The Complete Ruby Redfort Collection. Lauren Child

was late afternoon by the time Ruby got home and as she climbed the stairs she could hear the sing-song voice of Barbara Bartholomew. She stuck her head round the living room door; Ruby’s mother was reclining on a new and elegant sofa, Barbara sitting cross-legged on a pile of silk cushions – both were sipping on elaborate cocktails. They were deep in conversation.

      ‘I can’t tell you, Barb, how super great Hitch was this morning – I had quite the lucky escape.’

      ‘Really, no kidding?’

      ‘Well, he drove me into town – I needed to stop off at Glenthorn’s jewellers, they are altering that necklace of mine.’

      ‘The white jade one?’ asked Barbara

      ‘The white jade one,’ confirmed Sabina. ‘I want to wear it at the launch and it needs a better setting – more modern.’

      ‘Oh that will be nice,’ cooed Barbara.

      ‘So Hitch stays in the car because there were no free parking meters, as per usual.’

      ‘Oh Sabina darling, there never are – it’s terrible.’

      ‘Isn’t it? Why the mayor doesn’t do something I don’t know. Anyway, where was I?’

      ‘Hitch stayed in the car,’ said Barbara.

      ‘That’s right – anyway, I am in there a little while, thirty minutes maybe forty, and Hitch is driving round the block and I come out and I stand there waiting on the street for him to reappear and then you won’t believe what happens.’

      ‘What?’ whispered Barbara dramatically.

      ‘I only get my purse snatched by some criminal is all!’

      ‘You don’t!’

      ‘I’m telling you, and no one does anything, I mean the guy’s fast but still… you’d think.’

      ‘You would,’ agreed Barbara.

      ‘Anyhow, suddenly Hitch drives around the corner, sees me screaming at the thief; I tell you Barb, he was out of that car before you could blink and running, I’ve never seen a man move so fast.’

      ‘Hitch, your butler? You are kidding!’

      ‘I am not kidding Barbara, he is after that guy, catches up with him, karate kicks him in the back of the legs and the guy drops my purse.’

      ‘No way!’

      ‘I get my purse back, no harm done.’

      ‘What about the guy?’

      ‘Hitch chases him up a fire escape and over the top of the Wilmot building but the guy leaps down about forty feet into a passing garbage truck and he’s gone.’

      ‘Wow Sabina, that’s some butler you have there – hold on tight to that one.’

      ‘You can be sure of it Barb!’ And the two women dissolved into unexplained giggles.

      Ruby walked into the kitchen where Hitch was preparing snacks.

      ‘So I hear you were quite the action hero today.’

      ‘Yeah well, stopping purse snatchers isn’t usually what I do but it makes a change from arranging cheese straws.’

      ‘But you do it so nicely,’ said Ruby, adopting her mother’s voice.

      ‘It’s not as hard as it looks, want to try?’

      ‘Nah, I’d cramp your style. So I guess your shoulder’s getting better if you can chase a thief up a fire escape?’ said Ruby.

      ‘Yeah, it must be, finally – which can only mean one thing. I’ll be moving on soon – I’ll have to get someone else to babysit you.’

      ‘Just like old Mary Poppins, you’ll be gone,’ said Ruby, pouring herself a glass of banana milk.

      ‘Yeah well kid, I’m not saying it hasn’t been super-califragilistic to know you, but I’m kind of glad to be getting back to the day job, know what I mean?’

      ‘I know what you mean.’

      Ruby walked upstairs to her room and met Consuela coming the other way with a tray piled high with dirty cups and cereal bowls.

      ‘I was just about to bring those down,’ said Ruby correctly predicting trouble.

      ‘I shouldn’t have to be going up and down cleaning up after you – I’m a dietician not a housemaid,’ said Consuela, ‘but we are running out of crockery – it’s all in your room!’

      ‘Look, I’m sorry, I really am.’ Ruby gave Consuela her best “I’m sorry” face and Consuela’s scowl instantly softened.

      ‘Oh, your friend Clancy called,’ she said. ‘He wanted me to ask you how your grandmother is doing? He seems to think she is sick or something.’

      ‘Yeah, poor Clance, he can get very confused about things – gets facts very mixed up. He’s got some sorta disorder.’

      ‘Oh, that’s a shame,’ said Consuela, unusually concerned.

      ‘Yeah, it’s too bad,’ said Ruby and as she closed the door to her room, she remembered how every little untruth always led to a hundred others. This was RULE 32: TELL ONE LIE AND GET READY TO TELL A WHOLE LOT MORE.

      The next day, cycling across Twinford, she had the same “watched” feeling she’d had before, but there was no sign of anything that might suggest she was being tailed.

      After sitting at the desk in the dusty brown office for six hours, it dawned on Ruby that she was bored – it wasn’t the work exactly, although today it was painstaking, reading files over and over, trying to find a loose thread or something that would lead her to the next thing. No, it was the environment that was the problem, cut off from the world with only a supreme potato head for company. She wondered if this was how Lopez had felt.

      Only it was doubly bad for Ruby because it looked like she was going to fail and the fear of failure was indeed a strange new feeling.

      She started absent-mindedly rolling her pencil up and down the desk – she wasn’t even aware that she was doing it. She was lost in thought when she heard Froghorn shout, ‘Hey! little girl, could you stop doing that!’

      Ruby jumped and the pencil rolled across the desk and disappeared off the edge.

      Darn it. She slipped off her chair and took a look underneath the table – she could see the pencil there on the floor but she couldn’t reach it. As quietly as she could Ruby began pulling at the heavy piece of furniture until it moved a couple of inches. She slid her hand along and felt around until it found what she was looking for. But the pencil she retrieved was not her pencil, it was green with white writing. The writing said:

      “The Fountain.”

      Ruby sat still for so long that Froghorn came in to see if something had happened.

      When he saw her sitting there, just staring at a pencil, he made some pathetic attempt at a smart remark. Ruby noticed that he had a mayonnaise stain on his tie but she really couldn’t be bothered to point it out – she was far too busy thinking about Lopez.

       Mrs Digby was busy trying to get a tea stain out of Mrs Redfort’s evening gown. . .

      …when she heard a voice, or rather voices.

      ‘We better go and talk to the old lady, get her to co-operate if you know what I mean.’

      Oh I know what you mean, said Mrs Digby to herself. She sat back in her chair and waited for the inevitable. The door was opened and in walked two men, the one with the nice face who she had met before and another much bigger man, almost a giant, who she hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting yet. There was no sign of the woman with the high-pitched scream.

      The