by Lauren Child
The other regular who showed up on the tapes was a tall young man, much younger than the businessman, who occasionally walked through the store, perhaps on his way to the coffee house, always dressed in jeans and a casual-looking shirt. He did not look like a Melrose Dorff customer; perhaps he worked there in the maintenance department. When he passed by the counter, the Scent Lab assistant would usually speak to him, sometimes even giving him a small sample of scent – perhaps, Ruby mused, she had a crush on him.
There was a knock.
‘Yuh huh,’ called Ruby.
Her father stuck his head round the door.
‘Ruby, you’ve been up here for hours. Do you maybe want to say hello to your old dad?’
‘Hello Dad,’ said Ruby, not shifting her gaze from the screen.
‘How was your day?’
‘Ah, hot,’ he said. He peered at the grey image. ‘What is it with you kids?’ said Brant. ‘Seems like you could watch just about anything. I mean what kind of show is this Rube?’
‘It’s interesting once you get into it,’ replied Ruby.
‘By the way, if you’re planning a dip, do be careful,’ said her father. ‘I think your mother might just be right about that hippo; most of the water seems to have ended up slopped over the patio.’
When Ruby called Clancy for a late-night chat, she mentioned what her father had said.
‘So you’re saying there is a hippo?’ said Clancy.
‘No bozo, I’m saying no one saw a hippo. I think they’re both hallucinating.’
‘So I’m right,’ asserted Clancy, ‘a simple case of double heatstroke!’
‘But that doesn’t explain why there was a whole lot of water slopped around the pool,’ said Ruby. ‘Something was in there, but what?’
‘Maybe it was the pig?’ said Clancy.
‘The pig is the hippo,’ snapped Ruby.
‘I’m hanging up,’ said Clancy.
Chapter 32.
RUBY’S COLD WAS MOVING INTO A NEW PHASE: was it worse or better? She couldn’t say. She felt like her head was stuffed with sponge and her nose was so blocked now that she couldn’t even smell Bug and he really needed a bath. She reached for the garment on top of the pile of clothes on the chair in the bathroom. It was the red and black dress she had worn to the perfume launch. She could no longer smell the residue of 1770 fragrance nor the underlying smell of mothballs.
One of the things she liked about this dress was that it had deep pockets, big enough to take useful things. She took the yellow notebook from the doorjamb and slipped it into the left pocket and then went to her desk, opened the drawer and took out the tube of ground glows. She hadn’t had a chance to try them out yet and she was itching to see how they worked. She dropped them into her right pocket.
The squirrel phone rang and she answered.
‘Hippo control. We will lasso any hippo, no matter how small.’
‘Huh?’ came the voice.
‘Go ahead caller.’
‘Ruby? It’s Red, what’s going on?’
‘Not much,’ said Ruby, ‘slightly bored.’
‘No kidding,’ said Red.
‘What’s going on with you?’ asked Ruby.
‘Same really, my mom’s all jumpy because that forest fire west of Great Bear is blowing this way and my grandma’s been evacuated,’ said Red.
‘That’s too bad,’ said Ruby. ‘Sounds kinda serious.’
‘Yeah, well, my mom thinks so. She wants me to wait by the phone so I just wondered if you wanted to come over?’ said Red. ‘Any time is fine.’
‘I would,’ said Ruby, ‘but I’m not feeling so super. I might try and lay low. I mean I oughta if I wanna shake this thing.’
‘Yeah, you’re probably right. Take it easy,’ said Red, ‘feel better.’ She hung up.
Ruby was fully intending to, but the world had other plans for her.
When she at last made her way downstairs, she went to find the housekeeper. She was sitting in her apartment watching a morning horror flick, The Cave of Forgotten Terror. Ruby had seen this particular movie many times; so had Mrs Digby and she was easily able to follow the plot while she worked on one of her sewing projects.
Ruby looked over Mrs Digby’s shoulder to see what she was doing. ‘What’s it gonna be?’ asked Ruby.
‘A feather brooch,’ said Mrs Digby. ‘I’m going to attach it to my good hat.’
‘Did you buy those feathers,’ said Ruby, ‘or pull them off some smart lady’s wrap?’
