Look Into My Eyes

  “What do you mean?” said Clancy, flapping his arms.

  “We don’t have a single piece of furniture left,” said Ruby dramatically.

  “You got robbed?” mouthed Clancy.

  “I guess you could call it that — though it looks more like we moved but no one bothered to tell us where we were moving to.”

  “They took everything?” said Clancy, his eyes widening.

  “Everything except the phones,” said Ruby. “By the way thanks for your call, buster.”

  “What call? I didn’t call,” said Clancy. “My dad grounded me on account of me having to re-take that French test, wouldn’t let me call, so I didn’t.”

  “No, I noticed,” said Ruby. “But someone did. I tell you I got some super strange telephonic activity last night.”

  “You did?” said Clancy. “What kinda super strange — weird strange or creepy strange?”

  “It’s hard to say,” said Ruby. “One was a hang-up and the other was this gravelly voiced woman.”

  “Like the woman in A Date with Fate?” asked Clancy.

  “Sorta,” said Ruby. A Date with Fate was a show that had been running for years; each week some mildly creepy ghost story was introduced by this old actress with this raspy voice — the stories tended to be a little lame.

  “What did she say?”

  “It’s hard to explain exactly — some kinda code.”

  “You crack it?”

  “Not yet, but listen — before that, this kinda chiseled guy turns up at our house and says he’s the house manager my mom requested, only of course my mom being my mom is calling him a butler.”

  “You got a butler! Wow,” said Clancy, impressed, even though his family had never been without one his whole entire life. “What’s he like?”

  “A total airhead,” said Ruby.

  “That doesn’t sound good,” said Clancy. “You don’t want an airhead butler.”

  “Well, technically he’s not a butler, he’s a household manager — whatever that means.”

  Clancy whistled. “Mrs. Digby’s not gonna like that!”

  “Yeah, well, luckily she’s with her cousin Emily right now, but you’re right. She’s bound to notice there’s something a little off about this guy.”

  “How do ya mean — off?”

  Ruby paused for effect. “I think there’s something sorta strange about him.”

  “Like what, for example?” said Clancy, unable to keep the thrill out of his voice.

  “He seems to know too much. Things he couldn’t know — well, not unless he was psychic or something.”

  “So where did he come from?” asked Clancy. He was on the edge of his seat, or at least would have been had he been sitting down.

  “London, supposedly. But who really knows,” replied Ruby.

  “He’s English?”

  “No, he was just living there — the people he used to work for have ‘suddenly’ gone off riding elephants for three years.” Ruby loved getting Clancy all wired about the possibility of some dark mystery.

  “Perhaps he stole their money and did away with them,” he said earnestly.

  “Well that might explain the flashy car — he’s got this silver convertible — but I am not sure it explains the arm injury.”

  “The arm injury? You’ve got an injured butler? You don’t want an injured butler. He’s really injured?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Ruby, nodding. “He looks like he was involved in some kinda accident.”

  “Or shoot-out!” whispered Clancy conspiratorially. “You know what, Rube? I’ll bet he’s not even a butler. He’s almost certainly a hit man or something.”

  “You’ve got some imagination, Clance my old pal!”

  But she didn’t tell him the thought had crossed her mind.

  Ruby wasn’t one to get in trouble unnecessarily, but she was finding it hard to concentrate and several times during class it was noted that she wasn’t paying attention. The thing was she just couldn’t put it together — what was the significance of fifteen dollars and forty-nine cents?

  After lunch it came to her — she couldn’t believe she had been so stupid — it was the most simple kind of clue, the staring you in the face kind. So obvious you missed it. As Ruby all too often remarked, PEOPLE OFTEN MISS THE DOWNRIGHT OBVIOUS {RULE 18}.

  It was Mr. Walford who got her to see it. He used to be in the military and liked to be precise about things. He was a stickler for using the twenty-four-hour clock.

  “Redfort, Ruby,” he barked. “It is precisely thirteen thirty-one, recess is no longer in progress, march your way swiftly to class please.”

  Ruby stopped in her tracks, paused, and then suddenly turned to Mr. Walford. “Three forty-nine p.m.! Of course! Not fifteen dollars and forty-nine cents but fifteen hundred hours and forty-nine minutes — or put another way, eleven minutes to four.”

