by Lauren Child
She looked over at Buzz, who seemed to be waiting for one of the fifty-two phones to start ringing
‘So that’s why you’re called Buzz,’ said Ruby.
Buzz looked baffled.
‘The phones, people always buzzing you?’
‘No,’ said Buzz. ‘That’s not why.’
It didn’t take long before one of the telephones did start to ring, the yellow one. Buzz picked it up and started talking, in Japanese. That’s when Ruby stood up and signalled that she urgently needed to take a trip to the restroom.
‘It’s OK,’ she mouthed silently. ‘I know where it is, I’ll be fine.’
Buzz bit her lip anxiously and pointed at her watch to indicate ‘don’t be long’.
Ruby opened the door and walked speedily down the corridor until she got to the restroom. She went in, took off her boots and placed them in one of the stalls. This way if anyone were to come in, what they would see would be Ruby’s feet. She then silently slipped back out and ran softly up the corridor, remembering to turn right when she reached crimson, and left when it dissolved into cerise. The door, she remembered, was about half way down. Now for the code. She recalled how Buzz had looked at her watch before she had punched in the numbers.
I’ll bet that’s it.
She pulled the Escape watch from her pocket, checked the dial and punched in the exact time.
The door clicked open. Too bad I gotta return this watch, it’s coming in kinda handy.
As she walked, the lights in the display cases popped on around her, the gadgets gleaming under the glass, like jewels in a jewellers. She went over to the drawer where the watch belonged and was about to open it when something caught her eye. It was a silver whistle – looked like a dog whistle but the label was smudged. Maybe it was the ribbon, maybe it was the fact that she had always wanted a silver dog whistle, but Ruby found that she couldn’t resist slipping it over her head and looking at her reflection in the glass.
She blew into it – no sound at all. Surely it wasn’t just a dog whistle? She blew into it again and again, still nothing. In her frustration she started blowing and inhaling in the way that one might suck air in and out of a harmonica.
‘Must be broken,’ said Ruby out loud, but her voice seemed to be coming from far, far away.
Wow, so it’s a voice thrower. She inhaled again. ‘Hello,’ she said. This time her voice sounded as if it was coming from right behind her. She experimented some more – there were four little holes in the whistle, and whichever one her finger covered determined the direction her voice came from – north, east, south or west of her. Point the whistle up – her voice was thrown above her.
It was precisely at the moment she called out the words, ‘I’m over here!’ that someone else decided to enter the room.
Ruby quickly ducked down behind the cabinets.
‘Did you hear that?’ said a voice she didn’t recognise.
‘Hear what?’ said a second voice.
‘Hey, these lights shouldn’t be on.’
‘Must be something wrong with the sensors.’
‘You think? Unless of course…’
‘What? Someone set them off? Should I call security?’ Ruby froze.
Oh boy, now I’m in trouble.
She was almost about to give herself up when the first voice said, ‘Well, either that or go get some bug spray – it will be a large spider. You know how many spiders set off alarms and sensors? I’ll tell you, a lot.’
‘Really? Must have been a pretty elephant-sized spider.’
‘Don’t tell me you’re scared of spiders.’
‘Not scared,’ said the second voice, a little aggravated. ‘Just don’t like ’em is all.’ Ruby could hear the footsteps moving towards her.
Darn it, she mouthed silently, as she tucked the whistle inside her T-shirt. Now she had managed to steal two things. She made herself very flat and began to crawl forward on her stomach. She was just about able to squeeze her way under the cabinets and make it to the door. Once in the corridor she sprinted as fast as she could to the restroom and retrieved her boots.
When she returned to her seat in Buzz’s office she was rosy in the cheeks and perspiring.
‘You know, you don’t look so good,’ said Buzz.
‘Yeah well I don’t feel so good,’ said Ruby sincerely, ‘but give me a few minutes and I’ll be OK.’
