Copyright

First published in hardback in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2016

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

For Ruby Redfort games, puzzles, videos and more, visit:

www.rubyredfort.com

Visit Lauren Child at www.milkmonitor.com

Copyright © Lauren Child 2016

Series design by David Mackintosh

Illustrations © David Mackintosh 2015

Illustrations of characters in end material © Lauren Child

Map layouts by Martin Brown

Map illustrations © Emily Faccini

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins

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Source ISBN: 9780007334285

Ebook Edition © 2016 ISBN: 9780008190156

Version: 2019-07-16

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Maps

The buried fear

An ordinary kid

Chapter 1. A window on the world

Chapter 2. Long distance

Chapter 3. Catching up

Chapter 4. Baby Grim

Chapter 5. Snakes and mushrooms

Chapter 6. Larger fish to fry

Chapter 7. One bad apple or two?

Chapter 8. Little green men

Chapter 9. Lucite

Chapter 10. The stars above

Chapter 11. Act normal

Chapter 12. Ghost Files

Chapter 13. Sprayed and delivered

Chapter 14. The wrong kind of snow

Chapter 15. Thirty Minutes of Murder

Chapter 16. Look under V

Chapter 17. Evil all around

Chapter 18. Location unknown

Chapter 19. Minus 10

Chapter 20. Hold your breath

Chapter 21. C.O.L.D.

Chapter 22. Something remembered

Chapter 23. A man’s best friend

Chapter 24. Hypocrea asteroidi

Chapter 25. Mushrooms from Mars

Chapter 26. The trolley problem

Chapter 27. À la mode

Chapter 28. Nothing but glamour

Chapter 29. Yellow notebooks

Chapter 30. A stroke of luck

Chapter 31. Place of death

Chapter 32. Hit and run

Chapter 33. One and the same

Chapter 34. I remember nothing

Chapter 35. Who to tell?

Chapter 36. Loveday

Chapter 37. A safe house

Chapter 38. Lost and found

Chapter 39. Cousin Mo

Chapter 40. On the cards

Chapter 41. What we know

Chapter 42. Chasing a shadow

Chapter 43. What to do if You are Caught in an Avalanche

Chapter 44. Buried alive

Chapter 45. Cold comfort

Chapter 46. Run

Chapter 47. On thin ice

Chapter 48. Sorrow

Chapter 49. We wish you a merry Christmas

Chapter 50. Even the mundane can tell a story

Chapter 51. The fly barrette

Chapter 52. Instinct

Chapter 53. Nothing is completely safe

Chapter 54. All systems are down

Chapter 55. Make like bananas

Chapter 56. The Eye Ball

Chapter 57. A man about a dog

Chapter 58. No Rule 81

Chapter 59. Follow me

Chapter 60. Hanging on by an eyelash

Chapter 61. Blink and you die

Chapter 62. 1974

Two lucky escapes

Heroics

The oak on Amster Green

A badge of approval

Team players

Crime pays

A note on the Prism Vault codes

Picture this

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

Special thanks

About the Publisher

IT HAPPENED ONE BRIGHT APRIL DAY when the child, then barely five weeks old, was sleeping. The world crashed down and the baby opened its eyes, but there was only darkness to see. The walls were packed around it, almost touching, and the doors and the windows all gone. The baby cried out, but no one came. It screamed and clenched its furious fists, trying in vain to push at the tomb of rubble, but nothing happened. Its little mind began to panic, its eyes closed shut and its heart began to hurt.

She was alone and no one would ever find her.

The baby had been left in the care of the housekeeper, who had just put some cookies to cool on the porch when, without warning, the ground began to shift and the buildings began to shake, trees creaked and then cracked. Some of them – the big oak on Amster Green – stood firm, others – the giant cedar of west Twinford – fell.

Sidewalks buckled and streetlights toppled. The earth tremor lasted just a few seconds and Twinford City escaped by-and-large unscathed – a few buildings needed repair, but remarkably no one, not a soul, lost their life. The townsfolk mourned their fallen trees, but counted their blessings: no one had died. There was only one real casualty; the Fairbank house on Cedarwood was completely destroyed. After 200 years of standing just exactly where it was, looking out across the ever-changing townscape of west Twinford, this historic house was gone.

It was the housekeeper who dug the child out with nothing but ‘the hands God gave her’. This woman had endured more than earthquakes in her time and no mere earth tremor was going to have her standing by while an infant lay buried, perhaps dead, perhaps alive. By the time the baby’s parents returned to their home, now a wreckage of wood and brick, their daughter was lying in the housekeeper’s lap quiet as a lamb and smiling up at them. Everyone was very relieved, their little girl saved, not a scratch to her perfect face, no damage done.

Or so they thought, for in that baby’s head a tiny kernel of fear had lodged, a fear which would grow and grow until in her thoughts a monster lurked.

WHEN RUBY REDFORT WAS THIRTEEN AND THREE QUARTERS, she found herself confronting the biggest dilemma of her short life. On the desk was an apple split in two. In her hand was a tiny piece of paper.

On the paper were printed two small letters; small letters which spelled something so vast and so terrifying that it made her eyes water.

