The House of Puzzles (4 page)

Gerald sat silently as the catcalls and jeers rained around him.

His insides were aglow. He was
possibly
Ruby’s best friend? How good was that! He
managed to blithely overlook the ease with which Ruby had dispatched the boyfriend
question. That was a minor detail, a mere speed bump in the highway of his plans
to ask her to be his girlfriend.

‘You’re
that
Ruby Valentine?’ The voice broke through the hubbub. A boy sitting opposite
Ruby was studying her face intently. Gerald recognised him from his French class:
Kobe Abraham.

‘You were in the newspapers over the Christmas break,’ the boy said, his eyes growing
wider. ‘Did someone really try to cut out your heart?’

The room could not have gone more quiet had a penguin walked in and asked for directions
to the sauna.

Every eye was fixed on Ruby. Even Miss Davenport, who appeared to be a stickler for
maintaining control in the classroom, was reeled in by Kobe’s question.

Ruby cleared her throat with a tight cough. ‘I may have had a run in with someone…’
she began.

‘It was in a torture chamber under a farm on an island off Sweden,’ Kobe said, his
gaze intensifying. ‘That’s right, isn’t it?’

Ruby raised her eyes to look at the boy. ‘You must have read a lot of newspapers
on the holidays,’ she said.

Kobe nodded eagerly. ‘I like to stay up to date,’ he said. ‘The man who attacked
you wanted to use your
heart in a potion that could cure all known diseases, right?’

Ruby’s eyes returned to the rug.

One of the girls who had been giggling at Alex chirped up. ‘What’s the matter? Couldn’t
he find it?’ Her friend emitted a sharp snort. ‘Or is it because your heart already
belongs to Gerald Wilkins?’ The two girls collapsed in laughter again.

Miss Davenport found her voice. ‘That is enough Millicent. You and Gretchen, control
yourselves.’

The girls smiled sweetly. ‘Yes, Miss Davenport,’ they chorused.

The get-to-know-you session dragged on for an hour, during which the campers got
to know about Kobe’s obsession with current events (‘If you’re not in the know, you’re
in the nowhere.’), Millicent’s fascination with fashion (‘Those hiking boots are
so last season.’), and Charlie’s desire to open the batting for the English cricket
team (‘I’ll run, but I’ll never walk!’).

Finally, it was Gerald’s turn.

After an hour of sitting cross-legged on the rug, he unhooked his feet and stretched
out, accidently kicking Ruby. ‘Sorry,’ he said, patting Ruby on the knee. This prompted
a barrage of smooching noises from Millicent and Gretchen.

‘Thank you, ladies. That will do,’ Miss Davenport said. She looked at Gerald. ‘Please,
go on.’

Gerald gave a curt nod. ‘My name is Gerald Wilkins,’
he said, ‘and I’m—’

‘The richest kid in the world!’ Kobe could not restrain himself. He was bouncing
with excitement. ‘He inherited twenty billion pounds from his great aunt who was
killed on the orders of Sir Mason Green, not that Green was ever convicted because
he faked his own death right in the witness box at the Old Bailey and escaped, but
then Gerald caught him again in Greece and he was locked up in jail, but he escaped
again and was involved in the kidnapping of a whole bunch of people from the British
Museum and the theft of some ancient document that once belonged to an old European
emperor and supposedly had the recipe for a cure-all medicine that required someone
to rip out Ruby’s heart, but she got away by stabbing a guy in the head with his
own nose!’ Kobe paused to take a breath. He looked at Gerald with wide eyes. ‘Did
I miss anything?’

Gerald chewed his bottom lip for a moment. ‘You forgot the Indian death cult and
the woman with the poison blowgun, but apart from that I think you pretty much got
it all.’ He looked at Miss Davenport. ‘Is that enough?’

‘Is all that true?’ she asked, her eyes bulging in their sockets.

Gerald shrugged. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I guess it is.’

‘Of course it is,’ Kobe said. ‘See? That’s why you’ve gotta read the papers. To stay
informed.’

Then another voice chimed in.

‘So how is your friend from the museum? The professor who went missing. Have you
heard from him?’

