The Complete Ruby Redfort Collection. Lauren Child

said Ruby.

      ‘I can be at the tree in ten,’ said Clancy.

      Silence.

      ‘Wanna meet me there?’

      Silence.

      ‘Rube…?’

      ‘Yeah,’ said Ruby, replacing the handset.

      Clancy arrived at the oak tree on Amster Green just nine minutes later. Ruby was already there, sitting up on the highest climbable branch. He clambered up and slid along next to her.

      ‘But no one’s saying they’re dead,’ said Clancy. ‘They’re just missing is all.’

      ‘How many people can swim for seven days without life jackets, without rescue?’

      It wasn’t a question that Clancy wanted to answer.

      Instead he said, ‘But maybe they’ve been rescued. You yourself always go on about how lucky your folks are, maybe they got lucky one more time.’

      ‘Then why don’t we know about it? Why haven’t they radioed in?’ challenged Ruby. ‘They would radio, they would. If my mom’s expert at anything, it’s picking up a phone.’

      They talked for a while before Ruby felt an overwhelming need to be alone.

      ‘Gotta go Clance, you know, just gotta go.’

      ‘I know,’ he said.

      As she made her way down to the ground, Clancy called out.

      ‘Rube, you know I got a hunch they made it out of there alive.’

      She looked up at him, her face suddenly full of hope, wanting to believe.

      ‘And you know what I’m like with my hunches, don’t you?’

      ‘Yeah,’ she replied. ‘You’re usually right.’

      ‘Correction!’ he called. ‘Always right. I have an unblemished record, remember that.’

      She smiled at him sadly, got on her bike and rode back towards home.

      Hitch’s car was not in the driveway and the lights were off in his apartment. It looked like he would be gone all night.

      At 2.43am Ruby woke up cold and sweating. Her dreams had been turbulent. First she’d had the recurring nightmare, the one where something pulled her down into deepest indigo, something whispering, something with eyes that never blinked.

      Then her parents had appeared – they were wading through the surf, calling to her, but she couldn’t hear what they were saying. She walked towards them, but no matter how many steps she took, she could not get any nearer. Then suddenly a huge wave engulfed them and when it retreated, they were gone.

      Ruby snapped the light on and reached for her glasses. She looked around for Bug, but he must have gone downstairs to his basket. She couldn’t shake the image from her head so she climbed out of bed and went down to the kitchen.

      Bug lifted his nose and got to his feet, yawning.

      ‘Hey there Bug.’ She stroked him behind the ears, trying to bring to mind exactly what Clancy had said. Did he really have a hunch or was he just being kind?

      She switched on the radio. There was a late-night quiz show aimed at security guards and insomniacs; the questions were pretty dumb, but they were some distraction.

      ‘WHAT WOULD YOU CALL A BABY WHALE?’

      ‘A calf,’ said Ruby automatically.

      ‘WHAT WOULD YOU SAY IF YOU STEPPED ON A GERMAN’S TOE?’

      ‘Entschuldigung,’ said Ruby. ‘No, wait, verzeihung.’

      ‘WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU WERE A COOPER?’

      ‘Make barrels.’

      ‘WHAT WOULD YOU BE IF YOU WERE ON CHARON’S FERRY?’

      ‘I know this one… what is it?’

      Suddenly a news announcer’s voice broke in.

      ‘WE ARE SORRY TO INTERRUPT THIS PROGRAMME FOR SOME BREAKING NEWS. TWO BODIES HAVE BEEN FOUND BY A FISHING CREW TWENTY MILES OUT TO SEA. THEY HAVE NOT YET BEEN IDENTIFIED AND AT THIS TIME WE CAN ONLY SAY THAT THEY ARE A MAN AND WOMAN OF APPROXIMATELY MIDDLE AGE.’

      Ruby didn’t hear anything more of the broadcast; all she heard was the answer to the quiz show question pinging into her head.

      ‘Dead,’ she said.

      She leaned back against the wall and let herself slide down to the floor.

       Chapter 23.

      Love without words

      RUBY DIDN’T SLEEP THAT NIGHT. She sat in her bedroom in the dark just staring out of her window, waiting for dawn to come.

      At 6.30am on Wednesday morning the phone in her room rang. Clancy, she thought, but she didn’t pick up. She couldn’t talk to anyone, not even Clancy Crew. Talking to people meant listening to them telling her it was going to be all right, and she knew it wasn’t. It wasn’t all right at all.

      At 6.39 Hitch knocked on her door. He could tell just by looking at her face that she must be aware of the latest reports.

      ‘I heard the news kid.’

      She blinked back at him.

      ‘I agree it doesn’t look good,’ he said. ‘But we don’t know, not for sure. No one’s been identified.’

      She didn’t speak.

      ‘I spent all night in the boat and I found nothing. Doesn’t mean it’s over; “nothing” can also be good. Zuko’s out in the chopper now; he’s a good agent with good eyes, good instinct. If there’s anything to find, he’ll find it.’

      They went down to the kitchen and Mrs Digby came right over and kissed Ruby on the top of her head and squeezed her cheek, like she always did, always had done from the first day she was born.

      ‘I’m not going to class,’ Ruby said.

      ‘Course you’re not Ruby, you’re staying here with me,’ said Mrs Digby, nodding her head. ‘I’m making you French toast and proper English tea.’

      The housekeeper didn’t want to let Ruby out of sight, but at about a quarter to noon Ruby managed to give her the slip. She wanted to be out in the fresh air where she could think, where she wasn’t surrounded by everything that was her mom and dad.

      She took a walk down to Amster Green. She nimbly climbed the old oak and when she reached the topmost climbing branch, she sat down. She felt around with her left hand, reaching for the deep knot in the bark. She pulled out a neatly folded origami turtle. The coded note said,

      ec hbbtzik erl ocoeqw rpuyl

      She took out her pencil, crossed out the code and wrote,

      ‘Commiserations you now have

      a blemished record.’

      She climbed back down, got on her bike and rode out to Twinford harbour.

      For some reason it was the only place she wanted to be. Maybe because her parents had always loved boats, had always loved the ocean, or maybe it was because this was one of the last places Ruby had seen them alive.

      The Redforts had met in the ocean and now they had died in the ocean – what had been the most romantic of beginnings was now the most tragic of endings.

      Her parents had told the story so many times Ruby could almost hear their voices explaining how they had met off the Tuscan coast of Italy.

      SABINA: ‘It must be seventeen years