Mrs Digby sniffed. ‘I found them, fair and square, in a park, practically tore my dress to shreds on a rose bush trying to reach them and then that fountain got me. I’ve a mind to call the mayor. Soaked through to the undergarments I was.’ She carried on with her task.
Mrs Digby could turn her hand to most things and creating jewellery from discarded feathers seemed to be yet another of her talents.
Mrs Digby looked up. ‘What are you doing wearing broken glasses?’
‘I can’t find my unbroken pair. Have you stumbled across them?’
‘I have as a matter of fact and you were lucky they didn’t end their short life sucked up the vacuum,’ said the housekeeper, pouring some more tea from the large silver teapot.
Ruby looked at her more closely. ‘You know you look kinda stylish today.’
The housekeeper squinted and put down her teacup. ‘What are you after, child? Puts me off my lapsang souchong when you pay compliments.’
‘Nothing, Girl Scouts’ honour and all.’
‘You’re no Girl Scout,’ said Mrs Digby.
‘You just look kinda smartened up,’ said Ruby.
‘That’s because I’m going out.’
Ruby peered a bit closer.
‘You aware your earrings don’t match?’
‘I know,’ said the housekeeper.
‘They don’t match a lot,’ said Ruby, getting even closer. ‘And one looks kinda, well, cheap.’ This was true. While both earrings were blue, one of them looked like an expensive gemstone and the other was scratched plastic.
‘That’s because it’s from out of a cereal packet,’ said Mrs Digby. ‘At least I imagine it was, but beggars can’t be choosers.’
‘You begged for them?’ asked Ruby.
‘I found them in the hedge,’ said the housekeeper.
‘So they belong to someone?’
‘Who leaves their valuables in the hedge?’ said Mrs Digby.
‘No one I know,’ replied Ruby.
‘So there you are,’ said Mrs Digby firmly. ‘Finders keepers, losers regreters.’
Ruby had a few more questions on this topic, but she was interrupted by the sound of the doorbell.
‘You go,’ said Mrs Digby, turning back to the TV screen. ‘The cave creature is about to devour the explorer and it’s my favourite part of the movie.’
‘Ah, come on Mrs Digby, it’s bound to be for you.’
‘I’m lying low.’
‘So am I,’ said Ruby.
‘You go and I’ll guarantee you’ll find your other glasses,’ said the housekeeper.
‘You may be elderly, but you drive a nasty bargain, you know that?’
‘It’s not because I’m elderly, it’s because I’m experienced,’ said Mrs Digby. She turned the volume right up so she could properly hear the screams of the explorer.
Ruby went up the stairs to answer the door and found her glasses there on the letter table and Mrs Lemon on the stoop.
‘Oh, hi Elaine.’
Bumping into Elaine Lemon on the front step wasn’t worth the recovery of a pair of good glasses. Mrs Lemon was no doubt requiring emergency babysitting. Ruby could tell by the way she was smiling and frowning at the same time. A sort of pleading, desperate, hopeful look.
‘Ruby! Just the teenager I was hoping to speak to.’ Mrs Lemon always sounded slightly patronising when she was talking to what she would term ‘a young person’.
‘Nice to see you Elaine, and ordinarily I would love t
o chat, but I am just scooting from the family home to get my lenses fixed.’
‘Can I hear screaming?’ asked Mrs Lemon anxiously.
‘That’ll be Mrs Digby,’ said Ruby. ‘She’s in a weird mood, probably something to do with the temperature.’ Ruby ran down the front steps before Mrs Lemon could manage to squeak another word.
Chapter 33.
SINCE SHE WAS NOW OUT AND ABOUT, and unable to return until the coast was totally clear, Ruby decided she might just as well go call in on Clancy. She was feeling a little revived, but not nimble enough to make it all the way there on foot so she waited for the bus.
When she arrived at the Crews’ place, she found Clancy sitting on his bed, reading.
‘Good morning Ruby, what an unexpected pleasure. What brings you this way?’
‘I had to get outta the house quick.’
‘Do enlighten me,’ said Clancy. ‘I am, as you see, all ears.’
‘Why are you speaking like that?’ said Ruby.
‘Like what?’ asked Clancy.
