Ruby Redfort 1 - Look Into My Eyes (20 page)

Ruby listened as her mother broke into peals of laughter.

More laughter. Barbara always made Ruby’s mom laugh like this, and it was hard to know if she would ever get to the end of this story because she and Barbara had a habit of going off the subject.

Now Ruby’s ears had truly pricked up; she stopped chewing her bubble gum.

Get on with it!
thought Ruby.

Ruby’s mother was laughing so hard she nearly fell off her chair.

Ruby gave up listening. This type of conversation could go on for hours between her mother and Barbara, and it was unlikely that they would return to the point. Ruby wandered upstairs to the kitchen, deep in thought. Grabbing a cookie, she made her way to her room, pulled out her notebook and jotted down everything she’d overheard. Her mother might be convinced it was just a case of mistaken identity but Ruby wasn’t so sure.

One thing her mother was right about, however, was that she
had
been having a lot of bad luck lately.

THURSDAY CAME AND IT STARTED WELL
— that is to say, the sun came up. But things went downhill from there.

First of all, Ruby was woken early by Consuela.

“Hey, Ruby, get up. Your new bed has arrived.”

“I have a bed, I’m in it,” muttered Ruby. She had the covers pulled up to her nose and an eye mask printed with the words,
wake only in case of emergency.

Consuela lifted the mask. “Well, your mother has bought you a whole bedroom set so you better snap to it,
señorita.
”

Ruby pulled the covers over her face. “Tell her I like it the way it is. I like the space, it’s very Zen, you know what I’m saying?”

“Well, you can discuss it with her yourself. I’m not interested — but furniture or no furniture she wants you out of here,” said Consuela.

“As far as I am aware,” said Ruby confidently, “today is Twinford Blossom Day, and
that means
a local holiday, which means I get to stay in bed.”

“Not today, missy,” said Consuela, tapping her foot. “
Today
you have lunch with the Humberts.”

Slowly Ruby peeled the sheet from her face. “You are not serious?”

Consuela, who was standing with her hands firmly on her hips, nodded. “Sorry to ruin your Thursday but you better get dressed, missy —
rápido
.”

Ruby was missing Mrs. Digby;
she
would at least have looked sympathetic.

The thing was, Brant Redfort was a stickler for manners, and the very thought that anyone might feel in any way snubbed by a member of the Redfort family made him shudder. There were no two ways about it — she would have to go.

“Hey, is my jacket mended yet?” asked Ruby.

“No, Hitch sent it away,” said Consuela.

“Sent it away where?” asked Ruby.

“To the place that’s cleaning your mother’s jacket — Clean and Crisp or something — he says it’s the best for repairs.”

Darn it,
thought Ruby,
that watch sure would come in handy on a boring day like today
—
hey, I might even have been able to rappel out of there.

Ruby picked up a T-shirt from the floor — it bore the slogan
what a total yawn.

Consuela clicked her tongue. “You wear that, young lady, and your mom’s gonna freak.”

“Yeah, you got that right,” said Ruby, throwing it back into the closet.

When the Redforts arrived at the Humberts’ impressive home, they were greeted enthusiastically. “How wonderful that you all could come,” and “Oh, Ruby, you look just darling in that dress!” and “Quent’s just dying to show you his new magic trick.”

The Humberts were really very nice people — it was just, well, they were also kinda boring.

Quent had invited a few of his friends over and Ruby found herself sitting at what was quaintly referred to as the “kiddie table.” If that wasn’t insulting enough then the level of conversation she had to endure during lunch was the final slap in the face.

“Hey, Ruby, can you do this?” Quent was holding his thumb in front of Ruby’s face and was bending it back and forth to show her how it could go in either direction. “It’s double-jointed! Isn’t that neat?”

“Neat!” said Ruby in an overly bright tone that anyone but Quent might regard as sarcasm.

Ruby strained to hear what was being discussed next door in the dining room. “Freddie has had quite the week, haven’t you, dear?” said Marjorie Humbert.

“I’ll bet he has,” said Brant. “This gold delivery must be big news for your team at the bank?”

“Oh, it’s big news all right but what I haven’t told you — and I say this confidentially just between us,” said Freddie Humbert, reducing the volume of his voice to a loud dramatic whisper. “Is that we have a threat to the bank’s security!”

“Oh, my good gracious — can this be true?” cried Sabina. “I heard that Twinford Bank has the safest safe in the whole of the entire country?”

“And so it has!” boomed Freddie. “But even so it has recently come to light that there is a sophisticated plot to steal the Twinford City gold the very night after it arrives from Switzerland.”

Brant was astonished. “No wonder you have been so on edge — I haven’t seen you on the golf course in days!”

“He’s been so busy,” exclaimed Marjorie.

“But how could anyone possibly find their way into the bank vaults? I thought they were designed like an actual maze,” said Sabina.

