by Lauren Child
LIMPET LIGHTS, ALSO KNOWN AS HANSEL AND GRETEL FIND-YOUR-WAY-HOME TRAIL GLOWS.
Underwater phosphorescent lights to be used to make a trail. Guaranteed not to move. Duration five hours.
She might as well grab them too while she was at it, since she was going to get in a whole lot of trouble anyway. In for a dime, in for a dollar. She slipped the “borrowed” treasures into her pockets and checked her watch.
Oops, didn’t mean to be gone so long. The time had slipped through her fingers. Peeping through the spyhole, she checked to make sure the coast was clear before opening the door. Then she walked swiftly down the corridor and up to Department Seven, violet zone. She knocked before entering room 324.
“Late!” said a voice.
“Oh, geez,” said Ruby. “Does it have to be you?”
RUBY COULDN’T BELIEVE HER DUMB LUCK. Was she really going to have to suffer the company of the Silent G?
His name was Froghorn, but the G was silent — something Ruby chose to ignore, which was just one reason their relationship was so bad. The other being that Froghorn was a petty-minded bully. At twenty-three he had been the youngest agent currently in Spectrum employment, but then Ruby had come along and spoiled all that, and he was not happy about it.
“You should be grateful, little girl — I’m actually handing you some real work on a real case. This is your lucky day.”
“Oh, I’m really stoked,” said Ruby. “Being shut in a tiny room with you is my definition of a lucky day.”
“Oh, dear. Now you’re getting your hopes too high. I won’t be babysitting. I have important things to work on, and I think even you can manage to listen to tape recordings by yourself.”
Ruby looked at the desk, covered in batches of tapes.
“What are they?” she asked.
“You have to listen to them.”
“What are they?” said Ruby again.
“Tapes — of radio shows, the kind of shows that people with very little musical taste might tune in to.”
Ruby considered this for a moment. Was he talking about what she thought he was talking about?
“I guess you’re referring to Chime Melody?”
Froghorn wrinkled his nose, evidently surprised that she was aware of the Chime situation. “Oh, I’m sorry — no insult intended,” he said, not the merest hint of apology in his voice. “Apparently you’re a listener?”
“Sure, I listen,” said Ruby. “It’s important to have an open mind, otherwise one walks around like one knows it all when one is actually a total potato head, no insult intended.”
Froghorn’s mouth went very small, but he chose to ignore Ruby’s jibe.
“There seems to have been some interference of some kind — highbrow music playing on a lowbrow show. It could be accidental, just two radio frequencies clashing. However, due to all the other unusual activity, LB assigned me the job of listening to each and every tape just to make sure there isn’t some underlying voice message or communication.”
“She assigned you? So what am I doing here?” said Ruby.
“You’re here because I’ve delegated this task to a junior agent.”
“Are you palming this work off on me, Froghorn?” she said. It was clear he thought it was a dead-end job.
“Not at all. It’s just the kind of chore a less able person should be doing, and your name came to mind. All you have to do is listen, though I realize this is not something you’re skilled at.”
“Jeepers, Froghorn, did your mommy not love you enough? You got some serious ego issues, man.”
Froghorn pursed his lips so his mouth went even smaller. He didn’t like this Ruby Redfort girl undermining him. Who did she think she was marching in with her big mouth, mocking him, making him feel stupid?
“Next time, don’t be late.” The door slammed as he left.
“That’s the best you got? Don’t be late? You need to brush up on your insults, potato head,” said Ruby to no one but herself.
She stared at the piles of tapes.
She felt not unlike one of those fairy-tale characters who ends up left with some impossible task — to weave straw into gold or peel 1,500 carrots before dinnertime.
Might as well buckle down. She inserted the first tape in the machine, put on the headphones, and sat back in the chair.
It was going to be a long, long night.
THE DOOR TO RUBY’S BEDROOM FLEW OPEN.
“Child, get yourself up and at it; your parent-folks will be arriving home today, and I want to get your room looking like a room before your mother has me fired and run out of town.”
