by Lauren Child
Ruby was right back at square one. And worse still, she’d managed to get Kekoa pretty badly injured and really annoy the powerful woman who ran the secret agency she worked for.
A great day’s work, thought Ruby. Nice going, Redfort.
THE HOUSE WAS QUIET. Ruby’s parents were probably out at their tennis club, unaware that their daughter had almost been swallowed by a whole batch, shiver, or mob of murderous sharks.
It had been a sobering experience, and it made Ruby want to talk to one person above all. She dialed the number, but it went straight to the answering machine.
“Look, Clance, sorry for what I said, OK? Sorry for being a complete pain in the behind and a total duh brain. No excuses, just sorry. Call me.” She replaced the receiver and went to change her clothes. Before she had made it four steps across the room, the telephone rang. She picked up the donut phone.
“Hey, Rube, you’re forgiven. Wanna hang out?”
“Sure I do, Clance my old pal. What have you got in mind?”
It was Elliot’s idea. Bike out to Far-West Beach and spend the night telling ghoulish stories under the stars. No one took a whole lot of persuading, but it was Elliot who was the true campfire kid. He liked nothing better than collecting driftwood and frying things out in the open.
Elliot, Mouse, Red, and Del were already there by the time Clancy and Ruby arrived. It had been a last-minute sort of plan, but like all the best last-minute plans it had come together easily. There was no danger of running out of supplies since Mrs. Digby had packed them off with way too many homemade burgers, ingredients for hot chocolate, marshmallows, and everything else that made an evening cookout satisfying.
It was a pretty perfect night for such a plan and once they had gotten themselves settled, they rolled out their sleeping bags and sat warming their hands by the fire’s glow. Gradually, the talk moved from school to current Twinford events: the fleeing crabs, the dangerous dolphins, the confused sharks, and the sea strangler that had killed the fisherman. All of Twinford had read about it in the papers — it was big news.
“Who do you think he is?” asked Elliot.
“Or she,” said Mouse.
“Yeah, that’s right,” agreed Del. “It could be a female strangler.”
“How do you think she does it?” asked Red.
“Or he,” added Clancy.
“I reckon she or he climbs aboard the boat while the victim is looking the other way and takes the poor old fisherman by surprise,” said Del.
“I don’t think so,” said Elliot, shaking his head. “It’s just not realistic. The strangler’s already in the boat — hiding under a tarp or nets or something.”
“So what’s the perpetrator’s motive?” said Mouse, finally asking the question no one had gotten around to asking.
“He’s a psychopath,” said Clancy firmly.
“Or she’s a psychopath,” said Red.
“Did anyone ever think,” said Ruby, the merest hint of drama in her voice. “Did anyone ever think that this he or she might be an it?”
Her words hung in the air. No one had thought this thought because it didn’t really seem possible.
“What,” said Clancy, “like you mean some kind of creature?”
“What kind of creature?” asked Del.
“I get it,” said Mouse. “I see where you’re coming from, like maybe this creature they talk about in the legends of Twinford.”
“That kinda thing,” said Ruby.
“Wow!” said Red. “You really mean there’s an actual sea strangling-monster!”
A short grunting snort came from Elliot’s nose, then silence. His face was contorted, his eyes shut tight. There was a twenty-second pause before Elliot Finch finally erupted into uncontrollable giggles, barely audible at first but gathering volume.
“You mean . . .” He was almost unable to string the words together as he gulped in air. “You mean you think . . . You think the strangler has to be some kinda . . .” He fell off the rock he was perched on. “Giant squid or humongous lobster or something? Oh boy, I think . . . I think I’m gonna pass out.”
“Laugh all you like, sucker, but I don’t see you getting in a boat and heading out to sea.” Ruby had had a great deal of practice when it came to keeping a straight face around Elliot, but it wasn’t easy. Elliot’s giggles were very infectious, and sooner or later they would get you.