Gerald looked across to Alex Baranov, who was eyeing him intently. In one term and
one week at St Cuthbert’s, that might have been the first time Alex Baranov had spoken
to him.

‘He’s still missing,’ Gerald said through thin lips. ‘The police are looking for
him and the other people from the museum.’

Alex wrinkled his nose. ‘You must feel terrible,’ he said. ‘You know, the way you’re
the reason he went missing.’

Gerald muttered under his breath, ‘Ten whole weeks.’

Miss Davenport, clearly glad the session had come to an end, wished everyone a good
night and ushered them towards their cabins. Gerald was making his way to the door,
mumbling to Ruby about what a jerk Alex Baranov appeared to be, when he was grabbed
by the shoulder. He shouted a loud ‘Ow!’ and swung around to find Millicent and Gretchen
scowling at him.

‘Where did you get that?’ Millicent demanded. She was pointing to the mud-smeared
pillowcase that Gerald still had tucked into his sling. He had completely forgotten
he was carrying it around.

‘This is yours?’ he asked, pulling out the pillowslip.

Millicent snatched the grubby cloth from Gerald’s fingers and flipped it inside out
to reveal a nametag sewn into the lining:
Millicent Corfield
. ‘Have you been
snooping
around in our cabin? ‘Coz if you have, it takes just one word to Miss Davenport and
you are on the first bus home.’

Ruby slid in front of Gerald like a shield before a knight. The tip of her nose was
just millimetres from Millicent’s face. ‘It was given to him by a coward who was
too afraid to show his face,’ Ruby said. ‘Now, does that sound like anyone you might
know?’

Millicent’s jaw tightened but she said nothing.

‘Besides,’ Ruby continued, ‘I would hate to be the girl who ran to teacher on the
first night of camp just because her precious Hello Kitty pillowcase got some dirt
on it. You know, especially because all the stress threatened to bring on her chronic
bedwetting problem. That would be a terrible thing to live with. For ten weeks.’

Millicent’s eyes shot wide. ‘I don’t have a bedwetting problem!’ she said, her face
glowing red. A few heads turned their way and Millicent dropped her voice to a thick
whisper. ‘That’s a complete lie!’

Ruby gave an idle shrug. ‘Maybe. But you know how these stories get around.’ She
gave Millicent and Gretchen a look of disdain. ‘See you for breakfast, ladies.’

Ruby turned on her heel and strode out the door, leaving Gerald behind. He looked
first to Millicent and then to Gretchen, aware of the death stares they were directing
his way. ‘Um, it’s probably best not to get on Ruby’s bad side,’ he said with a nervous
chuckle. ‘She can be a little…stubborn.’ He nodded towards the pillowcase
in Millicent’s
hand. ‘Have a good sleep,’ he said, then, as an afterthought, ‘Meow.’

Gerald turned tail and bolted out the door to catch up with Ruby.

Chapter 3

When Gerald finally managed to drop off to sleep, he dreamed a giant, insanely grinning
kitten was attacking him. He sat upright with a gasp, almost waking Sam in the bunk
beneath him.

Gerald rolled onto his back and moved his right elbow across his belly to the only
position where the pain in his shoulder would ease. He stared at the ceiling and
sighed. The cabin contained three sets of bunks. The buzz of five sleeping boys seemed
to make the air vibrate. Gerald was sharing with Charlie Blagden and Kobe Abraham
from the get-to-know-you session, as well as Nic Lloyd and Giles Spofforth, who both
played in Gerald’s school rugby team, and Sam. It was a good cabin to be in. Certainly
better than having to share with
Alex Baranov and his cronies, Gerald thought.

‘Little blond twerp,’ Gerald mouthed into the darkness. His cheeks burned at how
rude Alex had been to Ruby. And as for him saying that it was Gerald’s fault that
Professor McElderry was still missing, well that was absurd. It was hardly Gerald’s
fault that Mason Green had ordered the professor’s kidnapping. Besides, what could
Gerald do about it? Just because everyone he got close to seemed to end up on the
receiving end of Mason Green’s wrath wasn’t Gerald’s doing. At least, Gerald frowned
into the darkness, not
entirely
his doing.

A movement at the window caught his eye. He rolled his head to get a better look.

Snow.