‘Like you’re about a hundred and sixty-five years old?’
‘Must be the book,’ said Clancy, putting it down. ‘It’s set in the eighteen hundreds and I think I’m taking on the personality of the main character.’
‘Well, try not to,’ said Ruby, ‘it’s already beginning to irritate.’
‘So why did you have to flee the Redfort abode?’
‘Elaine Lemon,’ said Ruby, slumping onto the bed.
‘She required you to mind her offspring?’ asked Clancy.
‘I didn’t wait to find out. Any chance of a beverage?’ asked Ruby.
‘I’ll call for my house servant,’ said Clancy, picking up the phone. ‘Olive,’ he said dramatically, ‘do you want to know how it feels to have twenty cents in your pocket. . .? Very good, well, bring up two iced Coca-colas and the money will be yours.’ He replaced the receiver.
‘Nice going,’ said Ruby, nodding.
Five-year-old Olive tottered into the room twenty minutes later with two less than full glasses of Coca-cola. It was clear that she had been sampling the drinks during the long journey to the third floor. Still, it was better than having to get up and make the drinks themselves, so they paid her the meagre wage and she left them, smiling and skipping all the way back to the kitchen.
‘So what’s going on at your place? Any big news?’ asked Clancy. The Coca-cola seemed to have magically cleared up his nineteenth-century speak.
‘Mrs Digby’s got all dolled up for her poker game,’ said Ruby, ‘my dad’s playing tennis again, my mom’s at the gallery and Mrs Lemon’s on the loose.’
‘Sounds boring,’ said Clancy.
‘Yeah,’ agreed Ruby before sneezing at least seven times.
‘Man, you need to take some vitamins or something,’ said Clancy. ‘If you got lost in the wilderness now, you’d perish for sure.’
These words made Ruby remember something and she patted her pockets and pulled out a tube of mints or, on closer inspection, ground glows.
‘What’s that?’ said Clancy, peering at the tube.
‘Something I wanted to show you!’ said Ruby, sneezing again.
‘Mints?’
‘You may think they’re mints, but let me demonstrate.’ Ruby rummaged for the shoe activator attachments and with not too much difficulty fastened one to the sole of her Bradley Baker sneaker. It was small and pretty much invisible.
‘Here, give me yours,’ she said to Clancy. He handed her his shoe and she attached the other activator to its sole.
‘Now wait, give me around ten minutes and then see if you can find me.’
Ruby left the room and made her way down the long winding corridors of the Crew home. She went up the main staircase and down the back staircase; she went from floor to floor, right to the top of the house. As she went, she dispensed the flat discs that were the ground glows – they took on the colour of the floor they fell onto and became perfectly camouflaged and impossible to see. Once Ruby reached the roof, she pushed open the attic window, pulled offher sneakers and went and sat on the sloping tile roof. It was beautifully warm and the heat from the tiles soothed her healing foot.
The ten minutes were up and Clancy went to find her. He was amazed to see small buttons of light appearing as he walked. He turned around and saw that the light disappeared once he was more than a foot or two from the glow. It was easy to track her.
‘Pretty cool,’ he said as he pushed his way through the open window.
‘Cool is not the word,’ said Ruby. ‘Lifesavers is what they are. I hadn’t tried them before now, but yeah, I think they might just change old Ruby Redfort’s fortunes.’
‘But only if you have to retrace your steps,’ said Clancy. ‘If you have to get from A to B and back again, then fine, but what if you have to get from A to B to C?’
‘That’s another story,’ said Ruby. ‘I’m just enjoying the fact that I’ll be able to find my way home if I really need to.’
‘Just like those two kids, what were they called, you know, in that old book?’
‘Hansel and Gretel?’ Ruby suggested.
‘That’s it,’ said Clancy. ‘What happened to them again?’
‘They couldn’t find their way home because their ground glows got eaten,’ said Ruby.
‘Oh yeah,’ said Clancy. ‘They messed up with their breadcrumbs. Didn’t the squirrels munch them?’
‘Yeah, bad things can happen when you come up with a defective insurance plan like that – at least no one’s gonna eat these babies,’ said Ruby.
Clancy still had his mind in the fairy tale. ‘And they got lured into a house made of candy, I remember,’ he said. ‘It belonged to a mean old witch.’