  The price sticker is telling me to be at Joe’s Supermart at 3:49 p.m.

  Mr. Walford looked at her as if she was a complete crazy but that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered . . . oh, except for the school basketball tournament, scheduled to begin at sixteen hundred hours.

  Darn it, Del is going to kill me.

  Ruby would be sorely missed if she didn’t show. Del’s team, the Deliverers, was playing Vapona Begwell’s team, known as the Vaporizers, and there was always a lot of rivalry. Del Lasco would not forgive her unless she had a good excuse, and even then, she still might not.

  Inspiration came during Phys Ed when Ruby dramatically faked a foot injury — everyone saw as she tripped down the outside steps. A stuntman couldn’t have done a better job.

  “Jeepers! My toe, I think I just broke my little toe.”

  Ruby knew that toes get broken all the time and that they don’t necessarily require a trip to the emergency room. More often than not you just need to ice it. She had no trouble convincing anyone that she wasn’t going to be playing basketball anytime soon — Ruby was an accomplished actress.

  “Too bad Ruby, we’re really gonna miss you,” said Del, kicking furiously at a weed. This was no lie, Ruby Redfort would be missed because what she might lack in height she made up for in skill. She had the amazing knack of distracting the opposition and scoring before they knew that they had even lost possession of the ball.

  “Yeah, Del, I know. I’m sorry,” said Ruby, wincing as she hobbled toward the nurse’s office.

  Mrs. Greenford, the school nurse, couldn’t get either of Ruby’s parents on the phone, which was unsurprising since some time ago Ruby had changed their contact details in the school files. The numbers now sent any member of the staff to an answering machine with the reassuring message, “If Ruby should need to come home early today, I am around, please put her in a cab.” (Ruby could do a flawless impression of her mother.) This way, if ever she wanted to pull a stunt like this, her parents would not be informed.

  Ruby limped off to the taxi.

  “So I’m to take you to Cedarwood Drive?” said the cab driver.

  “Nah, change of plan — Joe’s Supermart on Amster,” said Ruby.

  The driver gave her a knowing look and nodded. “Yeah I was a kid once — don’t worry, my lips are sealed, sweetheart.”

  WHEN RUBY ENTERED THE SUPERMART her ears were assaulted by the tinny sound of the worst kind of Muzak. Ruby caught sight of old Mrs. Beesman, who was busy filling her cart with what looked like two hundred cans of cat food. It was rumored that she had somewhere approaching seventy-four cats, but as far as Ruby knew no one had ever been in Mrs. Beesman’s house to count them. She noticed Mrs. Beesman was wearing earmuffs.

  Smart lady, this music could damage your brain.

  Ruby walked slowly around the aisles, studying the shelves carefully until she saw what she was looking for. In the middle of a shelf displaying unnaturally vivid cookies and cakes, she saw an item that just didn’t belong. A box of very cardboard-looking Real Health Crackers. They claimed to be Delicious nutritious yummy snacks — no sug
ar no eggs no wheat no additives, but the truth was the packaging looked tastier than the contents.

  Something wholesome in Joe’s Supermart, now that is unusual.

  Ruby looked at the price sticker and sure enough, across the top it said, ORGANIC UNIVERSE. The words of the mystery voice came back to her.

  “You can see when something is plumb square in the wrong place.”

  With the box of crackers under her arm, Ruby left the store and made her way across the street to Organic Universe. The wooden chimes jangled as she entered, and the smell of sensible food hit her. She headed straight for the cookie aisle, and there, right next to two boxes of Health Crackers, sat a telephone directory. She replaced the box of Health Crackers she was holding, picked up the directory, and carried it over to the phone booth by the door.

  Now what? she thought.

  Above the phone were hundreds of cards advertising all kinds of different health-giving treatments, from color therapy to water therapy, and then . . . a card which simply said, DON’T CALL US WE’LL CALL YOU.

  Ruby took the card down from the board and looked at it closely, but apart from a decorative pattern around its edge, there was no other information. She sat down on the wooden stool by the phone booth and waited. After twenty-five minutes the man behind the counter was eyeing her suspiciously.

  “Can I help you?” he asked in an extremely unhelpful tone. He was a young guy, nervous-looking, with a nose that seemed too big for his head. It made his face look awkward.