Gerald kicked his legs from his sleeping bag and dropped silently to the ground.
He stepped across to the window in his thick woollen socks and peered outside.

The air was alive with snowflakes, white wintry fluff dancing across a blackened
stage. Gerald stared at the scene with wonder. The ground was carpeted. Tree branches
stripped bare of leaves cradled thick clumps of snow in their arms. It was a postcard.

Perfect.

The setting was just what Gerald wanted for his grand plan to ask Ruby to be his
girlfriend.

He had it all figured. It would be on a night just like this one. As the other students
made their way to the various after-dinner activities that the teachers had
prepared
for them, Gerald would take Ruby by the arm and hold her back until they were alone.
It would be snowing and a few flakes would settle on the tip of Ruby’s nose. He would
brush them away, then say some special words (still to be determined—possibly a limerick)
and give her a gift with a ribbon tied around it. Ruby would be overjoyed by the
gesture and would agree to the whole girlfriend arrangement on the spot. Then it
would be a warm embrace and kisses and she would gaze at him in wonder and hug him
again and squeeze his hand and laugh and everything would be a blur of pulse-thumping
perfection.

Too easy.

Dr Crispin would
hate
it.

And Gerald had already bought the perfect gift: a brand new copy of
Zombie Viscera
Quest V
for X-Box. And if Ruby didn’t like it, Gerald could always play it. Win–win.

Now all Gerald had to do was go through with the plan.

Breakfast the next morning was a rowdy affair as two hundred hungry and excited students
crammed the dining hall. The clatter of cutlery on crockery echoed in the rafters.

Gerald and Sam eased onto a bench seat and put their
plates, piled with bacon, fried
mushrooms, tomatoes and eggs, on the long wooden table. Felicity emerged from the
kitchen and wandered over to join them with a small bowl of porridge and a fruit
salad.

Sam looked at Felicity’s breakfast and wrinkled his nose. ‘Have they run out of food
already?’ he asked.

Felicity stabbed a piece of kiwi fruit with her fork and popped it in her mouth.
She peered at the mound of bacon that was congealing on Sam’s plate in a shimmering
swamp of fat and gristle. ‘One can only hope, Sam, that your life will be as rich
and full as your arteries are going to be,’ she said.

Sam stuffed a rasher of bacon into his mouth. ‘You’re funny,’ he said through his
mouthful.

Felicity blanched and looked away. ‘That is terribly sick-making.’

Gerald upended a tomato sauce bottle over his plate, drowning its contents in thick
red goop. ‘Where’s Ruby?’ he asked. He was excited about his plan and already had
a good line on a limerick. Another day of drafting and it should be ready for the
big event.

Felicity bit into a strawberry and looked back towards the kitchen. ‘She was only
a few behind me in the queue. She can’t be far away.’

Gerald spotted her across the hall in her St Hilda’s maroon and navy tracksuit with
her blonde hair pulled into a ponytail. She was talking to a boy who had his back
to them. Then Gerald realised who it was.

‘Why is Ruby talking to Alex Baranov?’ Gerald asked.

And more importantly, Gerald thought, why is she smiling?

Felicity shifted along the bench to make space for Ruby as she joined them. ‘Good
morning everybody,’ Ruby said, cradling a bowl of honey-drizzled porridge in one
hand and a mug of tea in the other. ‘It’s so beautiful outside. All that snow last
night—’

‘What did Baranov want?’ Gerald asked, cutting her off mid-sentence.

Ruby looked at Gerald with surprise. ‘And good morning to you too, Ruby,’ she said
in her best teacher’s voice.

‘Huh?’

‘I said, ‘good morning’. It is polite to respond in kind.’

Gerald looked at her blankly. His excitement of a few moments before had evaporated.
‘Uh, good morning,’ he mumbled.

‘Better,’ Ruby said. ‘As for Alex—’

‘Oh, so you’re best friends with him now, are you?’

Ruby took a long sip of tea then fixed Gerald with a penetrating stare. ‘Maybe not
best friends,’ she said. ‘But friendly, anyway.’

‘What’s happened? Last night you sounded like you wanted to break his legs,’ Gerald
said. ‘And that went double for his buddies, Millicent and Gretchen.’