‘I wouldn’t be so sure of that,’ said Mrs Digby. ‘Some of it looks like it’s crawling with life. Bacteria gone wild.’
‘I better step on it then,’ Hitch called and he was almost running. Despite the wisecracking, it was pretty obvious that Hitch actually was in a hurry, and Ruby was certain that it had nothing to do with laundry.
‘You need me to assist?’ hissed Ruby, following him to the front door.
‘I appreciate the offer kid,’ said Hitch. ‘But I reckon Mrs Drisco might be kind of disappointed if she doesn’t see your bright and smiling face in class this morning.’
Drat, she had forgotten that today was Monday and therefore she was expected at school.
‘I could cut class,’ Ruby suggested. ‘I mean it would be no big deal, not if Spectrum need me to work on something?’
‘Spectrum can handle this kid,’ assured Hitch. ‘I’ll radio you if things get tricky. Just concentrate on your cover story; act like a school kid for a while.’ He patted her on the head and disappeared out the door.
‘Could you be slightly more patronising?’ muttered Ruby as she straightened her barrette.
She walked back into the kitchen, swallowed the last mouthful of her cereal and slung her satchel over her shoulder. ‘OK Bug, I’ll take you for a sprint.’
‘I hope you’re not thinking of being late for class, you little insect,’ said Mrs Digby, fixing Ruby with the old Mrs Digby X-ray stare. When the housekeeper looked at her like that, Ruby could almost believe that she could read her thoughts.
‘Course not Mrs Digby, I won’t go far and I’ll send Bug back on his own. I’ll make it on time, I swear.’ She gave Mrs Digby her ‘trust me’ look, but Mrs D wasn’t born yesterday.
‘Don’t give me those big eyes of yours,’ she said.
‘OK,’ said Ruby, spitting into her hands and pressing them together. ‘I promise in spit. Satisfied?’ This was how the Digby family sealed their oaths; a promise sealed with spit was a promise to be kept.
Mrs Digby sniffed. ‘All right, but I better not be getting calls from that Mrs Drisco. I haven’t got time to listen to her blathering; she’s a very disagreeable woman.’
‘You hear me arguing?’ said Ruby.
Mrs Digby sniffed and switched on the radio, and out came that same strange sound.
‘Not again! Why are you spouting out this plainly diabolical earache? If I wanted to listen to this kinda terrible assault to my ears, I would have bought myself a cockatoo.’ She banged it with her rolling pin. ‘That’s me and Chime Melody through, I warned you,’ she said, snapping the radio off and marching out of the room.
‘Weirder and weirder,’ said Ruby to herself.
RUBY HEADED OFF IN THE DIRECTION OF LITTLE BAY – she needed to take a look at the ocean before she went to school; not that it was likely to tell her a whole lot, but she just felt it might help to go and sort of drink it in.
She climbed on her bike and whistled to Bug – he liked to run alongside and a sprint out to the ocean was nothing for him. When they got within a quarter-mile, they both sensed something pretty strange.
It was a sound, a sort of clacking sound.
As they got nearer, Ruby couldn’t fail to figure out what it was. Hundreds upon hundreds of crabs, all making their way along the sands. That’s kinda weird, huh Bug?
The dog went to investigate, sniffing at the creatures and backing off as they snapped their tiny claws at his nose.
Ruby let go of her bike and slowly picked her way through the crabs, expecting to come to the place where they ended, but they didn’t end, they just kept on coming.
Then, far, far on the other side of the beach, she saw a diver walking towards the ocean. She called out to him, but he didn’t hear her, and before she could reach him he had ducked under the sea’s surface. A few yards up the beach sat a large yellow carryall – the diver would be coming back for it, she imagined, but Ruby couldn’t wait. She had promised Mrs Digby that she would not be late for school, and a promise in spit was a promise to be kept.
Ruby made it into school just seconds before the bell sounded, dashed into her classroom and slid into her seat, smiling at Mrs Drisco who scowled back. She looked for Clancy – he wasn’t there. He was never late for class so she guessed he must be off sick or more likely was still faking it.
Still freaked out? she wondered. Or avoiding something?
It didn’t take her long to figure it out.
The bell went and Ruby spilled out of her form room with all the other kids. She made her way to physics class and as she turned the corner, heard a familiar voice shouting.
‘Hey Redfort, are you planning on showing for swim practice this evening?’
Ruby turned to see Del Lasco, tall, sporty and kind of in your face, coming down the main stairway.
‘I said I would, didn’t I?’ replied Ruby.
‘Yeah, well, you say a lotta things and I haven’t seen you show for practice once this season.’
Ruby had been kind of busy with Spectrum and it was true she had simply not had time for Junior High commitments.
‘I did the swimathon, didn’t I?’
‘Sure. And got beaten by Clancy Crew. He wasn’t even on the swim team! You need to train. Sharpen up.’
‘I’ll be there tonight, OK,’ assured Ruby as she made for the door.
‘I notice Crew’s skipping off today too, which is just swell.’
‘And how is that my fault buster?’ called Ruby, disappearing into class.
If you didn’t know it, you might imagine that Ruby Redfort and Del Lasco weren’t even friends at all – but they were. Good friends in fact. Del Lasco had a mouth on her, that was for sure, but she was also very loyal. No one could deny that if the chips were down, you could count on Del to wade in and punch someone on your behalf, even if you didn’t want them punched.
Mr Endell was talking about white noise today. Which was pretty interesting as it turned out and sort of helpful given what Ruby was investigating for Spectrum. White noise, according to Mr Endell, was a kind of noise produced by combining every frequency together, from high to low – like someone playing every key on a piano at the same time.
What was interesting to Ruby was that white noise could be used to mask other sounds, including voices. This was because the ear was so busy dealing with so many different notes and tones, all sounding at once, that it couldn’t manage to tune into just one voice.
Mr Endell demonstrated this by turning on his desk fan, which he pointed out produced a kind of white noise, and then speaking at a normal volume.
He said, ‘ .’
‘What?’ chorused the class.
‘I was saying,’ said Mr Endell, turning off the fan, ‘that spies and secret agents have actually manufactured white noise machines to stop other spies and secret agents listening in to their conversations. Think of white noise as thousands of voices all talking at the same moment. It’s possible to tune into one voice in a group of chatting people. But there’s no way you can tune into one voice in a crowd of a thousand.’
Kinda fascinating, thought Ruby. Could someone be using something like this to block mayday calls