“I think Ruby is most probably right,” said Red, trying hard not to succumb to the Elliot influence. She had great faith in Ruby: Ruby knew most things and was right about a lot of things. That said, Red liked to believe in monsters and ghosts, pixies even; she was what some would describe as fanciful, but others might describe as gullible. To her this was not far-fetched — she was quite prepared to believe in a monster squid or a humongous lobster. For this reason, she wasn’t exactly helping Ruby’s argument.
“Could you put a sock in it, bozo!” Ruby threw a burger bun at Elliot. “I’ve been reading up on all this stuff at the city library, and it’s all beginning to hook together. The Twinford treasure — I reckon that’s true. I reckon the Seahorse went down exactly where Martha Fairbank said it did. So what if she was also telling the truth about the sea monster?”
“Wasn’t she like four years old when that happened?” said Mouse.
“Yeah, but she was the smartest kid around — that’s well documented. Besides, everything else she described is actually so.”
“You’re just saying that because she’s your great-great-however-many-greats-grandmother,” said Elliot.
“So who wants to go for a dip?” said Del, who was losing interest in the discussion. “I dare ya.”
Elliot shook his head. “No way. You’re not getting me in that water.”
“How about you, Crew?” said Del, elbowing him in the ribs.
“You are kidding, I hope,” replied Clancy.
None of the others volunteered either, so Del stood up. “OK, it looks like it’s just me and old Bug here. Come on, boy.”
The girl and the dog walked purposefully toward the sea; the moonlight was so bright that the ocean shone silver. Del started to wade in, but then something very curious happened. Bug did not follow. Bug never missed an opportunity to plunge into water of pretty much any kind. He loved to swim, but not tonight it seemed.
“Come on, fella!” called Del, but Bug stood there very still, a strange low growling coming from his throat. Del waded out farther and Bug became more agitated. He started to bark.
Ruby looked up at Bug and knew something was very wrong. She ran across the sand, hollering, “Del, get out of the water!”
Del stopped. “What? What is it?”
“I don’t know, just get out!”
“Give me a break,” said Del, moving forward again. She was up to her waist in water.
“Del!” hollered Ruby. “Quit arguing! Would you just listen for once?”
Del turned and shrugged. “OK, if you feel that strongly about it.” And she began to stomp back out of the surf.
The fur on Bug’s back relaxed, and he stopped barking. He ambled over to Del, licking the salt from her ankles.
“Cut it out, would ya?” said Del. “I have no idea what your problem is.”
“Neither do I, but he sure is upset about something.”
It turned out that Bug had done Del quite a favor — perhaps he had even saved her life, because the next morning after falling asleep on the beach they were woken by the screeching of seagulls. They were all tightly clustered together, making a sort of mound of birds, squawking and flapping. Elliot and Ruby climbed out of their sleeping bags and went to take a look.
“What is it?” called Mouse.
“You don’t wanna know,” shouted Elliot.
“Is it gruesome?” asked Clancy, scrambling to his feet.
“You could say that,” called Ruby.
“How gruesome?” asked Red.
“You’ll be glad you haven’t had your breakfast,” said Elliot.
“I have,” said Del.
“Well, prepare to see it again,” warned Ruby.
The four of them raced over to where Elliot and Ruby were standing.
As they approached, the gulls flew up in one screeching mass, and revealed the carcass of a killer whale.
THE AUTHORITIES WERE CALLED, OF COURSE, and various experts came down to look at the giant mammal dead on the sand. No one could offer an explanation as to what might have killed it other than it had been attacked by something huge.
Crushed and then drowned.
Ruby got home much later than she’d intended, and there was no sign of Hitch anywhere in the house. She looked out of the window — her mom and dad were sitting poolside, drinking fruit punch.
“Hey, honey,” called her father. He was looking up, shielding his eyes from the sun. “You want to join us?”
“Ah, in a while maybe. I got some studying to do,” said Ruby.
“Oh. By the way, Ruby,” said her mother, “Elaine Lemon called earlier. She asked me if your skin condition had cleared up. I felt so terrible — as a mother I mean — I didn’t know you had a problem with your skin.”
