She ran to the wall of books that covered one side of her room and pulled at the quarterly code magazines that dated back several years. She remembered reading an article about something, something that might help her chase down the thought she couldn’t catch. She spread them out across the floor until she caught sight of the one she wanted. In this old edition was an article on musicians who had encrypted music and so passed secrets across the airwaves without anyone ever suspecting that these tunes were not just tunes. One of the most famous was a composer called Arvo Pärt, but there were many others: the highly successful composer and double agent Sarå H Stein, and Roberto Bowerbeck and Tristan Delaware to name a handful. At the back of the magazine was a 7-inch plastic record: low quality but it should still play.
Ruby put the record on the turntable and the needle automatically lowered itself onto the disc. The piece was by I Zac-Gardner: Preamble in Three Equally Divided Halves.
It sounded very much like the kind of thing Chime had been playing – music without melody.
Ruby pulled on her sweatshirt and ran down the stairs right to the bottom of the house. She moved lightly and almost soundlessly and only Bug heard a footstep.
She tapped lightly on Hitch’s door – she could hear him put something down on the table, a cup or a glass.
‘Ruby?’ he said quietly. ‘That you?’
She opened the door; he was still dressed from the night before, or maybe he was freshly dressed for the coming day. He looked only mildly surprised to see her.
‘Hey kid,’ he said. ‘What got you up before dawn?’
Ruby sat down in one of the two easy chairs that furnished the compact yet stylish apartment.
‘I figured something out,’ she said. ‘At least I think I figured something out, I just got to prove it is all.’
‘I’m all ears kid.’ He sat down in the opposite chair.
‘This Chime Melody thing I’ve been working on for Froghorn – I suddenly get it. It’s not interference, it’s not someone disrupting the airwaves – it’s more than that.’
‘More how?’ asked Hitch.
‘Well, old Froghorn dumped me with the job of studying each tape, each piece of music, trying to listen for a voice masked by the music, but that’s not what’s going on here.’
‘It isn’t?’ said Hitch.
‘No,’ said Ruby. ‘The music isn’t covering up the communication, the music IS the communication. It’s a code.’
‘You know this?’ said Hitch.
Ruby shook her head.
‘But you’re pretty sure?’
‘Eighty per cent. I figure each note is a letter. Could be more complicated though. You know, like when a note lasts for two beats, you skip a letter, or it changes into a number, or something.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Hitch. ‘But if you say so, I believe you.’
‘So I gotta listen to the tapes so I can figure out how it works.’
‘That all? You can go in and listen to them any day you like.’
‘I mean I want to bring them home; it would give me more time.’
He paused, considering the request; it wasn’t strictly protocol, but it was practical. He took a deep breath. ‘I can get them.’
‘What about Froghorn? Is he gonna make trouble?’
‘No, leave Froghorn to me. I can handle anything he cares to throw.’
‘And maybe…’ said Ruby, ‘don’t let’s say anything until I’ve got proof. I’d hate to give him the pleasure of knowing I’d got it wrong.’
‘I’ll keep it zipped kid. You can count on it.’
They went up to the kitchen and sat there for a while drinking tea and talking things over until they were interrupted.
‘Well, knock me down with a feather!’ Mrs Digby said. ‘This child is up before the sun – I must be dreaming.’
RED CALLED ROUND JUST AS RUBY was about to leave the house on Thursday morning. ‘I thought I’d come by and see how you were doing – I tried calling, but you didn’t pick up.’
‘Yeah, sorry about that,’ said Ruby. ‘It all got kinda busy, you know.’
Red nodded. ‘You must be so relieved. I mean how dreadful thinking you’d never see your mom and your dad again, neither one of them.’
Red’s own dad had gone missing one day, just up and left, and she had never laid eyes on him since, so she knew what she was talking about.
‘It was pretty bad,’ said Ruby. ‘Kinda the worst day of my life, you know?’
Red nodded again. ‘So you wanna grab some breakfast at the Donut?’
‘Sure, why not,’ said Ruby. ‘Might as well celebrate.’
* * *
It was nice to join her friends for breakfast just like always.
‘So,’ said Clancy, ‘my record is unblemished – I told you I had a hunch your folks were alive and I was right.’
‘Yeah Clance, I’ll give you that, you were right,’ said Ruby.
‘As always,’ said Clancy.
‘As always,’ agreed Ruby.
Yes, life was good, the spectre of death having receded for now, far into the future. Laughing and yacking like worries were a thing of yesterday, which they sort of were… well, except for the ruthless pirates and the weird shark action, dead divers and ransacked pleasure cruisers – apart from those things, everything was rosy.
The trees looked greener, the sun felt warmer, school seemed a tad more fascinating and Vapona Begwell… well, she was as objectionable as ever.
‘So Redridingfort, I hear your parents almost got chomped by sharks,’ she hollered across the lunch hall.
Ruby decided not to tell Bugwart where to stick it, it was too nice a day, but as it happened, Del stepped in and then things got kind of ugly anyway.
Del’s food fight with Bugwart sort of escalated – at one point Ruby saw several chicken wings fly across the dining hall. These were followed by a considerable number of pizza slices – and resulted in several detentions for a number of students; the ringleaders spent the afternoon cleaning the school canteen.
Apart from that nothing much truly happened school-wise.
Ruby had to drop her plan of hanging out with Clancy at Del’s house, but as it turned out, that was just as well. The Bradley Baker rescue watch flashed green in music class and that meant no hanging out with anyone. Ruby made a promise to Clancy that she would catch up with him on Friday and as soon as the school bell rang, made her way back to the pool, back to Spectrum.
She cycled swiftly, short-cutting through quiet residential streets, zigzagging through back roads. When she got to the main square, she saw the stranger again.
This guy is starting to bug me, Ruby thought.
He