The letters told of betrayal and murder.

It was the Count who had planted suspicion, posed the grim question and introduced the poisonous thought that the untimely death of Spectrum’s most valuable agent, Bradley Baker, might have been ‘arranged’.

‘The question is,’ he’d said, ‘who pulled the trigger?’

It was the apple, the messenger of doom, which held the answer.

If Ruby was to believe in its truth then life had suddenly become dramatically more dangerous. She looked down at the paper inscribed with the initials of the woman who called the shots, who held the lives of so many in her hands.

The boss of Spectrum 8.

LB.

Ruby looked into darkness and wondered who she could trust.

Trust no one, she thought.

RUBY REDFORT WAS PERCHED ON a stepladder looking out of the high landscape window which ran the length of her room. The window was designed to allow the light in rather than to provide a view of the street below, but today it was the view Ruby was interested in. She was looking down at the network of roads and alleys, contemplating the scene below. Mrs Beesman was wheeling her shopping cart down one of the back alleys which ran between the rows of houses. The cart was filled with several cats and some jars, saucepans and a whole lot of random junk. A few of the cats appeared to have socks wrapped around their middles, presumably to keep them warm. Mrs Beesman herself was wearing several coats and a fur hat with earflaps, ski gloves and an extremely long, moth-eaten scarf. Mrs Beesman tended to wear a coat in all weathers, but today, bundled up as she was, suggested that it was a pretty chilly morning. As the old lady trundled past Mr Parker’s yard, so his dog Bubbles began to bark.

On Ruby’s lap was a plate of pancakes: her second serving and it was still only 6.47 am. Ruby had been away from home for the whole of November, and the housekeeper had missed her more than she would ever say. The minute Ruby had walked through the door Mrs Digby had reached for the batter and the skillet and while she flipped pancakes so they chatted. Their conversation had been interrupted by an urgent call from Mrs Digby’s cousin Emily and Ruby, knowing the time these phone calls often took, had carried her breakfast on up to her bedroom.

The pancakes were lasting longer than usual because Ruby’s eating was interrupted by her neighbourhood observations. Every few minutes she would put down her fork and take the pencil from behind her ear and make a note in the yellow notebook which lay in her lap. It was surprising how much was going on out there given the time of day. Ruby had taken up the yellow notebook habit when she was four years old and she now had 625 notebooks full of the exciting, interesting, ordinary and often dull happenings that had occurred in the world around her. She stored the 624 notebooks under the floor, the 625th she kept hidden inside the door jamb.

Ruby had returned unreasonably early that December morning from what she referred to as the ‘dork pound’ and what the organisers would call Genius Camp ‘for the mathematically gifted’. As far as Ruby was concerned, it was four weeks of her life she would never get back. It had been no walk in the park, not because the work had been particularly hard, but because some of the kids enrolled in the course were, well, not particularly nice, and some of them were a whole lot worse than that, namely Dakota Lyme. Ruby had run into Dakota not so long ago at the October mathletics meet, one of the less pleasant days of Ruby’s (on the whole charmed) life. Ruby had found herself going head to head with the objectionable girl in the final round of the one-day competition, and for all the trouble it had caused her, Ruby would have gladly conceded victory and walked away from the whole stupid circus. However, she won and took the consequences, which were a lot of abuse and a nasty encounter in the mathletics meet parking lot. One of the problems for Ruby was that her brilliant brain brought her a lot of attention, attention she really didn’t want, nor, given her status as an undercover agent, need.

Mr Parker came out onto the lawn to shout at Bubbles. The sound of his voice was a whole lot more unpleasant than the sound of the dog’s barking.

Ruby’s life as an agent was no picnic, but then that was hardly a surprise given the kind of people one was inclined to run into during the day-on-day battle of good v evil. Evil, a much overused word in Ruby’s opinion. Not every person who committed a crime was evil, and only rarely (extremely rarely) would one consider them through and through bad with not an iota of goodness in them. But when it came to the Count, Ruby would have to concede that if there was any good in him then it was too small to see. Blame it on a bad childhood, a life gone wrong, his ma and pa’s genes, blame it on the weather, but whatever the reason, it didn’t change the facts – goodness had deserted him utterly, and his soul had gone to rot. Around this monster of a man swirled a murky soup of the vile and the unhinged, all eager to do his dirty work. The plots they hatched and cruelties they inflicted were dark enough to give Wonder Woman herself reason to keep the nightlight lit. So how did a thirteen-year-old school kid from Twinford hold her nerve? Well, no one had promised her it was going to be easy. But what scared Ruby more than the cruel ones, more than the Count even, was the force behind it all, the one who pulled the strings. Because there was someone, and according to the Count it was this someone who wanted Ruby dead and caused the Count himself to shudder.

And one should always, in the words of Mrs Digby:

Fear the wolf that other wolves fear.

Ruby watched as a removal van turned the corner and made its way down Cedarwood Drive. It stopped outside the grey clapboard house, the oldest house on the street. It seemed it was about to become vacant once more. As far back as Ruby could remember, no one ever stuck around long enough to make the house a home.