“Oh,” said Ruby, “didn’t you?”
“No,” said her mother. “What kind of skin condition? Elaine said it was contagious.”
“No, it’s fine,” said Ruby.
“Contagious doesn’t sound fine,” said Sabina. Sabina believed that skin was the most important of all the body’s organs. She was very fond of saying, “Without it, you’d be all over the place.”
“Well, no need to worry anymore. My skin is all de-contagious again.”
“Oh . . . good,” said Sabina, unsure if the word de-contagious was a word or not.
“What subject you studying?” asked her father.
“Natural history,” Ruby replied.
“That’s a good subject,” said Brant. “One of the best.”
“I gotta go, Dad. Lots to read.”
“That’s our girl,” called Brant.
“It sure is,” said Sabina with a smile.
Her parents naturally put two and two together and figured that the studying must be schoolwork, but of course it wasn’t. It was far more important than that.
Ruby sat at her desk and took out her now very large piece of paper, several sheets stuck together with tape. The list of events and clues spiraled with some of the spirals connecting. She knew she was right about the treasure; she just knew it. Someone had gotten there first. The question now was where had these guys gone, what were they after next, and had they already found it?
Ruby glanced out of her window and noticed the stranger sitting on the wall on the opposite side of the street a couple of houses down. What are you doing here? He was wearing a hat and shades and by his feet was that same yellow carryall. From her vantage point she could make out a blurry blue shape printed on the yellow bag, a logo perhaps.
It was one thing to see him sitting outside the Full-O-Beans coffee shop and inside the Double Donut, not so strange to see him walking around town, but now he was in their street — waiting, but for what? Was he tailing her? Yes, had to be; this was no coincidence. So what exactly do you want? thought Ruby.
She would go and ask him, that’s what she would do.
Right now.
She opened the hatch to the laundry chute and fed herself in headfirst. She shot through it in just a few seconds, landing on the lower ground floor on top of a bundle of sheets. She crawled through the hatch, ran out of the back door and through the gate into the alley. By the time she had sprinted into Cedarwood Drive, barely one minute later, the street was deserted.
The man was gone.
That evening Ruby caught up with Hitch over a glass of banana milk and a cheese sandwich.
“That milk you drink taste any good?” he asked.
“Wanna slurp?” offered Ruby.
“No, I don’t think I’m ready for it yet.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing, man,” said Ruby. “So what are they saying over at Spectrum?”
“We have agents watching the Sibling waters, and yet nothing has been picked up: no strange whispers in the sea, no strangling, no pirate activity.”
“Any more Chime communications?” asked Ruby.
“I was coming to that,” replied Hitch. He took a brown envelope from his jacket. Ruby took a look — three cassette tapes, each one with a time scrawled on the label, each recorded that very day.
“So what do they say?” asked Ruby.
“Nothing,” replied Hitch.
“What do you mean nothing?” said Ruby.
“It’s just bursts of static, three of them — each one of exactly the same duration,” replied Hitch. “We’re guessing that all three recordings are the same piece of music, the same code. Looks like they had trouble broadcasting it — the code maker tried and failed to transmit the message three times. In the end, it seems he or she gave up, so we have nothing to go on.”
Ruby picked up the envelope. “I’ll take a listen anyhow,” she said. “Just in case something got missed.”
Hitch had been called out — he didn’t say where — and so Ruby sat alone at the kitchen table listening to the static over and over on her tape machine, her headphones cushioning her ears and keeping all household sounds out. Reluctantly, she had to agree that Hitch was right: there was no message; some kind of error had prevented its transmission.
It was late in the evening, almost midnight, when her mother bustled into the kitchen. She and Brant had been entertaining the Pengroves, and they had just finished after-dinner drinks and were about to call it a night.
“Ruby, you’re still up! You’ve got school tomorrow and circles around your eyes as big as pandas.”
“Don’t you mean circles as big as a panda’s?”
“What?”
