The House of Puzzles (11 page)

The teacher crossed to where Ruby and Alex were sitting and gave Ruby a look laced
with meaning. ‘You
see, Miss Valentine? Your brother has the right approach. There
is more to history than simple regurgitation of birthdays. Do you know another quite
interesting thing about King James?’

Ruby’s lips were pulled tight across her teeth. ‘I’m sure we’re about to find out,’
she said.

Miss Whitaker’s eyes flashed wide. ‘The King made a trip to Copenhagen in his younger
days, to collect his bride to be, a young lady named Anne of Denmark. Can you guess
who he met when he was there?’

Ruby looked at Miss Whitaker with scathing eyes. ‘I have no idea.’

Miss Whitaker smiled pleasantly at Ruby. ‘Why Tycho Brahe, of course,’ she said.
‘Isn’t that interesting?’

Ruby’s response earned her a Saturday detention.

Chapter 11

That night, after dinner, Ruby could barely string together a coherent sentence.

‘I’ll tell you something interesting,’ she said in a passable imitation of Miss Whitaker’s
Scottish trill. ‘Here’s something I bet you didn’t know. I’ve got a big bum face.
That’s right. My face looks exactly the same as my bum. That way you don’t know whether
I’m coming or going. Ha!’

Everyone around the table stared at Ruby like she was a blocked kettle about to blow
its top.

‘You heard right,’ she said, taking a moment to regather the strands of her rage.
‘Bumface!’

Gerald gave Felicity an encouraging nudge. Felicity swallowed tightly then reached
out a hand to pat Ruby
on the arm. ‘It’s only a detention,’ she said, as if she was
negotiating with a sugar-loaded toddler carrying a bulging water balloon. ‘It’s not
the end of the world.’

Ruby turned manic eyes to Felicity. Gerald had never witnessed the actual moment
a normal human transformed into a flesh-guzzling zombie, but he expected it would
look pretty much like Ruby at that moment.

‘Only a detention?’ Ruby said. Her eyelids drew back to reveal more eyeball than
was comfortably necessary. ‘You don’t understand: I never get detentions.’ She clamped
a hand on Felicity’s arm. ‘Never.’

Felicity’s mouth formed a tight O shape. ‘Ow! You’re hurting me.’

Ruby gripped tighter. ‘
Never ever
.’

‘Fingernails!’ Felicity squeaked. ‘Fingernails!’ She whipped her arm free, rubbing
a neat semicircle of talon marks.

Sam looked up from a notepad where he had been keeping himself busy with a pencil,
a compass and a ruler. ‘This detention will be a first,’ he said. ‘It’s been a point
of pride for Ruby, like a perfect driving record. This will be her first ever speeding
ticket.’

Gerald looked back to Ruby. Her arms clamped her knees to her chest, and her breathing
came in shallow pants.

‘Is she going to be all right?’ he asked Sam.

Sam studied his sister for a moment. ‘Who knows—we’re entering uncharted territory.
You know those old
maps that showed the edges of the explored world with drawings
of hideous winged beasts and the warning,
Here there be dragons
?’

‘What about them?’

Sam cocked his head towards Ruby. ‘Dragon.’

Gerald, Sam, Felicity and a shell-shocked Ruby sat in a collection of mismatched
armchairs around a coffee table in one of the many lounge rooms at Camp Oates. There
were similar clusters of beanbags and couches around the room, all warmed by the
well-stocked fireplace. Outside, a frigid gale clawed at the windowpanes.

Felicity gave her forearm another rub. ‘We don’t have a lot of time,’ she said. ‘Professor
McElderry is in real danger. And we have to finish the Triple Crown as well as solve
the code. Mason Green was very clear on that.’

‘And Sergei Baranov was equally clear that we shouldn’t finish the Triple Crown,’
Gerald said. He tossed his pencil into a nest of screwed-up balls of paper and empty
mugs. ‘I don’t know what’s driving me more nuts: the Baranovs or this stupid code.
Unless we find the keyword we’ll never solve it.’ Gerald stretched his arms wide
to ease the crick in his back. ‘All I can think of is poor Professor McElderry. It
was like he was lost in time.’ He looked over to Sam who was drawing circles with
his compass. ‘What are you working on?’

