inside the door jamb.
Ruby had returned unreasonably early that December morning from what she referred to as the ‘dork pound’ and what the organisers would call Genius Camp ‘for the mathematically gifted’. As far as Ruby was concerned, it was four weeks of her life she would never get back. It had been no walk in the park, not because the work had been particularly hard, but because some of the kids enrolled in the course were, well, not particularly nice, and some of them were a whole lot worse than that, namely Dakota Lyme. Ruby had run into Dakota not so long ago at the October mathletics meet, one of the less pleasant days of Ruby’s (on the whole charmed) life. Ruby had found herself going head to head with the objectionable girl in the final round of the one-day competition, and for all the trouble it had caused her, Ruby would have gladly conceded victory and walked away from the whole stupid circus. However, she won and took the consequences, which were a lot of abuse and a nasty encounter in the mathletics meet parking lot. One of the problems for Ruby was that her brilliant brain brought her a lot of attention, attention she really didn’t want, nor, given her status as an undercover agent, need.
Mr Parker came out onto the lawn to shout at Bubbles. The sound of his voice was a whole lot more unpleasant than the sound of the dog’s barking.
Ruby’s life as an agent was no picnic, but then that was hardly a surprise given the kind of people one was inclined to run into during the day-on-day battle of good v evil. Evil, a much overused word in Ruby’s opinion. Not every person who committed a crime was evil, and only rarely (extremely rarely) would one consider them through and through bad with not an iota of goodness in them. But when it came to the Count, Ruby would have to concede that if there was any good in him then it was too small to see. Blame it on a bad childhood, a life gone wrong, his ma and pa’s genes, blame it on the weather, but whatever the reason, it didn’t change the facts – goodness had deserted him utterly, and his soul had gone to rot. Around this monster of a man swirled a murky soup of the vile and the unhinged, all eager to do his dirty work. The plots they hatched and cruelties they inflicted were dark enough to give Wonder Woman herself reason to keep the nightlight lit. So how did a thirteen-year-old school kid from Twinford hold her nerve? Well, no one had promised her it was going to be easy. But what scared Ruby more than the cruel ones, more than the Count even, was the force behind it all, the one who pulled the strings. Because there was someone, and according to the Count it was this someone who wanted Ruby dead and caused the Count himself to shudder.
And one should always, in the words of Mrs Digby:
Fear the wolf that other wolves fear.
Ruby watched as a removal van turned the corner and made its way down Cedarwood Drive. It stopped outside the grey clapboard house, the oldest house on the street. It seemed it was about to become vacant once more. As far back as Ruby could remember, no one ever stuck around long enough to make the house a home.
Ruby Redfort was a girl who embraced change and was not fearful of a little adventure, but lately she wouldn’t mind if the whole world stood still.
A car drove by. It stopped at the junction; the driver wound down the window and threw a soda can onto the street.
October had been a busy month. Her life as an agent at the most secret of secret agencies – known only to those in the know as Spectrum – had been dominated by the growing sense that somewhere in Spectrum’s subterranean corridors there lurked a mole. Ruby had felt the steely looks as the eye of suspicion was trained on her. She had been interviewed by the head of Spectrum 1, Agent Delaware, and it had not been a comfortable experience, particularly when with a steady gaze he had uttered the words, ‘I could be staring into the eyes of a traitor right this very moment and not know it.’ But Ruby shouldn’t have taken it personally – it was simply protocol. Every agent in Spectrum was under suspicion, every single one of them interviewed, investigated and scrutinised. No one had been identified as the mole, no one had been cleared; the tension in HQ was palpable.
As October brought in the storm winds, so the Spectrum investigation brought an uneasy atmosphere which crept through its halls, seeding suspicion and mistrust. And for Ruby everything was beginning to settle at LB’s door.
A builder’s truck manoeuvred its way down the street and pulled up outside the Lemons’ house, blocking part of Cedarwood Drive. An angry driver began honking his horn, but the truck didn’t move. The driver got out of his car, the truck driver out of his truck, and they began shouting at each other. The shouts of the men in the street masked the sound of footsteps on the roof above her. It was only when the hatch opened that Ruby realised that someone was up there.
