Ruby Redfort 1 - Look Into My Eyes (4 page)

Wvitp xrauuziv vuwp eofyboc
efivrlw ay va mq vcwpw.
*

Ruby smiled, scribbled something on a bubble-gum wrapper,

Nsyq ltszsjyk wvy ptrwayoe!

pushed it into the hole in the tree, and climbed back down.

When she got home, she found her parents were still discussing the tomato gloop incident. Her mother was saying, “I hate for Mrs. Digby to be unhappy but we can’t lose Consuela, she is a dietary genius.”

“Why don’t I call that house-management agency?” said her father. “See if they can’t send someone to sort of keep control.”

“I guess it’s worth a shot,” replied her mother.

The telephone began to ring.

“I’ll get it!” called Ruby. She was sure this time it would be Clancy complaining about all the smiling he had had to do at his dad’s dinner, but disappointingly there was no one on the end of the line.

*
THIS IS A VIGENERE CIPHER. IF YOU WANT TO CRACK IT YOU WILL NEED TO FIND THE KEY. CLUE 1: THE EYES HAVE IT.

THE NEXT MORNING RUBY WAS JUST
fixing her barrette the way she always fixed her barrette, when the phone in her bathroom rang.

It will be Clancy,
she thought.
I’ll bet he’s calling to complain about his hives
.

She picked up the receiver.

“Twinford sewage plant, how may we assist?”

But there was no reply.

“Weird,” muttered Ruby, replacing the handset.

There was no sign of Mrs. Digby — no doubt she was still smarting about the tomato-juice incident. So Ruby swallowed a large glass of orange juice in a single gulp, grabbed her schoolbag with one hand and a chocolate peanut cookie with the other, and shouted good-bye to her parents, who didn’t hear because they were engaged in a fascinating discussion about which dry cleaner might best remove a tomato juice stain from a silk jacket.

Ruby’s bike had a flat, so she was taking the school bus this morning.

Twinford Junior High School was two buildings really. One old, grand and in some ways beautiful — a little run-down on the inside but somehow comfortable. The other starkly modern, stylish, and sterile. Ruby sauntered into class just before Mrs. Drisco, her homeroom teacher, called out her name. Mrs. Drisco made the same comment she always made when Ruby was late, and Ruby made the usual faces behind her back.

The truth was, Mrs. Drisco found Ruby Redfort “
Rather full of herself, utterly unmanageable, and impossible to teach.”
Ruby Redfort found Mrs. Drisco “
A royal pain in the derriere.”

They were both right.

When it came to teaching the smartest student in the history of Twinford Junior High, Mrs. Drisco was out of her depth. On the other hand, it was a little pathetic for a grown-up teacher to be so snarky.

Once this little pupil-teacher exchange was over, Ruby went and sat down next to Clancy.

“So was last night fun?” whispered Ruby.

“Well, that depends on what you call fun. My sister Nancy accidentally sat on the Spanish ambassador’s dessert,” replied Clancy.

“Oh, well at least she
got
dessert — some of us weren’t so lucky,” said Ruby.

“What?” said Clancy.

“Never mind, I’ll tell you later,” whispered Ruby.

It was the usual Twinford Junior High day, nothing in any way out of the ordinary. Ruby had the usual interaction with her archenemy, Vapona Begwell, which went something like this:

There was a mildly interesting geography lesson followed by a mind-numbingly dreary French class (Ruby’s French was already so good that she spent the lesson reading
War and Peace
in the original Russian). History had Mrs. Schneiderman promising in the next week or so to give a lecture on the Jade Buddha of Khotan. “My, it’s the most fascinating story,” she said. “I could talk about it forever.”

“Meet my folks and you probably will,” muttered Ruby.

At lunchtime Ruby got into an altercation with Mrs. Arthur over the
let them eat cake
T-shirt she was wearing. Ruby was protesting about Mrs. Arthur’s strict guidelines about cake — or, more accurately, no cake. Mrs. Arthur had banned cake.

All the pupils with the exception of Denning Minkle, who had a sugar allergy, supported Ruby. However, Ruby was requested to turn her T-shirt inside out or risk a month of detention.

Ruby said good-bye to Clancy, who was being kept behind so he could retake his French vocab test. He was nervous; French made him feel queasy, and Madame Loup gave him the shivers.

“You’ll be fine, Clance,” said Ruby, as she slipped him an index card. “Copy this list onto your arm and you’ll have no problem.”

The piece of paper had all the test answers written in code — the code they had devised a couple of years ago and perfect for a situation like this. To the regular human on the street it just looked like gobbledygook.

Then it was time to catch the bus back to Cedarwood Drive.

Yes, everything was pretty normal. Things only began to get strange when Ruby arrived home.

She swung open the gate and saw that the front door to the house was standing open and a police car was parked in the drive. As she walked up the stairs to the kitchen, she could hear the voice of Sheriff Bridges.

Now what is he doing here?

It didn’t take Ruby long to find out. She stood there in the living room, openmouthed.