‘So long as you’re sure.’ Buzz looked concerned, she wasn’t used to queasy kids ‘Well if you’re really certain you’re all right,’ she said warily, ‘LB wants to see you – I’ll walk you to the waiting area outside her office. Don’t go anywhere, don’t touch anything, in fact don’t move until LB comes to get you.’
‘Sounds like fun,’ said Ruby.
No one was around, which gave her a good chance to have a snoop about. On the walls were big colourful paintings, all of them abstract. Some of them made your eyes ache to look at them.
LB must be a fan of Op Art, thought Ruby. Her mother sold a lot of this kind of work at her modern art gallery and Ruby knew that it was usually very expensive. One entire wall was painted with concentric circles in colours which seemed to buzz and vibrate. Ruby stared at it so hard that she eventually lost her balance and fell forward. Putting her hands out to save herself she unwittingly pressed on a hidden catch and what had looked like a wall sort of became a door and swung open.
Oops.
There in front of her was a room completely empty but for hundreds of black and white photographs which covered the walls from floor to ceiling. Photographs mainly of people, people and cars – people up mountains and in jungles, people on elephants, people canoeing down rapids. One picture particularly intrigued her. It was of a youngish boy, sitting at the controls of an aeroplane and smiling at the camera. She guessed he must be the son of one of the agents. There was another of him scuba diving.
Lucky kid, she thought. Right up high on the far left was a picture of a man looking a huge crocodile in the eye. He was making a stupid face, his eyes were crossed and he appeared not even slightly bothered by the reptile. The man looked familiar but even with her glasses on Ruby couldn’t quite make out who he was or where she had seen him before. Curiosity getting the better of her, she dragged a chair from the lobby and climbed up to take a closer look.
‘Well I’ll be darned, he certainly is some butler!’ she said out loud. Hitch could only have been about twenty or so in the picture, and out of a suit he looked quite different.
‘So, you’re a snoop, Ruby Redfort.’
Ruby spun round, losing her balance, toppled off the chair and landed in an undignified sprawl on the cool rubber coated floor.
She was eye level with a pair of bare feet – the toenails painted red.
‘Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to, it was sort of an accident, the door kinda opened on its own,’ Ruby stammered.
‘What next? It wasn’t me?’ LB’s voice was chilly. She wasn’t mad – she was furious.
‘I’m not making excuses or anything – just saying it was an honest accident.’
‘You accidentally opened a concealed door? Accidentally dragged a chair into a private room? Accidentally stood on it and started accidentally examining my personal photographs? What complicated accidents you have.’
‘Well, when you put it like that it sounds kinda bad,’ said Ruby.
‘Too much curiosity can be fatal,’ said LB. ‘Something it is wise to remember.’ This statement sounded a little sinister and Ruby quickly picked herself up off the floor. She noticed she had torn a hole in her jacket – a huge rip down the left sleeve – which only added to her humiliation.
‘I’m sure I didn’t see anything important – by the way, that’s a very nice picture of you. When was it taken? You look kinda young, is that your boyfriend?’ Ruby was pointing at a picture of a girlish looking LB, who was smiling warmly at a good-looking young man. However, the real life LB was not smiling, she was glaring. If Ruby thought she was going to distract L
B with the old flattery and fast talk then she had a great deal to learn about LB.
‘If it wasn’t for your test results and what we already know about you, I might be sorely tempted to think again.’
‘Look, I’m sorry, I’m not a snooper, not normally anyway...’
‘OK, cut the baloney, Redfort – you have a chance but use it carefully because right now I’m this close to telling you to take a walk.’ LB was holding her thumb and forefinger very close to represent the amount of slack she was prepared to give Ruby – it wasn’t much, about a millimetre.
Ruby kept her mouth shut.
LB pointed at a chair and Ruby sat down, but before anything could be said, a light flashed on LB’s desk intercom.
She sighed an exasperated sigh and said, ‘now, I am going to leave you for about three minutes, certainly no longer; try not to touch anything – sit on your hands if you have to.’