‘Who’s there?’ cried Ruby, the ladder rocking dangerously as she turned to look.
‘Ah,’ said Hitch. ‘It looks like you’re back.’
‘Jeepers! Ever think of knocking?’ scolded Ruby.
‘A bit weird isn’t it – knocking on the ceiling?’ said Hitch. He had a tool belt around his waist and a reel of cable slung across his shoulder.
‘What are you doing up there anyway?’
‘It’s a long story and I’ll fill you in on it when I’ve got time, but I ought to get going.’
‘You don’t want to hear the latest?’ she asked.
‘Itching to hear your news kid, but it’s a pleasure I’m going to have to put on hold.’ He opened the window and climbed out onto the ledge.
‘Doors too good for you, are they?’
‘I hadn’t realised you were so hung up on the rules,’ said Hitch as he disappeared from view. ‘Good to see you kid,’ he called.
Chapter 2.
Long distance
RUBY HAD BARELY REPOSITIONED HERSELF on the stepladder when there was a knock at her bedroom door. Her husky dog Bug got to his feet and ambled over.
‘Is that you?’ she called, slipping the notebook under her behind.
‘Who else would it be?’ came the reply.
‘You may enter,’ Ruby called.
‘One day you’ll break your neck,’ said the housekeeper walking into the room.
Ruby looked down to see Mrs Digby, holding a tray and scanning the floor for empty mugs and dirty plates.
‘That’s not a very cheery greeting,’ said Ruby.
‘It won’t be a very cheering sight if it happens,’ said the old lady. ‘Nor if that butler falls off the house,’ she said, peering out of the window at Hitch. ‘Is he after squirrels again? Or is it window weevils?’
‘Who in only knows?’ said Ruby.
‘What are you doing up there anyway? Spying on folks, I’ll warrant.’
‘Watching,’ corrected Ruby.
‘Same thing,’ sniffed the housekeeper. ‘Never was there a child as curious as you.’
‘Did my folks have a late night or something?’ said Ruby, looking at her watch. It was rare for them to lie in; they were what Mrs Digby called ‘early birds’.
‘If you want the answer to that question then you’re going to have to dial long distance,’ said Mrs Digby.
‘Huh?’ said Ruby.
‘Paris, France,’ said the housekeeper, ‘that’s where they are.’
‘They are?’ said Ruby. ‘Why?’
‘That butler friend of yours talked them into it.’
‘Hitch?’ said Ruby, like the Redforts had a team of butlers.
‘He thought they needed a vacation; why I don’t know since the only vacation they could use is a vacation from vacations.’ Mrs Digby tutted. Just thinking about the number of trips that pair made could make her travelsick.
‘So when are they home?’ asked Ruby.
‘Day after tomorrow. They wanted to be back in time for your return, but apparently all the flights were chock-a-block.’
‘I’m sure Hitch could get them home. He’s pretty good at persuading airline people to do what he wants.’
‘Well, he failed this time,’ said Mrs Digby, ‘but I guess even he doesn’t have much hold over the weather.’
‘The weather?’
‘Blizzards,’ said Mrs Digby. ‘Paris is under several feet of snow.’
‘Is that so?’ said Ruby. ‘How long are they expected to—’ She broke off, her attention caught by something else. ‘Mrs Digby,’ said Ruby, peering at the old lady, ‘something has happened to your face.’
‘Well, that doesn’t sound quite polite,’ said the housekeeper.
‘I mean you look different.’ Ruby stared hard at her. ‘Tanned!’ she said, finally figuring out what had changed.
‘Well, since you ask, I’ve been cruising.’
‘What?’
‘I’ve been cruising around the Caribbean.’
Ruby looked stunned.
‘On a boat.’
‘I know what a cruise is,’ said Ruby. ‘I’m just interested to understand how you got to be on one.’