Ruby lifted her head from the pillow and rubbed her eyes. She was exhausted from her long night of listening to Chime Melody’s peculiar sounds.
Mrs. Digby, who of course knew nothing about that, was standing in the doorway, pink rubber gloves up to her elbows, bucket in hand. Through the blur that was Ruby’s eyesight she looked like some kind of gunslinger.
Ruby groped for the clock. “Mrs. Digby, it’s only five fifty-nine in the a.m., what are you doing?”
“That’s right, plenty of time to do a little spring-cleaning, now up and at it!” said the housekeeper, marching straight into Ruby’s closet. “I’ll start here; you can pick the debris from off of the floor.”
Ruby muttered under her breath, but she got up all the same. “You know you’re turning out to be a lot like Consuela.”
Mrs. Digby snorted. She did not like to be compared to the Redforts’ ex-chef. Consuela was a woman she did not care for, and she had been glad to see the back of her and didn’t make any bones about saying it.
However, not everyone felt the same. Consuela was an incredible chef, and Brant and Sabina would pay double what the Stanwicks were paying if only she would come back.
Ruby did as she was told — it really wasn’t worth the argument. By the time she left for school, her room was looking like it belonged to one of those perfect kids you saw in the commercials, those ones who smiled all the time. Ruby, dressed in a T-shirt emblazoned with the words dying of boredom here, looked about as far from being a “commercial kid” as any kid could.
At the same time that Ruby was cleaning her room, Hitch got out of his car and looked out to sea. He could make out the Humberts’ yacht, the Golden Albatross, coming in from the west. As it got nearer, he couldn’t help noticing that the vessel was looking less than shipshape — a little battered, a little worse for wear, a little war-torn.
Hitch had been casually leaning against the car, arms folded, drinking in the sun, but now he was suddenly alert. As the boat moved into the harbor, he could make out the faces of those aboard, and no one was looking very happy. He cast his eyes over all the passengers, but could not see the faces of Brant and Sabina. He began to walk toward the yacht, picking up the pace with each step. By the time he got to the quayside, he was flat-out running.
He watched as Freddie and Marjorie Humbert wearily disembarked.
“What happened?” he asked.
Marjorie Humbert looked at him. “Pirates,” she uttered.
Hitch scanned her face. “Is everyone OK?”
The Humberts looked at each other.
“The Redforts?” asked Hitch.
Freddie turned to him, his eyes welling up. “They didn’t . . .” His voice caught in his throat. “They didn’t make it,” he stammered.
“What do you mean, ‘didn’t make it’?” said Hitch, a sudden fear shooting through him. “You’re saying they’re not with you?”
“Sabina was pitched overboard. Brant dove in to save her, but then . . .” Poor Freddie, he couldn’t find the words.
“The pirates shot them,” said Marjorie, her voice barely audible. “Right there in the water. They didn’t stand a chance.”
“You saw them get shot?” asked Hitch.
Marjorie looked at him with her kind eyes. “No, we did not see that, and I’m grateful we didn’t.” She was ashen-faced and looked close to collapse.
&
nbsp; But Hitch needed more; he needed to know for sure. “But you didn’t see them, see their bodies I mean; you never saw them dead?”
Marjorie winced, but bravely held his gaze. Freddie looked away. “No,” she said in a whisper. “We never saw them dead, but we never saw them again. I want to tell you something good, Hitch, something hopeful. But I can’t.”
Freddie nodded, took her by the arm, guided her down the gangplank, and together they staggered safely to shore.
Hitch didn’t miss a beat: before he had gotten five feet from the quayside he had radioed in to Spectrum and was put through to LB. He explained the situation and then put in his request.
“We need to conduct a search,” he said.
“I’ll get someone to contact the coast guard at once,” said LB.
“No, that’s not what I mean,” said Hitch firmly. “This is the kid’s parents we’re talking about. We need to conduct a search. Alert Sea Division; we need backup. If they’re alive at all, then they won’t be for long.”