Ruby Redfort was a girl who embraced change and was not fearful of a little adventure, but lately she wouldn’t mind if the whole world stood still.

A car drove by. It stopped at the junction; the driver wound down the window and threw a soda can onto the street.

October had been a busy month. Her life as an agent at the most secret of secret agencies – known only to those in the know as Spectrum – had been dominated by the growing sense that somewhere in Spectrum’s subterranean corridors there lurked a mole. Ruby had felt the steely looks as the eye of suspicion was trained on her. She had been interviewed by the head of Spectrum 1, Agent Delaware, and it had not been a comfortable experience, particularly when with a steady gaze he had uttered the words, ‘I could be staring into the eyes of a traitor right this very moment and not know it.’ But Ruby shouldn’t have taken it personally – it was simply protocol. Every agent in Spectrum was under suspicion, every single one of them interviewed, investigated and scrutinised. No one had been identified as the mole, no one had been cleared; the tension in HQ was palpable.

As October brought in the storm winds, so the Spectrum investigation brought an uneasy atmosphere which crept through its halls, seeding suspicion and mistrust. And for Ruby everything was beginning to settle at LB’s door.

A builder’s truck manoeuvred its way down the street and pulled up outside the Lemons’ house, blocking part of Cedarwood Drive. An angry driver began honking his horn, but the truck didn’t move. The driver got out of his car, the truck driver out of his truck, and they began shouting at each other. The shouts of the men in the street masked the sound of footsteps on the roof above her. It was only when the hatch opened that Ruby realised that someone was up there.

‘Who’s there?’ cried Ruby, the ladder rocking dangerously as she turned to look.

‘Ah,’ said Hitch. ‘It looks like you’re back.’

‘Jeepers! Ever think of knocking?’ scolded Ruby.

‘A bit weird isn’t it – knocking on the ceiling?’ said Hitch. He had a tool belt around his waist and a reel of cable slung across his shoulder.

‘What are you doing up there anyway?’

‘It’s a long story and I’ll fill you in on it when I’ve got time, but I ought to get going.’

‘You don’t want to hear the latest?’ she asked.

‘Itching to hear your news kid, but it’s a pleasure I’m going to have to put on hold.’ He opened the window and climbed out onto the ledge.

‘Doors too good for you, are they?’

‘I hadn’t realised you were so hung up on the rules,’ said Hitch as he disappeared from view. ‘Good to see you kid,’ he called.

RUBY HAD BARELY REPOSITIONED HERSELF on the stepladder when there was a knock at her bedroom door. Her husky dog Bug got to his feet and ambled over.

‘Is that you?’ she called, slipping the notebook under her behind.

‘Who else would it be?’ came the reply.

‘You may enter,’ Ruby called.

‘One day you’ll break your neck,’ said the housekeeper walking into the room.

Ruby looked down to see Mrs Digby, holding a tray and scanning the floor for empty mugs and dirty plates.

‘That’s not a very cheery greeting,’ said Ruby.

‘It won’t be a very cheering sight if it happens,’ said the old lady. ‘Nor if that butler falls off the house,’ she said, peering out of the window at Hitch. ‘Is he after squirrels again? Or is it window weevils?’

‘Who in only knows?’ said Ruby.

‘What are you doing up there anyway? Spying on folks, I’ll warrant.’

‘Watching,’ corrected Ruby.

‘Same thing,’ sniffed the housekeeper. ‘Never was there a child as curious as you.’

‘Did my folks have a late night or something?’ said Ruby, looking at her watch. It was rare for them to lie in; they were what Mrs Digby called ‘early birds’.

‘If you want the answer to that question then you’re going to have to dial long distance,’ said Mrs Digby.

‘Huh?’ said Ruby.

‘Paris, France,’ said the housekeeper, ‘that’s where they are.’

‘They are?’ said Ruby. ‘Why?’

‘That butler friend of yours talked them into it.’

‘Hitch?’ said Ruby, like the Redforts had a team of butlers.

‘He thought they needed a vacation; why I don’t know since the only vacation they could use is a vacation from vacations.’ Mrs Digby tutted. Just thinking about the number of trips that pair made could make her travelsick.

‘So when are they home?’ asked Ruby.

‘Day after tomorrow. They wanted to be back in time for your return, but apparently all the flights were chock-a-block.’

‘I’m sure Hitch could get them home. He’s pretty good at persuading airline people to do what he wants.’

‘Well, he failed this time,’ said Mrs Digby, ‘but I guess even he doesn’t have much hold over the weather.’

‘The weather?’

‘Blizzards,’ said Mrs Digby. ‘Paris is under several feet of snow.’

‘Is that so?’ said Ruby. ‘How long are they expected to—’ She broke off, her attention caught by something else. ‘Mrs Digby,’ said Ruby, peering at the old lady, ‘something has happened to your face.’

‘Well, that doesn’t sound quite polite,’ said the housekeeper.

‘I mean you look different.’ Ruby stared hard at her. ‘Tanned!’ she said, finally figuring out what had changed.

‘Well, since you ask, I’ve been cruising.’