‘I won it fair and square.’
‘Won what?’
‘A cruise.’
‘How?’
‘In a competition. I won it and took Cousin Emily along with me.’
‘What competition?’ asked Ruby.
‘Well, that’s the curious thing,’ said Mrs Digby. ‘I don’t exactly remember entering one, but I suppose I must have, and you know what they say …’
‘What?’ said Ruby.
Mrs Digby looked at her conspiratorially and said, ‘Don’t ask too many questions or they’ll find you out.’
Ruby rolled her eyes. ‘You mean they might have made a giant mistake and given you a prize you didn’t actually win?’
‘I’m not saying it’s not impossible,’ said Mrs Digby.
Mrs Digby’s view on keeping one’s mouth shut was similar to Spectrum’s number one rule: KEEP IT ZIPPED. Ruby herself had a little book of rules, 80 of them to be accurate – it was a magenta book with the word ‘Rules’ printed on it in red. While the housekeeper busied herself collecting the rest of the dirty crockery, Ruby was left to her thoughts and she was surprised that one of her thoughts was, I wish my folks were home. Ruby was an independent kid; she didn’t need people around her all the time for comfort or security. She had what Mrs Digby called inner reserves, by which she meant a strong sense of who she was, but for some reason today sitting up there on that stepladder, Ruby just felt a strong need to see her mom and dad. The house felt not so much quiet without them, as actually: empty.
‘By the way,’ said Mrs Digby, ‘I hate to be the one to tell you, but that Archie Lemon busted into your room and ate some of your books.’
‘What? You’re kidding?’ said Ruby.
‘Before you get all animated about it, I should just say, it wasn’t while I was watching him.’
‘So who was?’ asked Ruby.
‘That would be his mother, Elaine. She was over visiting your mom and neither of them realised he had made a crawl for it – up all those stairs too.’
‘How did he manage that?’
‘They’re over-feeding him is my guess,’ said Mrs Digby. ‘Who would believe such a tiny person could cause such havoc, but don’t worry, I cleaned it all up, wiped the dribble off your books and put ’em all back.’
‘Gross,’ said Ruby.
‘I’m not dis
agreeing with you.’ The housekeeper turned to leave. ‘Glad to have you back child.’
‘Thank you,’ said Ruby. ‘I’ve missed you a bunch, you know that.’
Ruby returned to her musings.
As Ruby ran through all the various things that had happened since March, some nine months ago now, she began to see how time was running out and maybe not just for Spectrum – perhaps for her too.
She was beginning to tune into something that was driven neither by fact nor logic, it was more of a Clancy Crew hunch type of a thing. Just a feeling that whatever trouble was out there, it was now headed her way and about to come knocking at her door.
Chapter 3.
Catching up
AT 3 PM RUBY HEARD A SCRATCHING at the door.
‘Bug, is that you?’
She was answered by one short bark.
‘OK, I’ll see you by the back door.’
She pulled on her boots, coat and hat, wound a scarf around her neck, and climbed out of the window.
Bug was waiting patiently outside for her, and together they set off down Cedarwood Drive, turned right on Amster and continued on as far as the Donut Diner. She left the husky by the coat rack and he settled down for a nap.
It was medium busy, not too crowded, but as usual there were plenty of customers. Marla, the owner, waved to Ruby as she walked through the door.
Ruby took up a seat at the counter where Clancy was already waiting: in front of him, two mugs of ginger tea and a couple of apple donuts.
Ruby unzipped her coat, to reveal a T-shirt which read: happy to be here
‘What’s with the tea?’ asked Ruby.
‘My sister Amy has a cold, my sister Lulu has a cold, my sister Nancy has a cold, my sister Minny has a cold, my dad has a cold.’
‘Jeepers,’ said Ruby, ‘sounds bad.’
‘Drusilla says due to the high levels of antioxidants in ginger, ginger tea can strengthen your immunity, warding off infection, and I’m trying to remain uninfected,’ said Clancy.
