The Complete Ruby Redfort Collection

by Lauren Child

  ‘What’s she gonna do without her wheels?’ said Clancy.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Ruby. ‘I’ve never seen her without her vehicle.’

  They were staring at Mrs Beesman’s shopping cart. It was totally crushed and currently lying under a ton of tree.

  The cans of cat food still in the cart were also crushed and the cat food itself was oozing out. Mrs Beesman was finding it hard to keep the cats from trying to get it and in so doing cut themselves on the sharp metal of the torn-open tins. The old lady had rigged up a sort of fence construction, but the cats weren’t giving up. Mrs Beesman had a lot of cats, some people said she had around seventy-four of them – whether this was an accurate number or not, really didn’t matter. The important thing was: she had a problem and she needed help.

  ‘Don’t worry Mrs Beesman, we can handle this,’ said Ruby.

  Mrs Beesman grunted, the closest she ever got to speaking.

  Clancy and Ruby cleared the mess easily enough, but the cart was a goner.

  Lunch was interrupted by the chimes of the doorbell.

  ‘That will be the doc,’ said Ruby’s father, jumping to his feet.

  He scooted down to answer the door and returned with the doctor in tow.

  ‘Would you like to join us?’ asked Brant.

  Dr Shepherd shook his head. ‘No, I just dropped by to give you the good news – Sabina’s on the mend and she’s going to be just fine.’

  ‘So what was it? A bad case of stomach flu?’ asked Brant.

  ‘A bad case of shellfish poisoning,’ said Dr Shepherd.

  ‘Sabina is pretty adamant that she ate next to nothing last night on account of the dress mix up,’ said Brant.

  ‘She probably absent-mindedly popped an oyster and the rest as we say is a nasty case of vomiting and stomach cramps. One rogue oyster is all it takes to have you flat on your back with a few tubes in your arm.’

  ‘Well, thanks Dr Shepherd, I really appreciate you taking a look at her.’ Brant shook his head. ‘I don’t mind admitting it, for a minute there I thought she might not pull through.’

  Dr Shepherd put his hand on Brant’s shoulder. ‘The good thing is that she’s going to be OK, AOK, nothing to worry about. She’ll be back home tomorrow.’

  Brant smiled. ‘Well, having her back safe and sound is all I care about.’ He looked over at Ruby. ‘All we care about.’

  Ruby nodded, though she didn’t feel quite as reassured as her father did. Something was still gnawing at her.

  Something about shellfish. And oysters. And her mother’s ghostly pale face as she lay in that red dress.

  Chapter 24.

  Pick your poison

  ONCE THE DOCTOR HAD LEFT, Ruby returned to her room and found Clancy asleep on the beanbag. It had been a long, sleepless night, but Ruby was wide awake. She began scanning her bookshelves, running her hands across the spines, trying to locate a very particular volume. The book she was after was one with a cover illustration showing a perfect red apple. The back cover showed the same apple gone bad. The book was called: Pick Your Poison.

  Actually it was about a whole lot more than poison. It covered venom and toxins too. As the book’s introduction said: ‘Simply put, poisons are chemical substances which have an impact on the biological functions in other living organisms. A toxin is a poison produced by a living organism. Venoms are toxins, which are injected by way of sting or bite into another living organism. A venom is a toxin, but it does not follow that all toxins are venoms, just as all toxins are poisons but not all poisons are toxins. Any substance if taken in large enough quantity can be a poison and can lead to death. Even water, though essential for life, can be lethal if too much is consumed.’

  The book also had an epigram from Paracelsus, the father of toxicology: ‘Everything is poison, there is poison in everything. Only the dose makes a thing not a poison.’

  Interesting, thought Ruby. She turned to the second part of the book, a large glossy picture of a frog announcing the section that covered transdermal poisoning, beginning with a chapter on deadly frogs and toads.

  1. Strawberry Poison-dart Frog {Oophaga pumilio} A tiny vivid red frog native to Central America. Beautiful to look at, but contact with it will cause swelling and a burning sensation, though in comparison to other poison-dart frogs its toxicity is mild.

  Ruby didn’t make it past the strawberry variety of frog: by the time the clock struck three, she was fast asleep.