Sam rubbed an eraser on his pad, sending a shower
of bits across Gerald’s shirtfront.
‘Sorry about that,’ he said, not sounding the least bit sorry. He held up his notebook,
revealing a sketch of an elaborate piece of machinery.

‘What is that supposed to be?’ Felicity asked.

Sam rolled his eyes as if it was the most ridiculous question he had ever heard.
‘It’s a perpetual motion machine,’ he said. ‘I’m designing one.’

Felicity reached over and patted him on the arm. ‘Of course you are.’

‘It’s based on magnets, see? A whole series of them on a tiny ferris wheel. And what
do we know about magnets?’

Felicity narrowed her eyes. ‘Opposite poles attract,’ she said.

‘Very good,’ Sam said, as if talking to a three-year-old. ‘So when we set the wheel
spinning, the magnets around the outside are attracted to this magnet that’s fixed
at the top. But when they get close, the influence of the opposite pole takes over
and pushes the wheel around. The wheel will keep turning forever and ever.’

Felicity’s eyes narrowed further. ‘I topped my year in science, Sam. You do know
that, don’t you?’ she said. ‘Perpetual motion is not possible because it violates
the basic laws of thermodynamics.’

Sam looked at her as if she was blowing spit bubbles. ‘Turning forever and ever and—ow!’

Sam clamped his hands over the spot on his forehead
where Ruby had cracked him with
a teaspoon. ‘Don’t be such a wally,’ Ruby said. ‘Felicity is way smarter than you
could ever hope to be.’

Sam glared at his sister. ‘You’ve crawled out of the dragon’s nest, have you?’

‘I’ve been thinking, dopey drawers,’ Ruby said.

‘Really?’ Sam brandished the blueprint for his machine. ‘And what do you call this?’

Ruby glanced at the drawing. ‘Daycare for kindergarten kids,’ she said. She turned
to Gerald, all business. ‘I’m sorry for being so insensitive about Professor McElderry.
A weekend detention doesn’t even begin to compare with what he is going through.
Now, this is what we should do. On Saturday, Gerald and Felicity are going to find
that symbol for the Triple Crown. I’m stuck in detention but I think I can get Miss
Bumface to give me access to the library. Maybe I can find out something about Jeremy
Davey that will help crack the code. With a bit of luck we can complete both tasks
on the same day.’

Sam gave his forehead another rub and inspected his fingers for any sign of blood.
‘What about me?’ he said. ‘What am I doing?’

Ruby leaned across and patted Sam on the arm. ‘Why don’t you spend the day in the
camp workshop and see if you can build your perpetual motion machine?’

Sam’s face lit up. ‘Great idea!’ he said.

Ruby took a slow breath. ‘Weekend daycare,’ she muttered to herself.

Professor McElderry visited Gerald’s nightmares that evening. And the dreams grew
increasingly gruesome as the week wore on. In them, the professor blundered across
a bleak landscape. Gerald tried to guide him to safety, but every time Gerald thought
he had his friend out of harm’s way, the professor would slip his grasp and be swallowed
by a billowing fog. If that wasn’t disturbing enough, the thing that most freaked
out Gerald was McElderry’s eyes. They were sealed shut, leaving him blindly shuffling
through an endless night of despair. Gerald got to the end of the week having had
almost no decent sleep.

‘You look terrible,’ Ruby said as she joined him in the breakfast queue on Saturday
morning.

Gerald stared ahead through hard-boiled eyes. ‘Thanks. And your face could stop a
clock,’ he mumbled.

Ruby smiled to herself and nudged Gerald with her shoulder. ‘You’re in a great state
to find that checkpoint today.’

Gerald blinked. It was like someone had lined his eyelids with sandpaper. ‘You seem
ridiculously happy for someone about to do a day’s detention,’ he said.

They moved forward in the queue. Ruby rose onto her tiptoes to see what was on offer
for breakfast. ‘It’s not so much a day lost indoors as the chance to find out more
about Jeremy Davey,’ she said.

‘More?’ Gerald said.

‘All right,’ Ruby said. ‘Something. In fact, anything would be better than what we’ve
got now.’

Gerald took a plate and asked the woman behind the counter for scrambled eggs and
a double serve of bacon.

‘Busy day ahead, dear?’ the woman asked as she piled rashers onto a mound of watery
eggs.

‘It has disaster written all over it,’ he replied.