‘What?’

‘I’ve been cruising around the Caribbean.’

Ruby looked stunned.

‘On a boat.’

‘I know what a cruise is,’ said Ruby. ‘I’m just interested to understand how you got to be on one.’

‘I won it fair and square.’

‘Won what?’

‘A cruise.’

‘How?’

‘In a competition. I won it and took Cousin Emily along with me.’

‘What competition?’ asked Ruby.

‘Well, that’s the curious thing,’ said Mrs Digby. ‘I don’t exactly remember entering one, but I suppose I must have, and you know what they say …’

‘What?’ said Ruby.

Mrs Digby looked at her conspiratorially and said, ‘Don’t ask too many questions or they’ll find you out.’

Ruby rolled her eyes. ‘You mean they might have made a giant mistake and given you a prize you didn’t actually win?’

‘I’m not saying it’s not impossible,’ said Mrs Digby.

Mrs Digby’s view on keeping one’s mouth shut was similar to Spectrum’s number one rule: KEEP IT ZIPPED. Ruby herself had a little book of rules, 80 of them to be accurate – it was a magenta book with the word ‘Rules’ printed on it in red. While the housekeeper busied herself collecting the rest of the dirty crockery, Ruby was left to her thoughts and she was surprised that one of her thoughts was, I wish my folks were home. Ruby was an independent kid; she didn’t need people around her all the time for comfort or security. She had what Mrs Digby called inner reserves, by which she meant a strong sense of who she was, but for some reason today sitting up there on that stepladder, Ruby just felt a strong need to see her mom and dad. The house felt not so much quiet without them, as actually: empty.

‘By the way,’ said Mrs Digby, ‘I hate to be the one to tell you, but that Archie Lemon busted into your room and ate some of your books.’

‘What? You’re kidding?’ said Ruby.

‘Before you get all animated about it, I should just say, it wasn’t while I was watching him.’

‘So who was?’ asked Ruby.

‘That would be his mother, Elaine. She was over visiting your mom and neither of them realised he had made a crawl for it – up all those stairs too.’

‘How did he manage that?’

‘They’re over-feeding him is my guess,’ said Mrs Digby. ‘Who would believe such a tiny person could cause such havoc, but don’t worry, I cleaned it all up, wiped the dribble off your books and put ’em all back.’

‘Gross,’ said Ruby.

‘I’m not disagreeing with you.’ The housekeeper turned to leave. ‘Glad to have you back child.’

‘Thank you,’ said Ruby. ‘I’ve missed you a bunch, you know that.’

Ruby returned to her musings.

As Ruby ran through all the various things that had happened since March, some nine months ago now, she began to see how time was running out and maybe not just for Spectrum – perhaps for her too.

She was beginning to tune into something that was driven neither by fact nor logic, it was more of a Clancy Crew hunch type of a thing. Just a feeling that whatever trouble was out there, it was now headed her way and about to come knocking at her door.

AT 3 PM RUBY HEARD A SCRATCHING at the door.

‘Bug, is that you?’

She was answered by one short bark.

‘OK, I’ll see you by the back door.’

She pulled on her boots, coat and hat, wound a scarf around her neck, and climbed out of the window.

Bug was waiting patiently outside for her, and together they set off down Cedarwood Drive, turned right on Amster and continued on as far as the Donut Diner. She left the husky by the coat rack and he settled down for a nap.

It was medium busy, not too crowded, but as usual there were plenty of customers. Marla, the owner, waved to Ruby as she walked through the door.

Ruby took up a seat at the counter where Clancy was already waiting: in front of him, two mugs of ginger tea and a couple of apple donuts.

Ruby unzipped her coat, to reveal a T-shirt which read: happy to be here

‘What’s with the tea?’ asked Ruby.

‘My sister Amy has a cold, my sister Lulu has a cold, my sister Nancy has a cold, my sister Minny has a cold, my dad has a cold.’

‘Jeepers,’ said Ruby, ‘sounds bad.’

‘Drusilla says due to the high levels of antioxidants in ginger, ginger tea can strengthen your immunity, warding off infection, and I’m trying to remain uninfected,’ said Clancy.

‘But why do I have to drink ginger tea?’ asked Ruby. ‘It’s you Crews who are the ones harbouring the plague.’

‘Who knows who it will strike next; you go down sick, there’s more of a chance I go down sick, and I don’t want to go down sick. Christmas is my favourite time of year.’

Ruby sipped her ginger tea. When Clancy was in this frame of mind it was easier to fall in behind than argue it through.

‘By the way, long time no hear,’ said Clancy.

‘I wrote you: you didn’t get my postcards?’

‘I got ’em,’ said Clancy. He thought for a moment. ‘How come you typed them?’

‘I didn’t want anyone to recognise my handwriting,’ said Ruby.

‘Is that why you signed them Aunt Mabel?’ asked Clancy.

‘I was trying to keep incognito.’

‘Well, it brought up a few questions with my mom, I can tell you that.’

‘What was she doing reading your postcards?’ said Ruby.