  When Ruby awoke, she found herself still thinking about frogs. And thinking about frogs led her to think about fairy tales. Frogs were big in fairy tales, and the more she thought about fairy tales, the more she began to think about murder. There was a lot of murder in fairy tales too, or at least a lot of attempted murder.

  Take Snow White, for instance. Just how many times did that stepmother queen try and kill poor little Snow White? Three times? More if you included her ordering the huntsman to do it for her. ‘Cut her heart from her …’ Wasn’t that how it went? Ruby reached for her Brothers Grimm and laid it down next to the poisons book and began to leaf through, looking for that most compliant of victims, Snow White.

  ‘I hope you’re not planning foul play.’

  Ruby nearly jumped out of her socks.

  ‘Mrs Digby! You shouldn’t creep up on people like that.’

  ‘I wasn’t creeping, it’s your guilty conscience that’s got you jumping,’ said the housekeeper. ‘What are you reading up on?’ She reached for her glasses. ‘Plotting a murder, are we?’

  ‘I was reading up on frogs and poison and that made me think of fairy tales.’

  ‘I don’t remember there being a frog in Snow White,’ said the housekeeper.

  ‘There isn’t, but there is poison,’ said Ruby, ‘and a lot of it.’

  ‘Yep, that poor old queen,’ said Mrs Digby. ‘She asks that huntsman to do one little murder and he lets her down – so she just thinks to herself, if you want a job doing properly then do it yourself.’

  ‘You remember what she does next?’ asked Ruby.

  ‘Sure I do,’ said Mrs Digby. ‘As I recall, she tries a poison comb, and apples, but she’s foiled every time by those interfering dwarves.’ She sighed. ‘The apple of course would have done the job had it not been for that sappy prince.’

  Ruby tutted. ‘You sound like you’re on the wicked queen’s side, Mrs Digby.’

  ‘No,’ said Mrs Digby shaking her head, ‘I’m not in favour of murder, not a bit, but I have sympathy for her plight none the less. She was the best at something, even if it was only the best at being beautiful.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean she should go around killing teenagers though,’ said Ruby.

  ‘Quite so, I couldn’t agree more,’ said the housekeeper, ‘just saying it can hurt like misery when you lose that number one spot in the beauty parade, don’t matter if it’s looks or brains.’

  ‘Were you a beauty queen, Mrs Digby?’ asked Ruby.

  Mrs Digby rolled her eyes. ‘Lawks no child, but for a while I was the most talented cake baker in the county until Brenda Hathaway came along.’

  ‘I see your point,’ said Ruby, remembering how Dakota Lyme had reacted to coming second in the mathlympics meet.

  ‘That Brenda Hathaway,’ said Mrs Digby, ‘it might not have been her fault, but it stung like poison oak losing out to her.’

  No wonder Mrs Digby had objected so to Consuela Cruz taking over her kitchen.

  ‘Well, I’ll leave you to it,’ said the housekeeper, shaking her head as she gathered the dirty mugs, glasses and cereal bowls onto her tray and tottered back downstairs.

  ‘I’ll holler when supper’s done,’ she called. ‘You’d better wake old sleeping beauty there and ask him if he wants to stick around for nourishment or if he’s planning on heading home any time.’

  Ruby flicked through the pages of Pick Your Poison, leaving the frogs and toads behind her.

  The first section of this chapter covered Greek myths and legends – like tha
t of Glauce, poisoned by a dress. Ruby knew the story already: when Jason (of Argonauts notoriety) abandoned Medea to marry Glauce instead, Medea took revenge by sending Glauce a wedding dress and a crown as a gift, both soaked in poison. Glauce wore the dress and crown, and she died. Boy, that Medea was not the sort to bow out gracefully, thought Ruby. As ancient Greek as all this sounded and a long way from real life, it did make Ruby wonder. She remembered her mother complaining that the altering service at the dress store had returned the dress damp.

  What if the dress Mom was wearing was soaked in something toxic? What if that toxin soaked into her skin and poisoned her?