LB left the room. Ruby sat completely still for two minutes and fifteen seconds – not a twitch until she spotted a small brightly coloured object which had fallen under LB’s desk. She couldn’t help herself; she reached out and picked it up. It was a keyring, with a sort of puzzle attached. It had letter tiles you could slide around to form words, or perhaps a word.
The door opened – Ruby quickly palmed the keyring and tried to act normal.
LB sat down. ‘I’ll cut to the chase. We need you to go through some files – we recently lost our code breaker, and we find ourselves one very valuable brain down.’
‘How did you lose him?’
‘Her, actually – she died. She was on vacation, mountain climbing.’
‘She fell?’ asked Ruby
‘Avalanche; by the time they dug her out it was too late – they never did find her climbing partner.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Ruby, popping some bubblegum into her mouth.
‘Could you lose the gum,’ said LB. It wasn’t a question – Ruby lost it.
‘She was unlucky, there was no warning, it took everyone by surprise.’ LB paused as if collecting herself. ‘Anyway, Lopez was working on a case, code name Fool’s Gold – they uncovered a plot to rob the Twinford City Bank, though we still have no idea who is involved.’
‘The Twinford City Bank? The unrobbable bank?’ said Ruby, astonished. ‘When is it planned for?’
‘The evening the gold bullion arrives from Switzerland – it will be deposited in the Twinford Bank on April 22nd and the robbery is set to take place twelve hours later.’
‘So if you know all this why do you need me?’
LB didn’t say anything for a long moment; perhaps she was wondering if she could trust this green-eyed short kid from Twinford. Then, taking a slow breath she said, ‘We got a call from Lopez. She was three days into her vacation when she left a message with Buzz. She said, “Tell the boss, I missed something first time around. Tell her, I saw it in the mirror and it all made sense”.’
‘That’s it?’ said Ruby, ‘Kinda cryptic isn’t it? Who’s the boss?’
‘That would be me,’ said LB coolly. ‘Naturally she wouldn’t have wanted to say anything obvious over an unsecured line. She said she would be in touch that evening when she got back from her climb. She had booked herself on the very next flight home – she was cutting her vacation short by ten days.’
‘Do you have any idea what she was talking about?’ asked Ruby
‘We can be sure she was talking about a code – one she had missed. She must have figured it out while she was away.’
‘Did she have it with her?’ said Ruby.
‘Of course not – it is strictly forbidden to take classified information out of the Spectrum building. So we know that whatever she missed has to be in the Fool’s Gold files. Which is why we want you to go through them in the same way she would have gone through them – see if you can’t find what she didn’t see first time around.’
Ruby frowned. ‘What do you think she meant when she said she “saw it in the mirror”?’
‘She’s referring to the local newspaper, the Twinford Mirror – that’s where all the codes where hidden.’
Ruby looked perplexed.
LB waved her hand impatiently; she needed to get on. ‘It will all be explained to you tomorrow. You will return here. Agent Blacker will take you to the file room where you can read through all Agent Lopez’s papers and try and get a grip on this case. Understood?’
‘Uh huh.’
‘OK, so get out of here.’
Chapter 14.
Don’t erase me
ON THE WAY BACK TO CEDARWOOD DRIVE Ruby tried to work her Ruby Redfort powers of persuasion on Hitch.
‘Don’t you think it might be a good idea for me to have some kind of little radio device so I can radio in?’
‘Radio in to where?’
‘To HQ,’ said Ruby
‘No kid, you don’t radio in to HQ, you always go via me.’
‘OK, so I should be able to radio in to you.’
‘And why would you need to do that?’ said Hitch
‘Well you know, in case I need to get hold of you super quick,’ said Ruby
‘And you can, by using that incredible gadget known as the telephone.’
‘But what if there is no telephone, or say someone was on it and I had to run all over looking for another one?’
‘I imagine you are a pretty good runner.’ It was clear Hitch was unmoved by Ruby’s argument.
‘Oh man, can’t I have some little radio walkie-talkie gadget?’ pleaded Ruby. ‘What’s the big problem?’