‘People read other people’s postcards,’ said Clancy. ‘They’re postcards, no envelopes, the mailman can read them if he chooses to, I mean if he happens to be particularly bored.’

‘So,’ said Ruby, ‘what did she want to know?’

‘Why this Aunt Mabel, who she didn’t know even existed, was recommending thermal socks. I mean if you were planning on using a code then why didn’t you use the regular one?’

‘Because if I had written a postcard in gobbledegook then that would have looked really suspicious. This way it looks like I am writing to you about normal stuff.’

‘Since when is it normal for an aunt who doesn’t even exist to write me about thermal socks?’

‘OK, you have a point, I went too much into character, but can we get back to the point?’

‘Which is?’

‘I did keep in touch.’

‘But you didn’t tell me anything, not really, only that something had happened and it was hard to explain in writing.’

‘Well, it was.’

‘In that case, why didn’t you call?’

‘It wasn’t so easy,’ said Ruby, biting into one of the donuts. ‘They had this whole lockdown thing going.’

‘Since when was Genius Camp so high-security?’

‘It was more like boot camp, if you really wanna know – anyone caught out of their study area or generally not complying with mathletics rules was threatened with disqualification.’

‘Seriously?’ asked Clancy.

‘You bet seriously,’ said Ruby. ‘I mean, you had to ask to use the payphone – you know it actually had a padlock on it.’

‘When did you ever take notice of petty rules? Or locks for that matter … Plus I thought you would have wanted to be disqualified and get sent home early.’

‘I thought about it, believe me, but then you know I felt bad for my mom and dad. For some reason having a daughter who is a major dork brainiac means something to them.’

‘That was your reason for staying?’ said Clancy. ‘Since when do you care so much about your parents’ dreams of a “show and tell daughter”? Forgive me, but I just don’t buy that.’

‘OK, so not just that. I had my reasons for sticking around, and one of them was the Pink Pixie. I swear I woulda walked had it not been for that box of crackers.’

‘You mean Dakota Lyme?’

‘Yeah, her,’ said Ruby. ‘Boy, she was so crazy for winning, her eyes almost popped out of her face – you remember how she tried to injure that kid, Ward Partial?’

‘Yeah, I read about that,’ said Clancy. ‘Don’t tell me she did it again.’

Ruby nodded her head. ‘Only worse this time. That poor Partial kid was at breaking point. You know, for a dweeb he’s actually kinda OK, plus he’s only eleven. He can’t handle the pressure.’

Clancy nodded. ‘So what happened?’

‘I’ll tell you some other time, but suffice to say, I stuck it out.’

‘You know what?’ said Clancy.

‘What?’ said Ruby.

‘You’re all heart.’

Ruby took a big slug of her drink. ‘Well, I couldn’t abandon him, could I? Let her go ahead and make mincemeat of him while I swanned off back to Twinford. You know what, this ginger tea’s not bad.’

‘What is bad is the hogwash you’re spouting,’ said Clancy. ‘Would you quit feeding me this garbage and actually tell me why you left town?’

Clancy had a way of sniffing out the baloney, and he knew there was more to Ruby’s little math vacation than the tale she had been telling him. Since when was it necessary for her, the brightest kid in Twinford Junior High, to go away for a four-week intensive math and science camp?

Ruby looked him dead in the eye, plucked a serviette from the dispenser and carefully wiped her hands.

‘You promise not to get all flappy?’

‘Why would I get flappy?’ replied Clancy.

‘OK,’ she said, ‘if you want to know so bad, I’ll tell you.’

Clancy waited.

‘It was all down to Hitch. It was him who was keen I should go, it was him who came up with the idea and wanted me to hunker down at geek camp,’ said Ruby.

Clancy looked confused. ‘Hitch is interested in your mathematical development?’

‘Hitch is interested in me continuing to breathe,’ said Ruby, ‘and I’m kinda interested in the same thing. The geek camp was just a way of getting me away and out of Twinford while he assessed the situation and made things secure back home.’

‘Assessed what situation?’

‘The situation regarding who might want me dead.’

Clancy let go of his donut and it splashed into his tea.

‘Clance, are you OK?’

‘Hitch thinks you’re on some kinda hit list?’ said Clancy, his voice unsteady.

‘Well, maybe …’ she said.

‘That’s why you were in the middle of nowhere for four whole weeks.?’ He paused. ‘But are you sure it’s safe for you to be home?’

‘Safe as it’s ever possible to be,’ said Ruby. ‘So long as I stay inside the house for the rest of my life everything should be fine.’

‘It’s not funny Rube.’

‘I know,’ said Ruby. ‘I’m not really laughing, you know that, don’t you?’

‘So is it the Count?’ asked Clancy.

‘Well, a month ago I would have said yes,’ said Ruby. ‘But the last thing he told me down in that crypt was that he had decided not to kill me.’

‘Why?’

‘Apparently he changed his mind.’

‘He actually said that?’ asked Clancy.

‘He said it was in his best interests for me to keep on breathing.’

‘Well, that’s kind of worrying, don’t you think?’ said Clancy.

‘Why?’ asked Ruby.

‘Because it sounds like there might be some other crazed killer out there.’