  “No, I’m just fine thanks,” replied Ruby, doing her best to sound casual. “I’ll let you know if I need anything.”

  The big-nosed guy obviously didn’t want to get into an argument with a schoolkid but he wasn’t about to let her out of his sight.

  Ruby silently watched the minute hand tick slowly around the clock face, while the big-nosed guy walked around the store, eyeing her furtively. If someone was trying to test Ruby Redfort’s patience, they were doing a good job, though patience was not a quality that Ruby was lacking.

  However, she was relieved when at exactly two minutes to five, the phone rang. She jumped and almost knocked the receiver off its cradle. “Hi, hello,” blustered Ruby.

  “Am I talking to Ruby Redfort?” asked that same gravelly voice.

  “Yuh huh, yes,” confirmed Ruby.

  “Good, glad you made it this far. I have a job offer for you — let’s make a date . . . how about tomorrow night at eight for eight not a minute sooner not a minute later. And keep it zipped.”

  “Anything else you wanna tell me?” asked Ruby.

  “Yes,” said the voice. “Be lucky.”

  No good-bye, just the dial tone.

  I guess directions would be too much to ask for, thought Ruby as she left the store.

  On her way back home Ruby stopped off at the green. Up in the tree she found a neatly folded origami cuckoo. She knew what that meant without even reading the note.

  THE CUCKOO: a parasitic bird who takes over the nest of another by pushing the host’s eggs out and laying its own in their place. If necessary the cuckoo will devour the host-bird’s young.

  In other words,

  THE CUCKOO: a ruthless killer and imposter.

  The cuckoo was of course Hitch. It was classic Clancy Crew — he was joking but kind of serious at the same time. He had a sixth sense for trouble. He was often saying, “The thing is Rube, I got a hunch about this,” or “Trust me, I got a feeling I’m right about that.” He could never explain why he had a hunch or where it had come from but the remarkable thing was, he was almost always right. Ruby unfolded the bird and read the note.

  Vc spf jdyye I fucefy xrs. C ussxubu ds!

  Ruby smiled. It wasn’t easy to fool Clancy Crew. Ruby tore a piece of paper from her notebook, wrote Zvuu lvh miv, dsps mpcxd zcf oiwswuzv?, folded it, and pushed it into the knot.

  When Ruby got home she saw the same police car once again parked in the driveway, and as she walked up the stairs she heard the familiar voice of Sheriff Bridges and also another voice, which turned out to be a police detective.

  “So you didn’t notice she was gone, Mrs. R.?” asked Sheriff Bridges.

  “Well, to be honest, Nat, what with everything else disappearing I just didn’t get around to noticing. I wasn’t surprised not to see her yesterday — she said she was going to stay with Emily — but Emily says she hasn’t seen her for two weeks.”

  “Emily?” inquired the detective.

  “Her cousin Emily — lives in North Twinford. You see the thing is she was offended. She shouldn’t have been, but that’s Mrs. Digby all over, she gets offended at the drop of a hat.”

  “Offended? By what, Mrs. Redfort?”

  “You know, anything really. It can be the smallest criticism. I have to be so careful, the slightest thing can set her off; I ask her to dust, she thinks I’m criticizing, I ask her not to, she thinks I don’t trust her with a duster . . .”

  “No, Mrs. Redfort,” said the detective, who seemed to be trying hard to hold on to his temper. “I meant to say how did you offend her this time?”

  “Well, look, it’s like this, Detective,” interrupted Brant Redfort. “Sabina stepped into an argument between Consuela, our talented new chef, and Mrs. Digby, our much-loved housekeeper — some tomato juice was thrown and Sabina was understandably rather upset.”

  “It went all over my new Oscar Birdet jacket. It’s most probably ruined — tomato juice is stubborn to get out,” said Sabina.

  “The thing is,” continued Brant, trying to keep the conversation on track, “Mrs. Digby felt Sabina was taking Consuela’s side — she’s very high-strung.”

  Ruby was by now standing in the doorway quietly observing. The detective was writing something in his notepad, obviously thinking very hard.

  “What is it?” asked Sabina.

  “Could just be that your Mrs. Digby is somehow involved in all this — have you thought of that?” He waved his arm to indicate the now furnitureless house.