‘The “big problem”,’ said Hitch, ‘is you getting in over your head. Look kid, this is a desk job, OK? You are being hired to go through files and decipher information – it is not a matter of life and death and let’s not make it one.’
‘But what if it was? What if I find something out – something kinda vital… to everything! And I need to follow it up on the double – get on someone’s tail before they disappear; you know, step in before something bad happens.’
‘Kid, you do any “stepping in” and you will be stepping out of Spectrum for good – you find something out, you sit tight. No drama, no heroics. Sitting tight is a rule – you got that?’
‘Oh man!’ sighed Ruby, ‘did anyone ever tell you, you can be a royal pain in the derriere?’
‘All the time kid, so you’d be wise to remember this – you never act alone. That’s another rule.’ Hitch looked her in the eye. ‘You hearing me kid?’
Ruby nodded. She was hearing, but it was hard to be sure if she was listening, and listening and hearing are two very different things.
Back at the house, Ruby went straight to the living room and played the messages on the family answerphone. She just wanted to be sure that the school hadn’t called and said something that would lead her parents to find out about her class skipping.
Maybe Mrs Digby will have phoned from Miami or wherever in tarnation she has gotten off to.
There were several messages for her father from the detective, explaining that they had ‘no more leads’ – several from her father for her mother, unusually bad tempered, complaining about the airline and how there was ‘still no sight nor sound of their luggage’ – one from the drycleaner to say they were ‘having trouble with the tomato stain and would have to send the jacket away for super cleaning’.
The final message was from Freddie Humbert and basically went on and on about his problems with the bank security system and how he was ‘up to his ears in it’ and ‘wouldn’t be able to attend the museum meetings or indeed play golf for the foreseeable future’. Right at the end he said ‘don’t forget to tell that cute daughter of yours to give us a call – Quent would love to see her.’
Ruby made a face – a couple of hours with Quent Humbert was all she needed. She was about to erase the message when her father popped his head round the door. ‘Jeepers!’ blurted Ruby, ‘what are you doing home?’
‘Oh I’m sorry, got off work
early. I didn’t mean to make you jump – you checking the messages? Any good ones?’
Ruby pressed the playback button. ‘I don’t know, I didn’t listen.’ She headed upstairs to her room and checked her personal answerphone. There was a message. It was from Clancy.
‘Hi Rube, where were you today? You didn’t say anything about skipping school. Are you sick? Whatever – give me a call, OK? Hey don’t erase me, don’t erase me… aaaahhhh.’
It was a Clancy Crew classic joke. Ruby smiled as she erased the message. Darn it though, what was she going to tell Clancy? She hadn’t thought of that when she had promised to keep it zipped. She couldn’t lie to him, she never lied to him, but she had sworn she wouldn’t talk. Hitch was right, code breaking was easy compared to keeping a secret like this. She needed to think. But all she could think was, Darn it! Dad is sure to make me call Quent.
She picked up her backpack and rummaged for the Spectrum Escape Watch, but it wasn’t there. She was about to panic when she remembered how she had stuffed it into her jacket pocket.
Now where is my jacket?
Then she heard her mother calling.
Geez, now what?
‘It’s time to eat!’ called her mother.
The watch would have to wait – her mother was a stickler when it came to ‘dining time’.
The meal seemed to drag on for just about ever. Ruby was finding her folks less than scintillating company. Most of what they said she had heard from her history teacher, Mrs Schneiderman – she certainly was in no hurry to hear it all again.
‘Don’t you just love the legend of the Jade Buddha, Brant?’ cooed Sabina.
‘Love it,’ replied Brant.
‘It’s kind of romantic, don’t you think? To look the Buddha in the eye at the stroke of midnight – you know, as it rises up through the floor – and in that moment double your wisdom, and halve your age.’
‘Desperately romantic,’ agreed Brant, through a mouthful of steak and tomato.
‘I mean, imagine getting younger at the same time as you get wiser.’
‘Never to decay or fade away – wouldn’t that be swell,’ enthused Brant.