‘Gross,’ said Ruby.
‘I’m not disagreeing with you.’ The housekeeper turned to leave. ‘Glad to have you back child.’
‘Thank you,’ said Ruby. ‘I’ve missed you a bunch, you know that.’
Ruby returned to her musings.
As Ruby ran through all the various things that had happened since March, some nine months ago now, she began to see how time was running out and maybe not just for Spectrum – perhaps for her too.
She was beginning to tune into something that was driven neither by fact nor logic, it was more of a Clancy Crew hunch type of a thing. Just a feeling that whatever trouble was out there, it was now headed her way and about to come knocking at her door.
AT 3 PM RUBY HEARD A SCRATCHING at the door.
‘Bug, is that you?’
She was answered by one short bark.
‘OK, I’ll see you by the back door.’
She pulled on her boots, coat and hat, wound a scarf around her neck, and climbed out of the window.
Bug was waiting patiently outside for her, and together they set off down Cedarwood Drive, turned right on Amster and continued on as far as the Donut Diner. She left the husky by the coat rack and he settled down for a nap.
It was medium busy, not too crowded, but as usual there were plenty of customers. Marla, the owner, waved to Ruby as she walked through the door.
Ruby took up a seat at the counter where Clancy was already waiting: in front of him, two mugs of ginger tea and a couple of apple donuts.
Ruby unzipped her coat, to reveal a T-shirt which read: happy to be here
‘What’s with the tea?’ asked Ruby.
‘My sister Amy has a cold, my sister Lulu has a cold, my sister Nancy has a cold, my sister Minny has a cold, my dad has a cold.’
‘Jeepers,’ said Ruby, ‘sounds bad.’
‘Drusilla says due to the high levels of antioxidants in ginger, ginger tea can strengthen your immunity, warding off infection, and I’m trying to remain uninfected,’ said Clancy.
‘But why do I have to drink ginger tea?’ asked Ruby. ‘It’s you Crews who are the ones harbouring the plague.’
‘Who knows who it will strike next; you go down sick, there’s more of a chance I go down sick, and I don’t want to go down sick. Christmas is my favourite time of year.’
Ruby sipped her ginger tea. When Clancy was in this frame of mind it was easier to fall in behind than argue it through.
‘By the way, long time no hear,’ said Clancy.
‘I wrote you: you didn’t get my postcards?’
‘I got ’em,’ said Clancy. He thought for a moment. ‘How come you typed them?’
‘I didn’t want anyone to recognise my handwriting,’ said Ruby.
‘Is that why you signed them Aunt Mabel?’ asked Clancy.
‘I was trying to keep incognito.’
‘Well, it brought up a few questions with my mom, I can tell you that.’
‘What was she doing reading your postcards?’ said Ruby.
‘People read other people’s postcards,’ said Clancy. ‘They’re postcards, no envelopes, the mailman can read them if he chooses to, I mean if he happens to be particularly bored.’
‘So,’ said Ruby, ‘what did she want to know?’
‘Why this Aunt Mabel, who she didn’t know even existed, was recommending thermal socks. I mean if you were planning on using a code then why didn’t you use the regular one?’
‘Because if I had written a postcard in gobbledegook then that would have looked really suspicious. This way it looks like I am writing to you about normal stuff.’
‘Since when is it normal for an aunt who doesn’t even exist to write me about thermal socks?’
‘OK, you have a point, I went too much into character, but can we get back to the point?’
‘Which is?’
‘I did keep in touch.’
‘But you didn’t tell me anything, not really, only that something had happened and it was hard to explain in writing.’
‘Well, it was.’
‘In that case, why didn’t you call?’
‘It wasn’t so easy,’ said Ruby, biting into one of the donuts. ‘They had this whole lockdown thing going.’
‘Since when was Genius Camp so high-security?’
‘It was more like boot camp, if you really wanna know – anyone caught out of their study area or generally not complying with mathletics rules was threatened with disqualification.’
‘Seriously?’ asked Clancy.
‘You bet seriously,’ said Ruby. ‘I mean, you had to ask to use the payphone – you know it actually had a padlock on it.’
‘When did you ever take notice of petty rules? Or locks for that matter … Plus I thought you would have wanted to be disqualified and get sent home early.’
‘I thought about it, believe me, but then you know I felt bad for my mom and dad. For some reason having a daughter who is a major dork brainiac means something to them.’
‘That was your reason for staying?’ said Clancy. ‘Since when do you care so much about your parents’ dreams of a “show and tell daughter”? Forgive me, but I just don’t buy that.’
‘OK, so not just that. I had my reasons for sticking around, and one of them was the Pink Pixie. I swear I woulda walked had it not been for that box of crackers.’
‘You mean Dakota Lyme?’
‘Yeah, her,’ said Ruby. ‘Boy, she was so crazy for winning, her eyes almost popped out of her face – you remember how she tried to injure that kid, Ward Partial?’
‘Yeah, I read about that,’ said Clancy. ‘Don’t tell me she did it again.’
Ruby nodded her head. ‘Only worse this time. That poor Partial kid was at breaking point. You know, for a dweeb he’s actually kinda OK, plus he’s only eleven. He can’t handle the pressure.’
Clancy nodded. ‘So what happened?’
‘I’ll tell you some other time, but suffice to say, I stuck it out.’
‘You know what?’ said Clancy.
‘What?’ said Ruby.
‘You’re all heart.’
Ruby took a big slug of her drink. ‘Well, I couldn’t abandon him, could I? Let her go ahead and make mincemeat of him while I swanned off back to Twinford. You know what, this ginger tea’s not bad.’
‘What is bad is the hogwash you’re spouting,’ said Clancy. ‘Would you quit feeding