‘She was only mean because those kids started eating her house.’
The sun was getting high by now and the light shining in her eyes seemed to set Ruby off sneezing again.
She fumbled for something to blow her nose with, but all she could find was an old scrumpled tissue still in her pocket from the perfume launch.
‘You don’t look like someone who’s getting over the flu, you actually look kinda worse,’ said Clancy.
‘I know,’ agreed Ruby, ‘I can’t seem to shake it.’
‘So when are they sending you back out to retake your survival test?’ asked Clancy. ‘’Cause you’re gonna be in trouble if it’s soon.’
‘They haven’t told me yet,’ replied Ruby, ‘but I sure as eggs is eggs am gonna be taking these little suckers with me. So long as I don’t get lost it’ll all be OK.’
‘What about the robbery case? You come close to solving it?’ asked Clancy.
‘Not exactly,’ said Ruby. ‘I mean not; that’s to say the trail has gone sorta dead on the whole jewellery theft thing.’
‘You haven’t found anything? No leads at all?’
‘All I’ve achieved so far is to alert Melrose Dorff to a bird that flapped in through a restroom window. Turns out Elliot was right: Dillon Flannagon broke a window, hitting a baseball.’ She shook out the tissue preparing to blow her nose again and as if on cue a blue feather floated from it.
‘Is that one of the bird’s feathers?’ Clancy was pointing at it as it floated off towards the edge of the roof and down into the Crews’ garden.
Ruby looked puzzled and then remembered where it came from: the perfume launch at Melrose Dorff, the feather which had detached itself from some smart lady’s feather boa. Unless it hadn’t. . .
‘Maybe,’ said Ruby slowly. ‘I guess it could be, it would sorta make sense.’
‘What are you doing?’ said a small voice.
Ruby and Clancy turned to see Olive’s face sticking out of the open window.
‘You’re not allowed up here, Dad said.’ Her face was deadpan and annoying. ‘Dad said, “If you walk on the roof, you will break the tiles.” That’s what he said,’ said Olive firmly.
‘Get lost, would you Olive?’ said Clancy.
‘I’
m just saying what he said,’ she repeated.
‘Well, quit bugging me about it,’ said Clancy.
‘I will if you give me one of those mints,’ said Olive, pointing to the tube of ground glows which were lying next to Ruby.
‘They’re not mints,’ said Clancy.
‘They are mints, I can see they are,’ said Olive.
‘They’re really not Olive,’ said Clancy, picking them up and stuffing them into his pocket.
‘They look just like mints to me,’ said Olive.
Clancy looked at Ruby.
‘The thing is Olive, they are sort of mints, but not exactly,’ explained Ruby. ‘They’re mints for people with, you know, a need to go to the bathroom but can’t.’
‘You mean for people who can’t poop?’ asked Olive, with five-year-old directness.
‘Yeah Olive, if you want to put it like that, then yes, that is what I mean,’ said Ruby. ‘Therefore, can I offer you a piece of bubblegum instead?’
‘No,’ said Olive. ‘I heard that it can get all tangled up in your guts and strangle you from the inside.’
‘First of all,’ said Clancy, ‘that’s only if you swallow bubblegum – which you shouldn’t – and second of all that’s horse manure.’
‘I’m going to tell Dad that you said horse manure and that you were sitting on the roof eating bubblegum,’ said Olive.
‘First of all, you just said horse manure, so you better tell on yourself; second of all, I’m not eating bubblegum because I don’t actually like bubblegum, it belongs to Ruby; and third of all, get lost Olive.’
The five-year-old disappeared from view. The whole conversation was getting confusing and she had lost track a bit of whom she was now telling on.
‘Boy, am I glad I don’t have sisters,’ said Ruby. ‘She gonna go tell your dad? Because you really don’t need the at ention.’
‘I doubt it,’ said Clancy. ‘He’s away this week and she’ll have Forgotten about it by the time he returns.’
‘I hope you’re right my friend; you know how your dad hates horse manure.’
The two of them sat out there a little while longer before Ruby decided it might be safe to return to the family abode. Elaine Lemon had surely found a replacement babysitter by now.