“Hitch, this isn’t what we do; this isn’t part of Spectrum’s remit. I’m sorry for the Redforts, I’m sorry for the kid, but these people are not part of our work here. The Twinford air-sea rescue squad will deal with the situation; they’re professionals when it comes to general civilian safety.”
“You know these folks don’t stand a chance if we don’t step in; they’re more than likely dead already.”
“Yes, my point exactly, they’re most likely dead already. So why would we rally our agents, and in so doing possibly blow our cover by making such an obvious and overblown search of the area? I respect your desire to make things right for the kid, but sometimes it just isn’t possible. Sometimes we have to take it on the chin and move on.”
Hitch knew she was right. No one in Spectrum could afford to get sentimental; you start getting mushy and it was time to hang up your agent-issue watch.
“I hear you,” said Hitch. “But listen — how do we know this doesn’t have something to do with Agent Trilby? How do we know the pirates who threw the Redforts overboard aren’t somehow also causing all this marine disturbance?”
Silence from LB. Then: “Go on,” she said slowly.
“How about if I get Zuko to go in?” said Hitch. “Undercover, I mean, as relief air-sea rescue. He knows what he’s doing and can fly one of our helicopters dressed up like it’s air rescue, and he can search with the best equipment. No one need know, and it’s just one agent.”
LB was quiet for a moment and then said, “OK. That could work. The fine details are your business. Keep it covert and keep it untraceable, no link to Spectrum. Anything goes wrong, it’s your head, not mine.”
“I appreciate it, LB.” He hung up, got back in his vehicle, locked the doors and mirror-glassed the windows, then he pressed a button on the dashboard. The dash front slid up to reveal high-tech Spectrum equipment. He fed in Agent Zuko’s code name and badge number and was instantly given his coordinates.
Zuko was not on mission; instead he was relaxing upstate, on standby and awaiting orders. Hitch buzzed him, and not ten seconds later Agent Zuko’s image appeared on the miniature screen. He was wearing a blue checked shirt and looked like he might be fishing. Zuko was an old buddy of Hitch’s. They had been through some tough times, gotten each other out of plenty of scrapes, rescued each other from certain death on numerous occasions, and there wasn’t a favor too big to ask of each other.
Hitch told him the deal, and in just a few minutes it was all arranged and agreed. Zuko would conduct the most thorough search of the Sibling waters; he had twenty-four hours, that was all.
With a heavy heart, the Redfort “house manager” drove back to Cedarwood Drive and to Mrs. Digby.
Now for the hard part, he thought.
Mrs. Digby took the news stoically. She didn’t interrupt, she didn’t let out a cry, nor did she move a muscle. She just stood there in the middle of the kitchen, her feet planted firmly on the floor. She didn’t breathe a word until Hitch had said everything he was going to say.
“They’ll be right as rain,” she said. “Mr. R. doesn’t give up so easily, and Mrs. R. doesn’t give up at all. Most tenacious woman I ever met. Besides, they met while diving in Italy. They know how to swim. I’m not a water person myself, can’t abide swimming about in the ocean. If God wanted us in the ocean, he wouldn’t have made the land.” She was burbling on while she busied herself like nothing was amiss. “Those two, they could swim in molasses.”
Hitch didn’t contradict her, but he wasn’t feeling so confident. There had been shots into the water, a whole lot of bullets. It wasn’t the swimming he was worrying about. If they were swimming, then that meant they had survived the pirates, and that seemed unlikely. Pirates were not nice people, never had been. All those books you read about them, all those films that made them out to be funny and romantic, they weren’t true. Pirates were cold-blooded killers only interested in what they could steal.
He got up from the kitchen bar stool and reached for his keys.
“I better get down to the school — pick up Ruby. I don’t want her hearing about this from anyone else.”
Mrs. Digby nodded. “I’ll be here,” was all she said.
WHEN RUBY TRAILED OUT OF TWINFORD JUNIOR HIGH, Hitch was waiting there to meet her. She spotted him across the schoolyard, standing by the car, and quickly called good-bye to Red as she hurried toward him.