  It seemed like a pretty stupid thought until she turned to the next section and there was a story about a young woman who purchased a second-hand wedding dress from a thrift store. Unfortunately the dress had previously been worn by a dead person and was soaked with embalming fluid, unfortunate because the young woman who wore the dress to her wedding very nearly died as the poison began to work its way into her system. It was a far-fetched scenario, no doubt apocryphal, some kind of urban myth, but it did make the whole poison dress idea seem much more possible.

  First question to answer was: if her mother’s dress was poisoned with some toxic substance then how did it get there?

  Had her mother accidentally spilt something on the dress? Had someone else accidentally spilt something on the dress?

  What kind of scenario would allow you to spill something dangerously toxic on a dress and not even notice?

  She leant over and shook Clancy, who had been sleeping solidly for the past several hours.

  ‘Hey Clance, wake up!’

  He murmured but continued to sleep. She shook him more vigorously.

  ‘Wake up!’

  ‘Huh, what, I didn’t do anything,’ he called out.

  ‘Relax Clancy, it’s me.’

  ‘Oh, what is it? Something happen?’ he asked.

  She looked at him. ‘Maybe,’ she said.

  Ruby pointed to the page illustrated with the drawing of the swooning bride. Clancy read. It took him two reads before he got it.

  ‘You’re saying your mom’s dress was poisoned? That doesn’t seem very likely.’

  ‘I’m saying it could have been, it’s a possibility, but just say it was … then consider how.’

  ‘On purpose?’ Clancy was looking at her. ‘You think if it happened it would be on purpose, right?’

  Ruby paused before saying, ‘I know it sounds far-fetched, but on the other hand, how could it happen by accident? I mean, just how do you accidentally poison someone’s evening gown?’

  ‘You spill something, knock something over, the cat knocks something over, your mom spills something on it … What something are we talking about here?’

  ‘Could be various things. But based on her symptoms – the dizziness, the paleness, the lack of coordination, the metallic taste in her mouth – I’d put my money on methanol. It’s used for embalming and so the question to ask would be: why would it be anywhere near a dress shop or my mom’s bedroom for that matter?’

  Clancy flicked through the pages of Pick Your Poison till he found a section called ‘Methanol Poisoning’.

  Methanol is the simplest alcohol compound and is highly toxic. It can enter the system by ingestion, inhalation or absorption through the skin, and its effects can be fatal. Its primary toxic mechanism is a process of formate production: methanol is metabolised in the body into formic acid. This inhibits mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase, creating hypoxia at the cellular level, which—

  ‘What’s hypoxia?’ said Clancy.

  ‘Lack of oxygen,’ said Ruby. ‘It basically suffocates your cells.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound nice.’

  ‘You got that right. It would have you looking like the Rigors of Mortis Square given time. ’

  ‘So if this poison is so dangerous,’ asked Clancy, ‘then how come your mom didn’t die?’

  ‘She cured herself,’ said Ruby.

  ‘How could she?’ said Clancy. ‘She had no idea what was making her sick.’

  ‘It was just a fortuitous coincidence,’ said Ruby. ‘One of the cures for methanol poisoning is ethanol, because the body processes that instead and excretes the methanol – and my mom happens to like the odd glass of ethanol.’

  Clancy’s face suggested a total blank in the brain, so Ruby filled him in.

  ‘Alcohol. Ethanol is the chemical name for alcohol, and my mom drank martini cocktails that night and that’s what saved her life – she administered her own antidote.’

  Clancy stared at her, eyes huge.

  ‘If I could get hold of the dress then I could prove it,’ said Ruby.

  ‘You think?’ he asked.

  ‘I could be wrong, it’s just a theory,’ said Ruby.

  ‘Yeah and a really creepy one,’ said Clancy, ‘if you don’t mind my saying it. I really hope you’re wrong.’

  ‘Are you a complete

  brainless wonder?’

  said the woman …

  ‘… Let me explain,’ he replied.

  ‘I’d like that,’ she said, ‘because the thing is, sweetheart, I just can’t seem to square it … Why did we go to all that trouble of springing you from jail when you seem to be a complete and utter waste of space?’

  ‘I thought the plan was foolproof.’

  ‘I thought you were supposed to be some kind of expert, but it seems you’re just an idiot.’