‘That’s nice, dear,’ the woman said.

Ruby filled a bowl with porridge and followed Gerald to a table.

Gerald picked at his eggs. ‘Do you really think you’ll find anything about Jeremy
Davey in the library. It’s a long shot, isn’t it?’

‘Put it this way,’ Ruby said. ‘I’ve got a better chance of doing that than Sam has
of building a perpetual motion machine.’ She shook her head. ‘He is a lovable dolt.’

Gerald shifted in his seat and accidentally brushed up against Ruby’s leg.

‘Sorry,’ he said.

Ruby flashed him a smile. ‘That’s all right.’

A familiar warmth flooded Gerald’s chest. It dawned on him that the two of them were
alone.

No interruptions.

No distractions.

‘This is nice,’ he said.

Ruby glanced at the grey splodge of warmed-up oats in her bowl. ‘I’ve had better.’

‘Not the breakfast,’ Gerald said. ‘This. You. And… you know…me.’

Ruby bit her bottom lip and her cheeks deepened a shade. ‘Oh…’

There was an awkward pause.

‘
I once knew a girl named Ruby
—’

Ruby turned to face Gerald front on. ‘Look, what is it with all the attempts at limericks?’
she asked. ‘It’s a bit bizarre.’

It was Gerald’s turn to blush. ‘They’re poems,’ he said. ‘They’re meant to be charming.’

Ruby thought about that for a second. ‘No, they’re just bizarre. What are they for?’

‘For?’ Gerald said, louder than he had intended. ‘They’re for you. But every time
I start we get interrupted or a madman with a gun bursts through the door.’

Ruby pressed her lips together. ‘That’s very sweet,’ she said, not daring to make
eye contact. ‘Can I hear one?’

Gerald shuffled in his seat. ‘All right. It’s still a bit rough.’ He cleared his
throat and stared hard at his plate of bacon.

There once was a girl named Ruby,

Who played video games like a newbie

She could hike miles and miles,

And just one of her smiles,

Makes my stomach go scooby-dooby-doo-bee…

There is nothing as dead as the silence that follows a love poem in the form of a
badly rhyming limerick.
Gerald raised his eyes expectantly towards Ruby.

Ruby was pressing her lips together really hard.

Finally, Gerald broke the silence. ‘Ruby, I’d really like it if you would be my—’

Ruby shot out a hand and clamped it over Gerald’s mouth. ‘
Mmmmwwmmfffmm
,’ he said.

Ruby spoke slowly and distinctly, as if talking to someone who had lost his hearing
aid. ‘I have to go to my detention now,’ she said. ‘I can’t be late. You have a good
day with Felicity and come back with that stamp, okay?’ Ruby’s hand tracked up and
down as Gerald slowly nodded his head. ‘Good,’ she said, her cheeks deepening another
shade. ‘Good. We can talk about your…um…poetry later. Oh, crumbs.’ And then she was
off, weaving through the maze of tables and out of the dining hall.

Gerald blinked after her.

Then a broad smile broke out on his face.

‘She didn’t say no,’ he said out loud.

Gerald’s reverie was broken by the appearance of Felicity. She crooked her elbow
through his and yanked him to his feet. He looked at her with dazed surprise. ‘What’s
the matter?’

‘Change of plan,’ Felicity said. She looked around, as if anxious not to be noticed
as she guided Gerald towards the door. ‘There’s a beautiful girl out here who is
desperate to meet you.’

Chapter 12

Gerald gazed into two large brown eyes. He stood mesmerised.

‘Isn’t she gorgeous?’ Felicity whispered in Gerald’s ear. ‘I know you two are going
to fall deeply in love.’

Gerald blinked. The big round eyes staring back at him did not.

‘But,’ Gerald said in a voice soaked in doubt, ‘I hate horses.’

The chestnut mare, sensing Gerald’s unease, unleashed a lip-flapping blast of hay
breath straight into his face.

Gerald struggled to keep his breakfast in his stomach. ‘That is disgusting,’ he said.

Felicity stepped between Gerald and the horse and
ran a hand down the length of the
mare’s face. ‘Don’t be foul, Gerald,’ she said. ‘You’ll hurt Marjory’s feelings.’

‘That’s another thing,’ Gerald said. ‘The name. Can’t you find one called Flash or
Lightning or Thunderbolt?’