get down to the school – pick up Ruby. I don’t want her hearing about this from anyone else.’
Mrs Digby nodded. ‘I’ll be here,’ was all she said.
WHEN RUBY TRAILED OUT OF TWINFORD JUNIOR HIGH, Hitch was waiting there to meet her. She spotted him across the schoolyard, standing by the car, and quickly called goodbye to Red as she hurried towards him.
‘So something happening at Spectrum? We gotta get somewhere? ’Cause you know I was hoping to see Del later. I said I’d play her at table tennis to make up for swim practice, promised I’d destroy her, but I guess that ain’t gonna be on the cards. Boy, was she ever mad at me, didn’t believe the whole thing about the bump on my head, said I was gonna have to…’
Ruby slowly stopped talking.
‘You OK Hitch? You look like someone just ran over your goldfish.’
Hitch didn’t know what to say – how do you tell a kid her parents are missing, presumed dead? He struggled to find the right words, but there were no right words so he just said it.
She looked at him. Her face belied her thoughts. How could this have happened? One minute the girl who had it all, the next the girl who had lost the two most precious things in her life.
Hitch put his arm round her and said, ‘They’re just missing kid, no one’s saying more than that.’
But what Ruby heard was the little voice in her head. She knew that things were not looking good for her parents’ safe return, didn’t matter what ‘no one was saying’.
Ruby didn’t need to ask where their boat had been at the time; she was pretty sure it would be somewhere not so far from the Sibling Islands in those dangerous waters with the tricky currents, with the undertow every sailor feared.
‘Look, I spoke to LB,’ Hitch said. ‘She has authorised a Spectrum agent, using Spectrum equipment, to scan the Sibling waters for your parents. If they can be found we’ll find them – you can be certain of that kid.’
Ruby just nodded. They got in the car and drove back in silence.
Mrs Digby opened the door before Ruby was halfway up the steps.
‘Don’t you torture yourself up with worry Ruby; they’ll be back before you know it. I can feel it in my bones and my bones ain’t never wrong.’
Hitch made his excuses to Mrs Digby and headed back out. He couldn’t sit around – he had to do something, even if it was just taking the Spectrum dinghy out and scouting the waters. The chances of finding anything were remote, but at least it was something to keep his mind from believing the worst.
The old housekeeper and Ruby ate supper accompanied only by the noise of the ticking clock and the intermittent
ringing of the phone. Ruby barely touched her food. When she was done trying, she climbed the stairs to her room and flicked on the TV.
The story of the pirates and the survivors of the Humberts’ yacht was headline news. There was an interview with Ambassador Crew, his arm in a fresh black sling and a patch over one eye, ironically making him look distinctly pirate-like.
The conch shell in Ruby’s bathroom rang, and she picked it up at once.
‘Ruby, my dad told me everything.’
‘Hello Clancy.’ She sounded like every drop of energy had drained out of her.
‘This is awful Rube, just awful.’
‘Yeah,’ 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
