This could not be the work of her mother.
She spotted a typed note next to a pair of size 3 Yellow Stripe sneakers.
Hope you approve. Had my stylist friend Billie pick these things out for you – she’s good at that kind of thing. Hitch.
Airhead he might be but he was certainly good at his job. Ruby moseyed downstairs to say thanks and found Hitch examining a piece of toast very closely, almost as if he were reading it.
He looked up, startled, and immediately began to spread it with peanut butter.
‘Toast?’ he said.
Not just an airhead but a weirdo too, thought Ruby.
Today, Ruby felt like taking the bus. She made it to the stop in plenty of time, clambered aboard, and sat down, barely acknowledging her friends, Del and Mouse. The two girls tried to get her attention.
‘Hey Rube,’ called Del.
Ruby didn’t even look up.
Del looked at Mouse. ‘Was it something I said?’
Ruby was staring at the card she’d picked up in Organic Universe and chewing furiously on her pencil – what was it she wasn’t seeing? What was there to see? Just the words Don’t call us we’ll call you and the simple decorative border – nothing to give any indication as to where the meeting would take place.
‘Tomorrow night at eight for eight’ was all the voice on the telephone had said.
What am I missing?
‘So Ruby, I see your toe is all mended,’ said Del.
Ruby looked down at her foot – she had forgotten all about her fake injury. ‘Oh, yeah,’ she answered.
Mouse looked at Del and sort of widened her mouth and rolled her eyes – this was her silent way of suggesting that all was not right with Ruby Redfort. Even Clancy Crew couldn’t get any sense out of her – and when Vapona Begwell dared to suggest that Ruby’s ‘recovered’ broken toe was either a miracle or she was some cowardly faker who had chickened her way out of the basketball tournament, she barely even blinked.
‘Hey Redfort,’ sneered Vapona. ‘Did those burglars steal your guts along with the furniture?’
Clancy couldn’t believe it. ‘You gonna let her get away with that Rube?’
‘Look, my mind’s got bigger concerns than Bugwart right now.’
‘Has something else happened?’ said Clancy eagerly. ‘More burglars? Something else go missing?’
‘As a matter of fact, yes.’
‘What?’ said Clancy.
‘Mrs Digby,’ replied Ruby
‘Mrs Digby?’ mouthed Clancy.
Ruby nodded. ‘She isn’t at cousin Emily’s and she isn’t back home. We don’t know where she is.’
Clancy’s eyes were saucers. ‘Do you know what I think? I think the butler who isn’t a butler took her.’
‘And why would he do that, Clance?’
‘So he could get her job – get her outta the way.’
‘My mom didn’t give him the job because Mrs Digby had gone – she didn’t even know Mrs Digby had gone when she hired him.’
‘Yeah well, I still think he’s some bad news,’ Clancy said firmly.
‘Yeah well maybe you’re right ’cause guess what? I saw his injured arm – he doesn’t know I saw it but I did and I am telling you Clance, that’s no housemaid’s elbow he is suffering from – more like Gangster’s Shoulder.’
‘So I was right,’ marvelled Clancy. ‘He was in a shoot out.’ His face lit up. ‘You know he’s probably on the run, hiding out at your house, stealing your stuff and selling it.’
‘Clance, that brain of yours never ceases to amaze.’
But she couldn’t help thinking he might not be so far from the truth.
Ruby pretty much sleep-walked through her morning classes, so distracted was she by the puzzle she needed to solve. And then at 2.30 during her history lesson she suddenly saw what it was she couldn’t see before.
Mrs Schneiderman was giving a very tedious lecture about the ancient Greeks, and those students who weren’t staring out of the window were busy painting their fingernails with Wite-Out and generally working hard to keep from falling asleep. It wasn’t that anyone didn’t want to be interested, it was just that Mrs Schneiderman was one of those people who managed to make even the most interesting things sound very dull indeed. It was something to do with her delivery – she tended to ramble. Ruby was brought out of her thoughts and back into the classroom by the sound of one hundred thumbtacks falling to the floor. Ruby looked across the room and saw the ever accident prone Red Monroe frantically trying to scoop them back into their container.
‘Sorry, Mrs Schneiderman,’ she said. ‘They just sorta fell off my desk.’
The tacks had rolled right across the room and a few had ended up under Clancy’s chair – as he stood up to help, a couple of them lodged themselves in the sole of his left sneaker. Mrs Schneiderman was trying to regain the attention of her students and rapped her ruler on the wall. Ruby looked up and saw, projected on the screen, a slide showing a simple repeat pattern, the famous Greek key pattern used on pottery, mosaics and, it seemed, almost everything ancient Greek.
‘This is a decorative border called “meander”, first used in the Greek Geometric period,’ said Mrs Schneiderman loudly. ‘The name “meander” conjures up the twisting and turning of the Mæander River. “Greek key” is a modern term used to describe the pattern. It is always useful to remember that, in history, decoration is very rarely purely decorative, it is usually there to symbolise something or convey a message.’
Ruby was suddenly very alert. She reached behind her and felt for the jacket hanging on the back of her chair. Locating the left pocket she pulled out her notebook containing the little white card – the one from Organic Universe. On it were the six words, DON’T CALL US WE’LL CALL YOU, but it wasn’t the words that Ruby was interested in. The thing that got her attention today was the pattern decorating the edge of the card. She had previously overlooked this, considering it to be simply decorative – thus forgetting one of her own rules, RULE 13 in fact, THERE IS MORE TO MOST THINGS THAN MEETS THE EYE.
Now she studied the decorative border carefully – it was made up of interlocking figure eights which repeated all the way around the edge of the card.
‘… tomorrow night at eight for eight…’
Ruby knew the time was set for eight but what if the destination was also eight? ‘Be lucky,’ the voice had said – why? Why did she need to be lucky?
After school, Clancy and Ruby picked up Bug, and cycled out to the ocean. Ruby found watching the husky racing in and out of the waves helped her mind relax but still she had no answer. It wasn’t until they started off for home that something clicked. Ruby was cycling very slowly along the sidewalk – Clancy was on foot; his bike chain had broken and he was telling her about how this oil sheik had been on the way to meet with Clancy’s dad when he ran out of gas.
‘Imagine the scene – he is an actual oil baron and he runs out of gas!’
‘That’s