“Nothing,” said Ruby.
“Teenagers need their sleep — you should know that. It’s a fact of nature,” asserted her mother. This was one of the few facts that Sabina was both certain of and correct about.
“OK,” muttered Ruby. “I’ll go to my room if it makes you so happy.”
“That’s exactly the attitude that comes from not having enough sleep,” said Sabina.
“Yeah, yeah,” replied Ruby.
“There it is again,” said her mother.
“Ah, geez!” said Ruby. “I’m outta here.”
In her dreams that night, Ruby found herself back in the deep, but this time “the thing” didn’t appear in the indigo water. This time it only whispered to her — and the miniature diving man was not there at all.
She looked for the voice’s owner, but all she saw was indigo. She felt something breathing right next to her — hot, moist breath, strong in odor, with a smell that was oddly familiar.
She woke up.
Two eyes were looking into hers, two piercing blue eyes. “Hey, Bug.” She kissed him on the nose and he licked her on the cheek. “I get the impression you didn’t brush your teeth this morning.”
Relieved not to be drowning in the ocean, Ruby fumbled for her glasses and reached for the bedside light. She looked at her alarm clock — it was almost dawn, she might as well get up. She retrieved her notebook and sat down at her desk. She looked at the lists she had made, focusing on the one that was headed Sea Sounds.
There was something bothering Ruby. It had been niggling her since that first Spectrum briefing, but she couldn’t quite catch it; it just fluttered back and forth in the corridors of her brain.
It was something to do with the people who had heard the whispering. She put her head on her desk: teenagers need their sleep. Her mother’s words, her last muttered thought as she fell into oblivion. Words that seemed relevant somehow.
Minutes later, or so it seemed, something clunked down on the desktop, something that smelled good.
“Thought you could use an old-fashioned cup of tea — English style,” said Mrs. Digby. Mrs. Digby was very proud
of her English heritage, even though her ancestors had left England a couple of hundred years previously.
Ruby slowly lifted her head from the desk and looked at the mug sitting just to the right of her nose. She felt terrible; there was a candy wrapper stuck to her cheek and her barrette was digging into her scalp. She had been sleeping like that for almost two hours.
“Thanks, Mrs. Digby. I could certainly use it.”
“I reckon so,” said the housekeeper, looking her up and down. “What are you doing sleeping out of your bed?”
“Bad dreams,” said Ruby.
“It’ll be the cheese,” said Mrs. Digby.
Ruby nodded, knowing that though this was not the reason, it wasn’t worth getting into a discussion over. Mrs. Digby had her theories, and she stuck to them like glue.
“Hitch around?” Ruby asked.
“Gone somewhere,” said Mrs. Digby. “And don’t ask me where ’cause I don’t know. Just saw his car was absent from the driveway early this morning.”
Ruby checked her watch — it was early, but still she would have to cut school. She pulled on her clothes and grabbed her satchel.
As she rode her bike to Desolate Cove, the same thought went around and around Ruby’s head: something to do with teenagers. But what? She hid her bike from view, crossed the pebble beach, and edged her way carefully around the cliff until she found the cove that the scuba-sub was hidden in. Would she be able to get it started?
How difficult can it be?
Pretty difficult, it turned out. Locating the key was no trouble at all. She used the rescue watch’s magnetic metal detector to find it. Working out how to use the key was the near impossible thing.
An hour later and she had figured it out. The sub was not the easiest thing to pilot either, but once she got the hang of it, it was what you might call thrilling. She had paid close attention during that first trip with Hitch and seen the way he had gained entrance to the rock. She got in without a problem, navigated through the water tunnel, and parked, if scuba-subs could be parked.
These days Ruby didn’t need to break into Spectrum, but she had no clearance for Sea Division, and she certainly didn’t have permission to revisit the lecture theater by herself. So she snuck back in through the tiny internal window, situated six feet above the floor. Not easy to reach, but Ruby was an excellent tree climber, and this stood her in great stead for most vertical challenges.