The Complete Ruby Redfort Collection. Lauren Child

the while Ruby was talking she was fiddling with something in her pocket, snapping it open and shut. She wasn’t aware she was doing it until Clancy said, ‘what’s that clicking noise? Are you fiddling with that keyring thing again? Because it’s driving me crazy.’

      Ruby jerked her hand out of her pocket and Lopez’s powder compact clattered onto the concrete of the schoolyard.

      Ruby and Clancy stared down at it.

      ‘You took it?’ said Clancy.

      ‘I didn’t mean to,’ said Ruby. ‘I didn’t even know I had – boy, am I ever in trouble now!’ The mirror was broken and the powder had all spilled out in a dusty explosion, but as the powder settled it revealed a secret. The force of the fall had popped open a section of the compact that Ruby hadn’t even realised was there, a tray designed to hold the powder puff. But instead of the puff, the tray contained a piece of folded paper.

      ‘What is it?’ whispered Clancy.

      What it was, was a small piece of Fountain Hotel notepaper rubbed lightly with a pencil to reveal a series of negative lines through the graphite; lines and in one corner, a word.

      ‘The missing code,’ Ruby said in a hushed whisper. ‘It has to be – so I was right all along, it never was in the files.’

      ‘Just looks like lines to me,’ said Clancy. ‘Lines and a some kinda gobbledegook.’ He pointed to the strange code-like word within the mass of lines.

      Ruby sat on the bench thinking hard. What was it Lopez had said? “I saw it in the mirror and it all made sense.” What if she hadn’t meant the Twinford Mirror – what if she had meant an actual mirror? Slowly, Ruby picked up the compact from the ground and reflected the paper in the glass. The lines were the other way around and the letters in the left hand corner now read:

      ‘Well, still doesn’t make any sense to me,’ said Clancy.

      ‘No, me neither,’ said Ruby.

      The bell sounded to signify the end of recess and Ruby reluctantly headed to class. All she could think about was Lopez, how one day she had been sitting bored to death in a little brown office on Maverick street and three days later she was dead. It was like LB had said, curiosity can get you killed.

      Ruby opened the door to classroom 14B and sat down.

      ‘Remind me,’ Mr Singh was saying, ‘what’s the formula for sulphuric acid?’

      ‘H2SO₄,’ said Ruby without looking up.

      ‘Correct answer, Ms Redfort, but incorrect classroom. If memory serves, I see you for chemistry on Tuesdays.’

      Ruby glanced around her. ‘Oh, I see what you mean, wrong room, wrong class.’ She picked up her bag and stumbled through the door and back downstairs to classroom 14A directly below.

      Muttering apologies for her late appearance Ruby made her way to her desk and sat down.

      ‘As I was saying,’ said Mrs Schneiderman, ‘Khotan was a Buddhist region up until the eleventh century when it came under the ruler Yusuf Qadr Khan and the religion changed. The famous explorer Marco Polo visited Khotan in 1274 – he had heard the stories about the famous Jade Buddha and wanted to see it for himself but discovered that it had long since been smuggled out of the country – no one knows when or by whom.’

      ‘What’s the big deal Mrs Schneiderman?’ said Vapona. ‘It’s just jade, right? My mom has jade.’

      ‘Well, where to start Vapona…’ Mrs Schneiderman was flustered; to say that she found Vapona Begwell very difficult to teach was an understatement.

      ‘Apart from the beauty and significance of the Buddha itself, it is important to remember that this isn’t just any jade, this is translucent jadeite jade – many people regard it as the most valuable kind. Though not the people of Khotan: they prized the milky-white nephrite jade found in the region – considered it more precious than gold. And that’s what makes it such a mystery – what was a jadeite jade Buddha doing in Khotan in the first place? How did it get there? Jade is found all over the world but jadeite jade is not found in China.’

      Vapona was yawning rudely. Red Monroe hated to see Mrs Schneiderman’s feelings get hurt and so she did what Red did best, she pretended to take an interest. ‘So Mrs Schneiderman, where does jadeite come from?’

      ‘Oh, good question Red. It’s found in places as far away as New Zealand, and as local as California. It’s also found in Alaska, Guatemala… and of course Burma, which is the most likely place for the Buddha to have come from. You can tell the difference between jadeite and nephrite not only from their appearance but also because of course they have different chemical compositions.’

      Vapona was by now resting her head on her desk and doing her utmost to look supremely bored.

      Mrs Schneiderman looked defeated.

      But Ruby Redfort’s brain was working overtime. Of course, she thought…

      ‘So Mrs Schneiderman,’ continued Red brightly, ‘you say jadeite has a different chemical composition from nephrite jade – what might that be exactly?’

      ‘Well now, let me think,’ said Mrs Schneiderman. ‘I believe it’s… sodium, oxygen, silicon, and what’s the other one… oh yes, aluminium.’

      As she spoke she picked up her chalk and began to write on the board, but Ruby was already there.

      NaAlSi 2O6

      Not a word, a formula.

      Ruby’s hand shot up. ‘Mrs Schneiderman, could I possibly be excused? I just remembered something really, really urgent that I must do.’

      Mrs Schneiderman looked bewildered. ‘But Ruby, this is history, you are in class, how can I excuse you without a note?’

      ‘Good point,’ said Ruby, and she began to scribble something on a piece of Redfort headed note paper. Then she handed it to Mrs Schneiderman.

      ‘But Ruby, you just wrote this, the ink is still wet.’

      ‘Just wave it around a bit, it’ll dry in no time.’ Ruby had already gathered up all her things and was heading to the door.

      ‘But that’s not what I meant, I mean it wasn’t written by your mother.’

      ‘Don’t worry, Mrs Schneiderman, my mom would give you the big “OK” if only she was here – look, it has her signature.’

      Mrs Schneiderman looked at the note, and indeed it did.

       My daughter Ruby is to be excused from history if she feels an urgent need to be somewhere else.

       Yours faithfully, S Redfort.

       P.S. thank you for teaching my daughter about the Jade Buddha of Khotan, lord knows I’ve tried.

      By the time Mrs Schneiderman could form a word, Ruby had already skidded down the corridor and was very nearly out of the school gates.

      She ran and ran until she reached the payphone on the corner of the street. Her call was answered after two rings.

      ‘Hey Hitch, you wanna know what I know?’

      ‘That depends on what you know kid.’

      ‘Let me rephrase that,’ said Ruby, ‘you WANNA KNOW what I know.’

      ‘OK, now I get it – what have you got?’

      ‘Something I just saw in the mirror,’ said Ruby.

      Silence.

      ‘You