‘Yeah, well, I think there is,’ agreed Ruby.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ said Clancy.

‘I’m telling you now,’ said Ruby.

‘So?’

‘So what?’ said Ruby.

‘So the other thing you’re not telling me.’

‘What thing?’ said Ruby.

‘I don’t know,’ said Clancy. ‘That’s why I’m asking.’

‘OK …’ she said, ‘but don’t get all worked up … you gotta …’

‘I knew it!’ he said. ‘Something happened, didn’t it? It was just after I got outta hospital, after the Halloween pageant, the day before you went off to camp, am I right, am I, am I right?’ Now he was beginning to flap.

‘Clance, you promised you wouldn’t flap.’

Clancy ignored her and continued flapping.

‘Look Clance, the thing is …’

But he wasn’t finished. ‘Something spooked you, really spooked you.’ He was getting all dramatic now, Ruby hated when he got all dramatic – at least, hated when he got dramatic about things that were actually already dramatic.

‘Then you suddenly took off without a word. I knew there had to be a bigger reason than hanging out with nerds at some crummy nerd camp and I knew there had to be a bigger reason than just the usual Count encounter.’

‘Just the usual Count encounter …?’ spluttered Ruby. ‘The usual—’

‘So what was it that spooked you just after Halloween?’ interrupted Clancy.

‘Well, it wasn’t any kids dressed up as ghouls, I can promise you that,’ said Ruby.

‘That I figured,’ said Clancy. ‘But why didn’t you tell me what happened, you know, after … that night in the crypt –’ his voice was a little shaky now – ‘with the undead and … and, you know –’ he paused, before whispering – ‘the psychopath.’

‘Just a regular Tuesday night in Twinford.’

But Clancy was in no mood for making light. He was just looking at her, waiting for her to spill the beans.

She breathed in a long slow breath, exhaled and stared back at him.

‘Well, I was going to tell you, of course I was, but I needed time to think.’

‘About what?’ asked Clancy.

‘Everything,’ she replied. ‘It’s a big deal what I know, and I haven’t told a soul.’

‘No one? But you musta told Hitch?’

Ruby shook her head.

‘Blacker?’ asked Clancy.

‘No one,’ said Ruby.

‘So,’ said Clancy, ‘what is it?’

‘Not here,’ said Ruby, looking around. ‘Let’s move to that booth in the corner. I don’t want to risk being overheard – you know, walls have ears and all that.’

They slid off their stools and took their drinks over to the other side of the diner where the lighting was dimmer and the customers fewer.

‘So,’ said Ruby, ‘ever heard the phrase “a bad apple”?’

CLANCY DID NOT HAVE TIME to answer Ruby’s question, nor to wonder what apples had to do with anything, because they were interrupted.

‘Hey! Ruby!’

The voice came from across the busy diner and belonged to Elliot Finch.

‘You’re back,’ he called.

Ruby peered at her reflection in the chrome serviette dispenser. She nodded. ‘It would seem so.’

Elliot tapped his head and said, ‘I saw Bug lying by the diner door and I thought to myself, Ruby must be in here somewhere.’

‘Quite the little Sherlock Holmes,’ said Ruby.

Elliot slid into the seat next to Clancy. ‘So how’s the fruit baby?’

‘What?’ said Ruby.

‘He’s talking about the Lemon,’ explained Clancy.

The Lemon was Archie Lemon, one-year-old son of the Redforts’ neighbours Niles and Elaine Lemon, and a baby very lucky to be alive. Had it not been for Ruby’s decision to use him as a prop in the Halloween parade, Archie Lemon would have been asleep in his bedroom and the Twinford Tornado would have taken him with it when it whirled into the Lemons’ home, destroying Archie’s room. However, Archie had survived and his parents could not thank Ruby enough. In fact, it was getting to be a problem.

‘It must be cool,’ said Elliot.

‘It’s not,’ said Ruby.

‘Being a hero’s not cool?’ said Elliot.

‘I’m not a hero,’ said Ruby.

‘You saved that kid’s life,’ said Elliot.

‘I borrowed that baby because I needed him to play the part of Baby Grim in the pageant. I needed him because I wanted us to win. If we had won, we would have got prize money. That’s not heroic, it’s self-serving.’

‘But you saved his life,’ insisted Elliot.

‘Luck,’ said Ruby. ‘Coulda been the other way around, coulda been the tornado hit the pageant and it would all have been my fault and they woulda hated me for all eternity.’

‘Life is fickle,’ said Clancy.

‘People are fickle,’ corrected Ruby.

‘Still, it must be great, his parents thinking you’re a hero, even if you’re not … technically, I mean.’

‘It’s a pain in the butt,’ said Ruby. ‘Elaine calls round all the time asking me how I am.’ She sighed. ‘And she keeps giving me stuff.’

‘She’s giving you stuff?’ Elliot’s eyes grew big. ‘Like gifts and things?’

‘Yeah,’ said Ruby.

‘Oh boy,’ said Elliot, ‘I would love that.’

