The Complete Ruby Redfort Collection. Lauren Child

asked Ruby, genuinely amazed.

      ‘I have this little device that tells me which payphone you are on and exactly where it is,’ replied Hitch.

      ‘Creepy but cool – I must remember never to lie to you about my whereabouts. Better be quick, I just ditched school and there could be consequences.’

      ‘I’ll handle that, be with you in 10.’

      Eight minutes later Hitch’s car pulled up.

      ‘You’re early,’ said Ruby.

      ‘Watch must be fast’ replied Hitch. ‘So what’s this all about?’

      ‘Buy me a soda and I’ll tell you.’

      Hitch shrugged. ‘You drive a hard bargain kid’

      When they reached Blinky’s Corner Café they sat down at one of the lemon yellow booths at the far end where it was quiet.

      ‘OK,’ said Ruby in a low whisper, ‘you know how I thought Lopez might have taken the code with her up that mountain?’

      Hitch frowned.

      ‘Well, now I got proof, the only thing is you’re not gonna be too happy about how I got it.’

      Hitch raised an eyebrow.

      ‘I know, I know, LB’s gonna be mad as a snake but you can just tell her I cracked the code. ‘I saw it in the mirror and it all made sense’.’

      ‘You’re telling me you cracked the Lopez code?’ said Hitch

      ‘I sure am,’ nodded Ruby.

      ‘And how did you do that kid?’

      ‘OK, well you gotta promise not to have a freak out.’

      ‘I don’t like the sound of that,’ said Hitch.

      ‘Well it gets worse; the thing is I know Lopez worked out the fountain was the Fountain Hotel, and I know she went there herself, and what’s more I know she was spying on a woman in a hat with a veil – the same one from the bank I think – and that she picked up a piece of paper she wasn’t meant to pick up. I also know that she got caught doing it.’

      Hitch’s eyebrow was working overtime. ‘And how do you know all this?’

      Ruby shrugged. ‘Let’s just say I did some research. You see I began to wonder if this avalanche was really an accident – I mean, maybe someone wanted her dead.’

      ‘I’m beginning to see your point of view,’ said Hitch.

      ‘Now for the tricky part,’ said Ruby.

      ‘The tricky part? I thought you playing at detective was the tricky part.’

      ‘No, you’ll see – it gets worse. I needed to find the piece of paper and I had a feeling that Lopez might have had it with her when she died, and thinking about Lopez and how smart she was made me think she would never have left it just lying around in her hotel room – she had to have it on her.’

      ‘Kid, I don’t like where this is going – please don’t tell me you took a look through her things.’

      ‘It was the only way to know for sure,’ said Ruby, ‘and it’s not like I didn’t ask.’

      Hitch frowned. ‘Go on.’

      ‘Well, I found one thing that didn’t make sense – why would she take a powder compact mountain climbing?’

      ‘And why would she?’ asked Hitch

      ‘Because she used it to hide this.’ Ruby placed the ratty piece of notepaper on the table. Hitch looked at it.

      ‘Looks like a lot of lines to me – like a maze puzzle… some kind of plan or map?’

      ‘Yep, that’s what I think it is – I’ll bet it’s a map of the City Bank vaults.’

      ‘So? We knew they had that,’ shrugged Hitch.

      ‘But,’ continued Ruby, ‘when you look at it in the mirror like… so, it becomes a map of the City Museum basement – Jeremiah Stiles designed the two buildings as mirror images of each other.’

      Hitch said nothing – just waited for her to continue.

      ‘And you see this writing in the far corner here – NaAlSi 2O6?’

      Hitch nodded. ‘Is it a storage room number? A code number for one of the antiquities?

      ‘Not exactly – it’s a formula,’ said Ruby

      ‘A formula for what?’ said Hitch.

      ‘A formula for something that the people of ancient China considered more precious than gold.’

      ‘Jade?’ whispered Hitch.

      ‘Those creeps aren’t coming for the gold,’ said Ruby. ‘They’re coming to steal the Jade Buddha of Khotan.’

      ‘Well, I’ll be darned,’ said Hitch.

      ‘Lopez got confused – got the whole thing the wrong way round. She was sorta right but wrong – until she saw it in the mirror.’

      ‘I think it’s time you explained all this to LB,’ said Hitch, dropping some bills onto the table. He patted her on the back. ‘Kid, you’re a genius – a soon to be dead genius of course but a genius none the less.’

       Chapter 28.

      Secretly super

      LB GAVE RUBY QUITE A DRESSING-DOWN over the break in to the Maverick Street office.

      ‘You had no right to break in to a Spectrum department,’ she said.

      ‘It wasn’t technically a break-in,’ Ruby had countered. ‘I mean technically you did gave me the keypad code – I just let myself in is all.’

      ‘If you want to get technical Redfort, you took something that wasn’t yours and technically that’s stealing.’

      LB wasn’t too happy about the trip to the Fountain Hotel either. ‘Why in the name of good sense didn’t you tell Agent Blacker about your hunch and let him handle it?’ Of course Ruby had her reasons, reasons that involved not ratting on Lopez, reasons that involved wanting a piece of the action, but she couldn’t see a whole lot of point going into them.

      All in all Ruby got quite an earful but for all the ticking-off, Ruby thought she could see something different in LB’s eyes, something approaching respect perhaps. But all she said was, ‘Nice going, Redfort.’

      Then she turned, picked up her phone and started issuing a million orders.

      Ruby guessed she had been dismissed.

      It was strange for Ruby returning to Twinford Junior High the very next day. She felt a sense of elation as she cycled the short distance to school but once she walked into her homeroom and sat down at her desk, she felt a slow dragging lowering of her spirits. She had a lurking sense that whatever thrill had come her way was most probably over. Yesterday she still had something, something she had to solve to convince Spectrum she was worth the trouble, but now that she had, what was there?

      ‘Nice going? That’s all she said?’

      Clancy had been pretty indignant when Ruby met up with him sometime later that evening. He couldn’t believe that his pal, the smartest person he had met in his whole entire life, Ruby Redfort, was being treated like a nobody.

      ‘You have to remember, Clance, it isn’t like normal life. LB does this kinda thing every day – for her it’s probably no biggy.’

      ‘No biggy!’ said Clance. ‘You save the Jade Buddha of Khotan and it’s “no biggy”?’

      ‘Well,