  ‘I was off my game, I’ve been out of action cooped up in a cell six foot by seven foot.’

  ‘You’ll be six foot under if he has his way.’

  ‘Has he said anything?’

  ‘I don’t think you want to know.’

  ‘What can I do?’

  ‘You better make it right, sweetie – you better get to that hospital and retrieve the dress.’

  ‘You want me to destroy it?’

  ‘That’s about right. If anyone cares to take a long hard look, then they’ll know the truth and we don’t want this coming back to bite us.’

  ‘Consider it done.’

  ‘No, sweetie, I’ll consider it done when it’s done. Until then you better pray he doesn’t decide to terminate your contract, and by terminate I mean …’

  ‘I know what you mean.’

  ‘Good, I hate having to spell things out. Oh, and I wouldn’t run if I were you, that’ll just make him angry, you know what he’s like, and he’ll only find you anyway and it won’t be pretty when he does.’

  Chapter 25.

  Dressed to kill

  THE NEXT MORNING WHEN SHE OPENED THE FRONT DOOR, Ruby thought her mother looked frailer than she had ever seen her. Sabina stepped unsteadily out of the car, her skin so pale that she could have doubled for the part of Cordelia Rigor, and Ruby hoped her father had a firm grip on her mother’s arm because if that wind caught her then she might be snatched up and whirled away.

  ‘That’s the last time I eat an oyster,’ said Sabina easing herself into a chair like she was a very old lady.

  ‘I didn’t think you did,’ said Ruby.

  ‘I am beginning to think I must have, everyone says I did, but one thing’s for sure – I don’t want to look an oyster in the eye ever again.’

  ‘Oysters don’t have eyes,’ said Ruby, ‘or at least not what you would consider to be eyes.’

  ‘Don’t they?’ said Sabina. ‘How do they see?’

  ‘I’ll get you a book on the topic,’ said Ruby. ‘I have one upstairs.’

  Sabina thought for a second. ‘Oh yes, that’s right, they don’t have faces … You know, would you mind if we changed the subject?’

  ‘Happily,’ said Ruby.

  Sabina was silent for a minute as she took in the entire picture that was Ruby. ‘I think I’m about to barf,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll get you to the bathroom,’ said Ruby.

  ‘No, I was just reading your T-shirt,’ said Sabina. ‘I know the feeling only too well.’

  ‘O
h sorry,’ said Ruby, ‘I’ll just go change into something less descriptive.’ She glanced down at her left arm. She could see her mother trying to make out what it said. ‘Something with long sleeves,’ she added.

  Ruby was remembering what the doctor had said: ‘Try to make sure your mother avoids stress of any kind.’

  Ruby wasn’t sure if it was stressful for her mother to look at an arm which said WAKE UP AND SMELL THE BANANA MILK, but she was certain it was kinder not to remind her about how Friday night had been spent.

  Sabina had retired to her bed by the time Ruby returned to the kitchen, so she made her a cup of tea and went on down to her mother’s room. Brant had gone to the store to get some particular herbal remedy, one Mrs Digby swore by, so Ruby stayed a while, chatting to her mother and generally being thoughtful and, when the moment came, she enquired about the dress.

  ‘So what did you do with your evening wear?’ she asked, faux-casual. She was peering into the small suitcase her father had packed for Sabina and could see no red dress.

  ‘I really don’t know,’ said Sabina, ‘but I have to say, I really don’t care either. I don’t think I’d wear that dress again to save my life.’

  ‘So what do you think happened to it?’ said Ruby.

  ‘I guess it got lost. It should have been in my hospital locker, but that was empty when I checked out.’

  It was while she was babysitting later that morning that Ruby put her master plan into action. She figured it would not only get her out of the Lemon house with no objection from either her parents or Elaine, but also save her from momentous boredom.

  ‘Of course, good idea, take Archie out, Ruby, he could use the air.’ Elaine Lemon looked like she could also use the silence, but Ruby said nothing to that effect and instead packed Archie into his stroller, gathered up the mind-boggling amount of stuff that people seemed to insist a baby needed and left the house.

  She wasn’t actually headed to the park as she had told Mrs Lemon, but instead to Clancy’s house on Ambassador Row.