‘Would you?’ said Ruby. ‘Really? Cos I got a whole bunch of super ugly sweaters you can have: pink ones, purple ones, kitten ones …’

‘That’s what she’s giving you? Sweaters? Why sweaters?’ asked Clancy.

‘Her sister owns an “ugly knitwear” business,’ said Ruby.

‘Too bad,’ said Elliot.

‘Look, the point is not what she’s giving me, but that I don’t want her to give me anything.’

The bell over the diner door jangled and in walked Mouse Huxtable.

‘You’re back!’ she mouthed.

Ruby nodded. ‘So everyone keeps telling me.’

‘Well, you’ve been missed, that’s for sure,’ said Mouse. ‘Mrs Drisco’s been real grouchy.’

‘Why’s that?’ said Ruby. ‘I would have thought she would be happy to see the back of me.’

‘I think she misses the banter,’ said Mouse.

‘So what’s school been like since I left town?’ Ruby yawned.

‘Well,’ said Elliot, ‘it’s been a real hotbed of finger-pointing since you were cleared of trying to wreck Del’s life.’

‘I don’t think you can say “hotbed of finger-pointing”,’ said Mouse. ‘It doesn’t make a lotta sense.’

‘No,’ agreed Clancy, ‘it doesn’t sound right somehow.’

‘Like you can talk,’ said Elliot. ‘What was it you said the other day …’

Mouse broke in, ‘The point is, Elliot, Ruby’s off the hook and in the clear, everyone thinks it was someone from the outside, i.e. not a student at Twinford Junior High.’ She shook her head and looked at Ruby. ‘Boy, I guess someone really hates you out there.’

‘My money’s on Dakota Lyme,’ said Elliot.

‘Don’t be so sure,’ said Ruby, who knew for a certainty that it was not. ‘You gotta be careful making allegations against people, however objectionable they might be.’ It was actually the vengeful Lorelei von Leyden, mistress of disguise, who had set Ruby up as saboteur. Dakota Lyme was just a fall-guy.

Clancy checked his watch. ‘Yikes, I’d better get going. I have to pick up a load of cough syrup for my sisters or I’ll never hear the end of it – and I mean literally: cough, cough, cough.’ He pulled on his coat. ‘That thing we were talking about before, Rube, we’ll catch up first thing, OK?’ He shot her a look and she nodded.

‘OK,’ said Ruby.

Ruby hung out for another half hour before she headed off. She didn’t feel like going home just yet, so she turned the corner at Green Street and made a left at Main until she reached Ray Penny’s second-hand bookstore.

On a winter’s evening, with its cosy lighting and tropical heating (Ray hated to be cold), Penny Books was a pleasant place to kill time. The store was unusually busy today. Perhaps due to the warmth, and the fact that Ray wasn’t much bothered by making a sale, a lot of folks used the place like it was a library.

Ruby browsed the graphic novel shelves; apart from shuffling footsteps as customers edged around bookstands, all that could be heard was the classical music playing on Ray’s turntable and the sound of turning pages. Ruby stepped past a bearded guy who was sitting on a stool looking at a book with a beige cover. He wasn’t browsing, he was most definitely reading. In another corner was a boy flicking through a comic while he snacked on a flapjack.

Ruby herself settled down with a pile of Space Creep novels and began working her way through them. A moment later she was roused from her reading by the sound of falling books. Through a gap in the shelving, she could see part of a face, serious and intense. It belonged to a young woman who was clutching a pile of poetry books, and continuing to browse even though her arms were already full. Too full. Every now and again one of the poetry books would slide out from the pile and hit the floor and she would mutter, ‘whoops’ or ‘darn’ or ‘for flip’s sake!’

After the fifth drop, the guy with the beard looked up and said, ‘Here, let me help you with those.’ He put his book down on the stool and took the stack of paperbacks to the front desk.

The young woman was very grateful. ‘Thanks a lot, that’s so kind, thank you, real nice of you, thank you again.’

Ruby was curious to know what had kept the bearded man so enthralled for the past forty-four minutes and sauntered over to take a look. The object of interest turned out to be a book entitled Fascinating Fungi.

Ruby didn’t doubt that the study of fungi might be fascinating, but this book was not presented in a way that would entice the casual browser. With its old black-and-white photographs and dense text, you really needed to be a total fungus nut to want to pick it up. But as Mrs Digby would say, ‘it takes all sorts’. Ruby had never been a big fan of edible fungi, and even when in a survival-type situation hadn’t been overjoyed to see one. However, the poisonous kind interested her quite a lot.

Ruby knew a great deal about poison in all its various forms, and her knowledge in this area had grown in recent weeks due to a series of attempts on the life of the Mongolian conservationist Amarjargel Oidov, organised it seemed by the Count and presumably his employer. No one exactly understood why Oidov had become the target of a murderer, but it seemed likely that it was connected to the ancient and previously undiscovered species of snake she was seeking to protect. The reptiles were an incredible yellow and marked with delicate diamonds of colour. The skins would fetch high prices in the fashion trade and the venom might also be of interest to toxicologists.

Coincidentally, one of the unusual things about the snake was that it feasted on mushrooms. Why the snakes were of interest to the Count, or indeed the Count’s boss, was still an unknown.