  “Oh, now, come on, Detective! Nat, you’ve seen Mrs. Digby — you really think a little old lady is capable of stealing every stick of our furniture?” Brant was appalled by this suggestion.

  “Well, as it happens, I don’t. But as the detective says, we have to follow up every lead.”

  “Maybe she wasn’t acting alone,” said the detective.

  “Oh, you must be out of your mind — Mrs. Digby practically raised me!” exclaimed Sabina. “That’s an awful thing to say.”

  “Maybe I am, and maybe it is, but you have to admit it’s quite a coincidence her disappearing at the same time that you lose all your million-dollar stuff, wouldn’t you agree, Mrs. Redfort?”

  “Well yes, but — but —”

  “I’m just saying, we need to look into it,” said the detective, closing his notepad. “Thanks for your time.”

  He left by the back door.

  “Sorry not to come with better news,” said the sheriff.

  Just then his radio crackled. “Nat, you there? We got a problem at the City Bank.”

  The sheriff sighed and spoke into the radio. “Not again. OK, I’ll get over there right away.”

  He looked up at the Redforts. “Darn it, this gold delivery’s causing mayhem. The new alarm system keeps triggering. It better be fixed before that shipment arrives.” He smiled reassuringly. “Look, I’ll let you know if I get any more leads. You take care. Remember, get those locks changed!”

  “What’s left to steal?” said Sabina, closing the door.

  Ruby glanced over at Hitch. He looked far from the suspicious character Clancy wanted him to be; he was busy making cocktails and seemed not the slightest bit interested in this latest development. Was he listening? It was hard to be sure. He seemed a lot more concerned about squeezing limes than he did about a little old lady who was missing and presumed a felon. Maybe there was nothing sinister about him at all. Maybe he was just a bit dumb.

  Handsome but probably not a lot goin
g on upstairs, thought Ruby.

  Brant caught sight of his daughter. “Hey, Ruby honey, what happened at basketball?”

  “Oh, you know, bounced a ball, shot some hoops, came home. What’s going on?”

  “Well that . . . detective fellow wanted to interview Mrs. Digby about the robbery, but no one can find her.”

  Ruby took a breath. “Do you think it’s possible . . .” her voice was hushed so her mother wouldn’t hear. “Do you think it’s possible that Mrs. Digby was stolen, you know, along with all our stuff?”

  Brant Redfort smiled, “That’s a good one, Rube!”

  But Ruby wasn’t joking.

  “I’m serious, Dad. Perhaps she was kidnapped?”

  “If she was kidnapped then we would know about it,” said Brant.

  “Not necessarily, the kidnappers might be waiting a while before they make contact — you know, to build up the tension.”

  “You know what?” said Brant conspiratorially.

  “What?” said Ruby.

  “You watch too much TV.” He laughed, patted his daughter on the head, and walked into the living room. Ruby sighed as she straightened the barrette in her hair.

  “And you guys probably don’t watch enough,” she muttered under her breath. This kind of situation was always coming up in Crazy Cops. Ruby had learned a lot about the workings of the criminal mind from watching this show. It was on tonight, and if Mrs. Digby were here they would be watching it together — side by side on the couch. Except there was no couch. Wherever Mrs. Digby was now, Ruby wondered, was she watching Crime Night?

  Ruby’s sleep was fitful that night. She had a hard time dozing off, and when she did, she dreamed dreams that gave her no rest. Dreams where the telephone rang and the voice on the other end spoke in riddles. Dreams where her mother was taken hostage by a dangerous toast-eating butler and her father was shot at by crazy furniture thieves, and all the while the voice of Mrs. Digby called out to her from some faraway prison cell. She was woken by her own voice calling, “Where are you, Mrs. Digby?”

  She sat up and rubbed her eyes. Mrs. Digby a criminal? That detective was a prize bozo. Mrs. Digby would never commit a crime — well, not a crime against the Redforts anyway. Ruby’s mind began sifting through worries, exploring solutions, hitting dead ends, and doubling back to square one. She consoled herself with RULE 33 : MORE OFTEN THAN NOT THERE IS A VERY ORDINARY EXPLANATION FOR THE “EXTRAORDINARY” HAPPENING.