Everything had gone. Well, almost everything. The telephone was still plugged into its socket and was sitting on the floor. Apart from that the house was as empty as a house could be. Even the dust was gone. It was obvious to anyone, even someone who had never visited the Redforts before, that they had been robbed.

“Yes,” said her mother, guessing her daughter’s thoughts, “Every room is full of nothing.”

RUBY TURNED AND RAN UPSTAIRS,
right to the top of the house. She went into her empty bedroom and set about pulling at the wobbly floorboards. As she lifted them up she was met by the yellow glow of her six hundred and twenty-one yellow notebooks.

Thank goodness, it seemed everything was in order. Next she checked the doorjamb and was reassured to see that, yes, the six hundred and twenty-second notebook was also safe. She checked her other eleven hiding places before breathing a huge sigh of relief.

As Ruby turned to leave the room, she caught sight of her donut phone tucked underneath the bookcase. It was the only remaining phone from her collection and the only remaining
visible
object in the room. She picked it up and dialed Clancy’s number. He wasn’t home yet, so she left a message. “Call me, OK?” Then she went back downstairs. As she walked into the kitchen she adopted an expression of quiet distress.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” said her mother kindly.

“Don’t worry, Ruby, we’re going to track this yo-yo down,” said the sheriff, patting her on the shoulder. “I’ll see myself out, Mrs. R.”

“Good-bye, Nat,” called Sabina.

Two minutes later the doorbell rang.

“Oh, Ruby honey, would you get that?” asked her mother. “It’s probably Nat, he’s forgotten his notepad.”

But when Ruby answered the door she was surprised to see a remarkably handsome, rather tall, formally dressed man. He was neither particularly young nor would he ever be considered in any way old — in fact it was impossible to really put any accurate age on him.

“You are inside out,” said the man, extending his hand.

“Huh?” said Ruby.

“Let me guess, the so-called authority figures didn’t like your silent demands?” he was pointing at her T-shirt, which was of course inside out, the
let them eat cake
slogan no longer visible.

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Something like that . . .”

How did he know about the school cake protest?
she wondered.

Who is this guy?

Her mother by now had made her way downstairs. “Can I help you?” she asked uncertainly.

“Hitch,” said the man, looking into the house. “I see you go in for the minimalist look.”

“Pardon me? Oh, yes, I see what you mean. We’ve been robbed,” stammered Sabina. “I’m afraid there’s nothing to photograph.”

“Well, luckily I didn’t bring my camera.”

“Why ever not?” Sabina said, shaking his hand. Ruby noticed the man wince as if the action had caused him a sudden flash of pain.

“Because I take terrible photographs — always getting my thumb in front of the lens.”

Sabina looked blank. “But aren’t you the photographer from
Living Luxury
magazine?”

“I’m a household manager — from Zen Home management. You called this morning?”

“Oh!” said Sabina brightly. “You’re the butler?”

“I prefer household manager, but butler if you insist.”

“But I only called the house-management agency a few hours ago, they said no one would be available for weeks, how did you . . .”

“I returned from London unexpectedly two hours ago. My previous employers, Lord and Lady Wellingford, suddenly decided to tour the palaces of India and no longer required my services.”

“But surely they will be back in a few weeks?”

“Not for three years,” he replied quickly.

“It takes three years to tour the palaces of India?” said Sabina.

“They are traveling by elephant.”

A likely story,
thought Ruby.
I’ll bet he got fired.

“So, do you want to see my references? I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.” He winked at Sabina and she giggled.

“I’ll bet I won’t!” said Sabina cheerily.

Oh, brother!
thought Ruby.

“I’m so glad you’re here, Mr. Hitch.”

“Just Hitch — that’ll do fine.”

“Oh, of course, that’s a butler thing, isn’t it, calling yourself by your last name.”

“Well, in this instance it’s more of a me thing. It’s my only name — only my mother calls me anything else.”

“Oh, and what does she call you?” asked Sabina.

“Darling, usually.”

“Well, you can call me just Sabina — or darling — no, just kidding . . .”

Ruby looked at her mother. Something strange had happened.
Why was she giggling like an idiot?

“Anyway, I don’t mind telling you, Hitch,” Sabina went on, “things have been none too pleasant around here lately, no siree Bob. First the airline totally lost our luggage, and now look — we have been cleaned out.”

Sabina babbled on excitedly about the tomato incident and Hitch listened. It was if she had fallen under some kind of spell.

What is this guy, some kind of hypnotist?

Sabina was interrupted by the ring of the telephone.

“At least we still have the telephone!” cried Sabina, delighted that one small possession had escaped the burglar’s grasp. “I expect that’ll be the airline! Get that would you, Ruby?”

Ruby walked over to the phone and picked up the receiver. “Chuck’s Cheesery, you want cheese, we aim to please.”

But for the third time there was absolutely no one on the end of the line. She hung up and was about to dial Clancy’s number when the phone rang again.

“Look, buster, if you ain’t gonna talk, why call?”

“I’m sorry?” said a low, gravelly voice.

“What’s with all the heavy breathing and hanging up? It
is
considered
rude
you know,” snapped Ruby.