Ruby checked her watch: it was getting late and probably time to head home. She thanked Ray, who merely raised his hand in a lazy ‘bye-bye’, and Ruby pushed her way out into the cold night air.

IT WAS ANOTHER COINCIDENCE that when Ruby returned home that evening it was fungus that was the main topic of conversation.

Mrs Digby was staring hard at a very ancient-looking recipe book and appeared unusually flustered.

‘So what are you looking to cook?’ asked Ruby, peering over the housekeeper’s shoulder.

‘Your mother wants me to rustle up this particular stew – she’s got her mind set on it, but I’ll be darned if I will ever find the ingredients.’

‘Maitake,’ Ruby read. ‘What are maitake?’

‘Hen of the woods,’ said Mrs Digby.

‘Chicken?’ said Ruby.

‘Mushrooms,’ said the housekeeper.

‘What’s the big deal with mushrooms all of a sudden?’ said Ruby. ‘They seem to be popping up everywhere.’

‘Everyone’s gone mushroom crazy, including your mother, and I can’t get my hands on a single one of these rarer breeds.’

‘Breeds?’ said Ruby. ‘Do mushrooms breed?’

‘My point is, there’s been a run on them, and it’s all to do with those darned vipers.’

‘What vipers?’ asked Ruby.

‘Those ones that were on the TV.’

‘You mean the yellow snakes?’ said Ruby. ‘The ones that were exhibited at the Geographic Explorer awards?’

‘Those are the critters,’ said Mrs Digby. ‘There’s been nothing but chatter about them, all the while you’ve been away – on the radio, on the television networks, in the newspapers.’ Mrs Digby reached for the Twinford Hound and slid it across the counter. ‘I don’t mind telling you, I wish those slitherers had never been discovered.’

‘I expect Amarjargel Oidov feels the same,’ said Ruby, thinking back to the conservationist’s almost-murder. Oidov had made a full recovery, but it had been a close call. Now Ruby could see, as she scanned the evening paper, that the prize-winning conservationist Oidov was working alongside the scientific institute, and they were together:

‘STUDYING THE YELLOW SNAKES, THEIR DIET AND THEIR ENVIRONMENT, WHICH REMAIN A CLOSELY GUARDED SECRET.’

It was their diet, which included a rare and unnamed mushroom with rumoured life-enhancing powers, that had sparked this fad for unusual fungi.

Ruby read on.

‘THE RESEARCH PROGRAMME IS BEING CONDUCTED IN SECRECY. THE SCIENTISTS ARE WORKING WITH A HIGHLY QUALIFIED DIETARY EXPERT FROM SEVILLE, SPAIN.’

Ruby had a pretty good idea who this dietician might be.

Mrs Digby continued to burble on about the snakes. ‘They say those reptiles hold a secret, but if you ask me the only secret they hold is how to get you dead lickety split – one bite and you’re a goner.’

‘Plenty of snakes will get you dead,’ said Ruby. ‘Though you’re right about the venom; it is unusual. The skins are kinda spectacular too. I mean there are plenty of people who might want to bump off Oidov and turn her yellow snakes into handbags.’

‘Just the thought of it makes me queasy,’ Mrs Digby shivered. ‘What I would kill for is a half-pound of these hen of the woods.’

‘Have you tried the grocers on Green Street?’

Mrs Digby rolled her eyes. ‘You think I was born this morning?’ she said. ‘If Green’s stocked such a thing then I would go to Green’s, but these are no ordinary mushrooms.’

‘So maybe the farmers’ market would have them?’ suggested Ruby. ‘They have pretty exotic vegetables.’

‘These are exoticker,’ said Mrs Digby.

‘Exoticker?’ repeated Ruby.

‘More exotic,’ said Mrs Digby. ‘More exotic than what the farmers’ market sell. These you have to forage for and even then you gotta be lucky, and I don’t have the time to be lucky nor the inclination to go roaming through the forests of Minnesota trying to spot a hen of the woods.’

Ruby shrugged. ‘So substitute.’

‘What with, might I ask?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Ruby. ‘How about button mushrooms?’

Mrs Digby shook her head. ‘What you don’t know about cooking is a lot.’

Which was true.

The phone rang and Ruby picked up.

‘Pest control, we spray you pay.’

‘Hey Ruby, it’s us! We’re in Paris!’

‘Mom?’

‘Oui, but of course.’

‘Ciao ciao Ruby!’

‘Dad?’

‘Yes, it’s me.’

‘How are you?’

‘Well, the weather here is très froid you know, and there’s neige.’

‘What? You mean snow?’

‘Uh huh, lots and lots of neige, the airport is still closed.’

‘So when are you likely to make it home?’

‘Ooh la la – heaven only knows.’

‘Would you like to talk to Mrs Digby?’

‘Oui, yes, if you please s’il vous plait.’

Ruby handed the phone to the housekeeper and left them to it.

Maybe she’d have a go at solving Mrs Digby’s fungus problem.

Ruby might not know a lot about how to get her hands on a hen of the woods, but she knew someone who probably did.

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