“So something happening at Spectrum? We gotta get somewhere? ’Cause you know I was hoping to see Del later. I said I’d play her at table tennis to make up for swim practice; promised I’d destroy her, but I guess that ain’t gonna be on the cards. Boy, was she ever mad at me, didn’t believe the whole thing about the bump on my head, said I was gonna have to . . .”
Ruby slowly stopped talking.
“You OK, Hitch? You look like someone just ran over your goldfish.”
Hitch didn’t know what to say. How do you tell a kid her parents are missing and presumed dead? He struggled to find the right words, but there were no right words, so he just said it.
She looked at him. Her face belied her thoughts. How could this have happened? One minute the girl who had it all, the next the girl who had lost the two most precious things in her life.
Hitch put his arm around her and said, “They’re just missing, kid. No one’s saying more than that.”
But what Ruby heard was the little voice in her head. She knew that things were not looking good for her parents’ safe return, didn’t matter what “no one” was saying.
Ruby didn’t need to ask where their boat had been at the time; she was pretty sure it would be somewhere not so far from the Sibling Islands in those dangerous waters with the tricky currents, with the undertow every sailor feared.
“Look, I spoke to LB,” Hitch said. “She has authorized a Spectrum agent, using Spectrum equipment, to scan the Sibling waters for your parents. If they can be found, we’ll find them. You can be certain of that, kid.”
Ruby just nodded. They got in the car and drove back in silence.
Mrs. Digby opened the door before Ruby was halfway up the steps.
“Don’t you torture yourself up with worry, Ruby; they’ll be back before you know it. I can feel it in my bones, and my bones ain’t never wrong.”
Hitch made his excuses to Mrs. Digby and headed back out. He couldn’t sit around — he had to do something, even if it was just taking the Spectrum dinghy out and scouting the waters. The chances of finding anything were remote, but at least it was something to keep his mind from believing the worst.
The old housekeeper and Ruby ate supper accompanied only by the noise of the ticking clock and the intermittent ringing of the phone. Ruby barely touched her food. When she was done trying, she climbed the stairs to her room and flicked on the TV.
The story of the pirates and the survivors of the Humberts’ yacht was headline news. There was an interview with Ambassador Crew, his arm in a fresh black sling and a patch over
one eye, ironically making him look distinctly pirate-like.
The conch shell in Ruby’s bathroom rang, and she picked it up at once.
“Ruby, my dad told me everything.”
“Hello, Clancy.” She sounded like every drop of energy had drained out of her.
“This is awful, Rube, just awful.”
“Yeah,” said Ruby.
“I can be at the tree in ten,” said Clancy.
Silence.
“Wanna meet me there?”
Silence.
“Rube . . . ?”
“Yeah,” said Ruby, replacing the handset.
Clancy arrived at the oak tree on Amster Green just nine minutes later. Ruby was already there, sitting up on the highest climbable branch. He clambered up and slid along next to her.
“But no one’s saying they’re dead,” said Clancy. “They’re just missing is all.”
“How many people can swim for seven days without life jackets, without rescue?”
It wasn’t a question that Clancy wanted to answer.
Instead he said, “But maybe they’ve been rescued. You yourself always go on about how lucky your folks are — maybe they got lucky one more time.”
“Then why don’t we know about it? Why haven’t they radioed in?” challenged Ruby. “They would radio, they would. If my mom’s an expert at anything, it’s picking up a phone.”
They talked for a while before Ruby felt an overwhelming need to be alone.
“Gotta go, Clance. You know, just gotta go.”
“I know,” he said.
As she made her way down to the ground, Clancy called out.
“Rube, you know I got a hunch they made it out of there alive.”
She looked up at him, her face suddenly full of hope, wanting to believe.
“And you know what I’m like with my hunches, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” she replied. “You’re usually right.”
“Correction!” he called. “Always right. I have an unblemished record. Remember that.”