Lauren Child - The Complete Ruby Redfort Collection - Look into My Eyes; Take Your Last Breath; Catch Your Death; Feel the Fear; Pick Your Poison; Blink and You Die

She was about to continue her bathroom-based surveillance when the intercom buzzed – Ruby’s parents had sensibly fitted them on each floor to keep shouting to a minimum.

She pressed the ‘speak’ button.

‘Hello, how may I be of assistance?’

‘Howdy,’ came the voice from the other end of the intercom. ‘This is Mrs Digby, your housekeeper, may I please remind you that your parents will be home from Switzerland in two and a quarter hours.’

‘I know, Mrs Digby, you told me that a half hour ago.’

‘Glad you remembered. May I also point out that they may be a little grief stricken to see the state of your bedroom.’

‘It’s my style Mrs Digby – “layered”– it’s very in vogue.’

‘Well may I continue to remind you that some magazine folks are coming to photograph this very house tomorrow and if your mother sees it in its “layered” state, you will be in what’s commonly referred to as “the dog house”.’

‘OK, OK,’ sighed Ruby, ‘I’ll take care of it.’

The Redfort house, dubbed the Green-Wood house, on account of its environmental features, had been designed in 1961 by famous architect Arno Fredricksonn. Even now, a decade or so later it was still considered very state of the art and was regularly featured in architectural journals.

Ruby returned to the bathroom, sat back down on her stool and continued to stare out of the window; the truck was still there but now there was a raccoon sitting on its roof. The bathroom door pushed open and in ambled a large husky dog, which sniffed around before settling down to chew the bathmat.

‘Bored, huh?’ said Ruby, slipping off her stool. She padded into her bedroom and surveyed the wreckage. It was not a pretty sight. Ruby wasn’t so much untidy as she was a spreader – she had a lot of stuff and when she was busy working on something the stuff had a habit of creeping from one surface to another and this was what her mother did not like.

Darn it! muttered Ruby. If the magazine people were coming, her mom would just about freak if this was what they saw. She could almost hear her father saying, ‘for the sake of your mother’s sanity – do something Ruby.’ So she set about slipping records back into their sleeves and pushing books onto shelves. Ruby had a lot of books; they were arranged floor to ceiling across one end of her room.

A FICTION SECTION:

both English and foreign titles.

FACTUAL:

comprising anything.

GRAPHIC NOVELS AND COMICS:

subject – largely crime and mystery.

Ruby and Mrs Digby had a shared enthusiasm for crime and thrillers: fact or fiction, whether in book form or on the screen. They would often settle down with a large bowl of blue corn chips and watch the quiz show What’s Your Poison? or when Ruby was several years younger, Mrs Digby would settle Ruby to sleep by reading one of her favourite Crime thrillers, The Claw at the Window .

PUZZLES:

Puzzles were Ruby’s passion.

Any kind of puzzle: crosswords, anagrams, riddles, even jigsaws – anything that needed to be solved by finding the ‘pattern’ the ‘trick’ or the ‘key’. This had led Ruby to…

CODES:

She had read many books and essays on the subject.

In fact she was a subscriber to Master Code Monthly , a little known Chinese subscription-only magazine. Subscribers had to prove their code-cracking talent before they were permitted to sign up. It was this journal that had led her to read the following:

* Garp Einholt’s, The Theory of Code, its Abstract Duality and Subtext (to be honest Ruby had found this very overstated and not a little tedious).

* Sherman Tree’s more vital Unlock My Brain.

* Anya Pamplemous’s thirty year study of codes, The Puzzles That Lie Within , which she also very much enjoyed.

But her personal handbooks were both written many centuries ago, one, by the Greek philosopher, Euclid with the simple title of X , the other, a tiny indigo book (origin unknown) which was filled with all manner of codes. It explained riddles and poems and equations – patterns, symbols and sounds. It was a code breaker’s bible.

Having dealt with the books, records and papers, Ruby began the more complex task of sorting through clothes; all of which seemed to be on the floor of her closet. It was here, underneath a pile of knee-high striped socks, that she unearthed her glasses.

Boy, am I glad to see you!

Although Ruby would on occasion wear contact lenses she didn’t much care for them; they had a habit of falling out at exactly the wrong moment. If Ruby Redfort had an Achilles heel, it was her eyes; without some sort of visual aid life was just a blur.

There was another buzz from the intercom. ‘Yuh huh?’

‘What are you doing?’

‘Being tidy – why?’

‘Just checking.’

‘Mrs Digby, you are one suspicious woman.’

Having put away as many of her clothes as she could be bothered to put away, Ruby grabbed all the remaining garments and stuffed them down the laundry chute. She was in the habit of tipping all sorts of things down the laundry chute – even, on occasion, herself. It saved time.

Judging her work finished, Ruby’s finger hovered over the TV’s ‘on’ switch, but her attention was caught by what sounded like activity in the kitchen. Seven years ago she had rigged up a reverse periscope device so she could see what was occurring in the kitchen below. Today she saw Mrs Digby taking a fresh batch of cookies out of the oven.

Nice work Mrs Digby.

She slid her notebook carefully inside the hollowed out doorframe, and went downstairs.

RULE 2: IF YOU WANT TO KEEP SOMETHING SECRET, DON’T LEAVE IT LYING AROUND.

Chapter 2.

There’s a lot of truth in fiction

WHEN RUBY ENTERED THE STYLISH, modern kitchen, she was automatically handed a vile-smelling green drink. Ruby glared at Mrs Digby, bearer of the unfortunate liquid.

Mrs Digby shrugged. ‘Don’t look at me, it’s your mother’s orders – she wants you to grow.’ Sabina was always trying to get Ruby to eat foods that might promote growth. ‘Personally I don’t see what’s so wrong with being short,’ Mrs Digby added. ‘I’ve always been short and it’s never stopped me from getting by in the world.’

This was true. Mrs Digby was probably one of the smallest and most determined people one could meet. She had been with the Redforts long before Ruby was born and before that she was housekeeper to Ruby’s mother’s parents. Her face resembled an autumn leaf – dry and covered in lines. When she applied lipstick, it bled along the tiny cracks around her mouth, creating miniature rivulets. She was getting on in years but no one was exactly sure of her age – if asked she usually answered, ‘sixty, seventy, eighty, who’s counting? Not me that’s for darn sure.’

Mrs Digby spoiled Ruby whenever possible but never, ever, went against Mrs Redfort’s dietary instructions. Sabina Redfort was always putting her household under one health regime or another and Ruby and her father dreaded them all .

Ruby took the drink without arguing, brought it to her lips and said, ‘Mrs Digby, could I have just one cookie, just to take the taste away?’

Mrs Digby considered the request for a mere moment. ‘Well, your mother didn’t say you couldn’t – so I guess it would be all right.’ She turned her back just for a second, maybe two, and in this tiny moment Ruby poured the drink down the sink, having been careful to first make sure she got some of the green liquid on her upper lip.

‘Yuck!’ said Ruby.

‘There’s a miserable kid,’ said the housekeeper, wiping Ruby’s face as if she were still just a toddler. Mrs Digby looked at Ruby’s T-shirt, which bore the statement some days stink and muttered, ‘well, who can argue with that.’