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 nice looking man seemed to be in charge – at least he did most of the talking.
Mrs Digby stood there with her hands on her hips. ‘What is this? Kidnap-an-old-person-week?’ She wasn’t taking captivity lying down. The Digbys had always fought tooth and nail, no matter what the odds.
‘All we want you to do,’ said the man, ‘is call your employers and tell them that you are safe and sound in Miami.’
She folded her arms.
‘And why would I tell them that, when it is perfectly obvious to me that I am not?’
‘Well,’ suggested the man softly, ‘why don’t you just say that you are?’
‘Because that would make me a liar and I ain’t no liar.’ Mrs Digby pursed her lips.
‘Well,’ said the man, ‘cross your fingers behind your back and pretend that you are.’
Mrs Digby sighed heavily. ‘And just what am I doing in Miami?’
‘Perhaps you are playing a game of blackjack, perhaps you have friends there.’
‘And what if I’m not in Miami, what if I’m being held at gunpoint in a warehouse, what are you going to do then?’
‘Then,’ said the other man, the one with the big hands and the silver rings which looked a little bit like knuckle dusters, ‘then perhaps you are gonna wish you was in Miami playing blackjack.’
‘OK, OK, I get the picture, tough guy.’ Mrs Digby picked up the phone, praying Ruby might have skipped school – if Ruby heard her voice she would know in a moment that something was up. Ruby was one smart cookie. Mrs Digby dialled the number – but no one answered.
‘So leave a message,’ hissed the tough guy.
Mrs Digby glanced at his silver rings and decided she would do as she was told.
‘They won’t ever believe you, you know,’ she said. ‘You can force me to say a whole lotta mumbo jumbo on an answerphone but the Redforts know me inside out – they’ll know I was made to do it. It just won’t ring true, they know I have no cousin Ernie – believe you me, you all are gonna be stitched up like a pack of kippers.’ Mrs Digby was defiant as ever but her captors