“That’s true,” assured Freddie. “Navigating your way through the basement is the first problem any would-be bank robber will encounter, and that’s before they even get to the safe.”

“I know all about that, Freddie,” said Dr. Gonzales, the museum curator. “The museum basement was designed by the very same architect, Jeremiah Stiles, and is almost identical to yours. Great idea to have a maze leading to your bank vaults but not so good if you are trying to locate antiquities in a museum!”

“Makes the buildings pretty impenetrable, though,” said Freddie Humbert. “You have to know the passageways like the back of your hand.”

“They don’t stand a chance,” said Marjorie earnestly. “Not with the security team Freddie has lined up.”

“Sounds like you could use some of the experts we have had working on the museum security,” said Dr. Gonzales, competitively. “We have gone
very
high technology.”

“Yes, that whole Buddha rising through the floor thing — that is impressive,” agreed Freddie.

“Not to forget the amazing display cylinder,” said Dr. Gonzales, proudly.

“Well, that’s not so impressive — it’s just glass,” scoffed Freddie. “One knock and it’s in pieces.”

“Not
just
glass,
unbreakable
glass,” corrected the curator. “And it comes with a unique locking device that will be delivered to me and me alone on the night.”

“How exciting,” said Sabina, who sounded like she was just about on the edge of her seat.

To Sabina, the Jade Buddha seemed a whole lot more thrilling than all that dreary old gold.

“Well,” grunted Freddie Humbert, “I can assure you, it is nothing compared to the Twinford City Bank’s security —
no one
will be breaking in, not if I have anything to do with it. Safest safe in the U.S.A., I promise you that.”

It ought to be,
thought Ruby,
with the whole of Spectrum working to keep it that way.

“So how about it Ruby? Ruby?” Ruby felt a tug on her arm,

“Huh?” said Ruby. Quent was pulling at her sleeve, trying to get her attention.

“You up for a game of sardines?”

Oh boy,
thought Ruby. Five eager faces were looking at her. “Yeah. Sure I am — nothing I’d like more.”

“All right!” shouted Quent triumphantly. “You wanna hide first?”

“Nah, it’s OK. You hide, Quent. We can all split up and find you.”

“You don’t want to team up?” asked one of the other kids.

“Nah, I’m better on my own — focuses the mind, if you know what I mean. Why don’t you guys team up and I’ll go solo.” She had her notebook with her and a list of things she needed to figure out.

One was:

It seemed to Ruby that it was no accident that so little was known about Lopez; she had wanted it that way. But when you leave no clues, that in itself becomes a clue. As soon as she’d found a good hiding place, she took out her notebook and studied her questions.

Ruby had the foresight to bring the Spectrum dog whistle with her — she had a feeling it might come in handy. And she was right. Every once in a while, Ruby put the whistle in her mouth, inhaled, and shouted, “Where are you guys?” This gave the impression that she was moving around looking for them, rather than sitting on her behind in a cozy linen closet down in the Humberts’ laundry room.

At four o’clock Ruby went and found Quent and his friends, who by now had given up on the game and were desperately trying to find her.

“My gosh,” she said. “You are all so good at this, I couldn’t find you anywhere.”

That evening, at five minutes to six, Clancy Crew was leaning on the Redforts’ doorbell as if his life depended on someone letting him in.

“Hey! Where’s the fire?” said an irritated Consuela.

But Clancy just shouted “Sorry” as he ran up the stairs two at a time.

He burst into Ruby’s room and plopped himself into the huge beanbag and said, “So?”

“Jeepers, Clancy, take a breath.”

“So what were we doing yesterday in Everly?” he asked.

“Well, I sorta had this hunch that the code breaker I have replaced — well, am standing in for — had a secret.”

“A secret? How do you mean?”

“I think old Agent Lopez got bored of sitting at her desk cracking codes and started to wonder what it would be like to be an action agent. So one day there she is getting her nails done when bingo, she figures something out and rather than call one of the trained action agents she decides that she will go and stake it out herself.”

Clancy was impressed. “How’d ya figure that?”

“I got a little clue in the form of a pencil.” Ruby dropped the Fountain pencil in Clancy’s lap. “I found it behind Lopez’s desk, and then I figured she must have worked out that the fountain in the code was the Fountain Hotel.”

“Nice work, Rube.”

“So now I see why I can’t find the missing code in the files.”

“Why?” asked Clancy.

“Because it isn’t in the files, it’s on that little piece of paper that Lopez picked up.”

“But Felix said there was nothing on that piece of paper,” said Clancy.

“Maybe nothing you could
see,
” corrected Ruby. “But what if that was the point?”

“How do ya mean?” said Clancy.

“OK, so the lady writes something on the pad like so.” Ruby took out her ballpoint pen and wrote something on her notepad. “Then she tears off the top sheet and walks away, leaving the blank pad on the table for her accomplice to pick up.”