Copyright

First published in hardback in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2012

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF

The HarperCollins Children’s Books website is

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Visit Lauren Child on the web at

www.milkmonitor.com

For Ruby’s room, videos, codes and more, visit

www.rubyredfort.com

Copyright © Lauren Child 2012

Lauren Child asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

Series design by David Mackintosh

Chime Melody music code by Dr Thomas Gardner

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, 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 e-books.

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9780007334087

Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2012 ISBN: 9780007487509

Version: 2019-09-04

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Coming up for air

An Ordinary Kid

Chapter 1. Don’t back away or they will see you as prey

Chapter 2. One drop could save your life

Chapter 3. Plankton and sea cucumbers

Chapter 4. The recurring dream

Chapter 5. The shape of a condor

Chapter 6. An ocean of fear

Chapter 7. Dolphins, sharks - they’re all the same

Chapter 8. D for detention

Chapter 9. All out of fish

Chapter 10. Sea Division

Chapter 11. Seriously strange

Chapter 12. Consequences

Chapter 13. -... . .- - / .. - --..-- / -. --- ... -.-- / .--. .- .-. -.- . .-.

Chapter 14. Another Twinford Bay casualty

Chapter 15. Clutching at straws

Chapter 16. Don’t look back

Chapter 17. Something fearsome this way comes

Chapter 18. White noise

Chapter 19. Strange and old-fashioned

Chapter 20. A real potato head

Chapter 21. Get Zuko

Chapter 22. No news is good news

Chapter 23. Love without words

Chapter 24. Just plain lucky

Chapter 25. Once in a blue moon

Chapter 26. Cerebral Sounds

Chapter 27. An unblemished record

Chapter 28. I speak the truth

Chapter 29. A schoolboy error

Chapter 30. The toes of the sisters

Chapter 31. A seahorse and a golden bird

Chapter 32. From the jaws of death

Chapter 33. Time for some answers

Chapter 34. Laugh all you like, sucker

Chapter 35. Connecting the dots

Chapter 36. Stranger things have happened at sea

Chapter 37. A cloud of indigo

Chapter 38. Just static

Chapter 39. Your mother’s jewel

Chapter 40. Looking for trouble

Chapter 41. Swimming blind

Chapter 42. Whatever happened to plan B?

Chapter 43. A stitch in time

Chapter 44. Playing for time

Chapter 45. You can count on me

Chapter 46. M is for Martha

Chapter 47. Where’s an apple barrel when you need one?

Not a dream

Chapter 48. The truth is indigo

Chapter 49. The truth will out

Chapter 50. Hard to explain

A real emergency

A note on the Chime Melody musical code, with help from Dr Thomas Gardner, Music Consultant to Ruby Redfort.

A note on Count von Viscount’s static code by Marcus du Sautoy, Super-Geek Consultant to Ruby Redfort.

A note on Arvo Pärt

Acknowledgments

About the Publisher

THE SUN FLICKERED ON THE OCEAN, cutting bright diamonds of light into the surface of the indigo water. A three-year-old girl was peering over the side of a sailboat, staring down into the deep. The only sounds came from her parents’ laughter, the sing-song hum of a man’s voice and the clapping of the waves against the yacht.

Gradually the sounds became less and less distinct until the girl was quite alone with the ocean. It seemed to be pulling her, drawing her to it… confiding a secret, almost whispering to her.

She barely felt herself fall as she tipped forward and slipped into the soft ink of the sea.

Down she twisted, her arms, her legs above her like tendrils. The water felt smooth and perfectly cold; fish darted and silver things whisked by – her breath bubbled up as transparent pearls.

Then suddenly, like a snap of the fingers, all the fish were gone: it was just the girl in the big wide ocean.

But she wasn’t quite alone.

There was something else.

Something calling to her, but she couldn’t see what. It saw her though, with ancient eyes, unblinking as it steadily pulsed its way through the blue. Something with long, long snaking arms hovering between her and nothing.

And then, vine-like, the thing coiled a limb round her ankle and tugged her firmly in the direction of infinity. Down to who knew where?

Ooops, thought the child. And on she spun. Bubbles fizzed about her and her head began to throb, her breath almost gone.

And then yank! Something grabbed her arm, someone grabbed her arm. The strangling-thing released her; suddenly she was coming up for air, breaking through the surface of the ocean.

She found herself slapped mackerel-like onto the hot deck of the boat, coughing saltwater from her lungs. Her green eyes blinked open and she smiled up at two troubled faces. She felt the water dribble from her ears, and heard the sound of the gulls screaming in the sky above.

WHEN RUBY REDFORT WAS FOUR, she noticed something unnoticeable while reading the back of the Choco Puffle packet. What looked like a word-search game to every other breakfast-eating kid, she could see at a glance was in fact some kind of message – a code.

It took Ruby five days and seven helpings of Choco Puffles to puzzle it out, and when she had, this is what she read.

Fill in this coupon and win a lifetime supply of Choco Puffles. Entry address can be found somewhere on this packet. Warning: you will have to search long and hard to find it.

Ruby found the address in thirty-two seconds, cut out the coupon on the side of the box, filled in her name and address, popped it in an envelope and asked her father to mail it.

He forgot.

Ruby discovered this thirteen and three-quarter months later when she was searching her dad’s pockets for confiscated Hubble-Yum bubblegum. There, in his grey suit jacket, was the slightly battered envelope, addressed in her handwriting, stamp in the top right-hand corner. The deadline for entering the competition had long passed.

Ruby took the letter up to her room and slipped it into the secret hiding place she had made within the doorframe of her bedroom. It was a shame about the lifetime supply of Choco Puffles; they were, after all, her favourite breakfast cereal.

Some several years later…

‘IT’S PERFECT WEATHER CONDITIONS FOR SHARKS,’ announced the dive instructor. ‘So don’t be surprised if you run into one or two – don’t go panicking or anything.’

Ruby Redfort spat in her diving mask and rubbed at the glass, rinsing it with seawater. Her fellow students were checking kit, zipping up their wetsuits and snapping on flippers.

Ruby, a newly recruited Spectrum agent, was attending a dive camp at a secluded location on one of Hawaii’s many islands. The dive master was an affable sort; he had tutored so many agents during his years as an instructor that they all sort of merged into one, with the exception of Ruby.

Agent Redfort kind of stood out from the crowd.

A thirteen-year-old schoolgirl not even five feet in flippers, sleek dark hair parted to one side, neatly secured with a barrette above her right eye, it was hard to ignore her. Aside from anything else she was the only dive student here still attending junior high – everyone else had long since graduated school; everyone else was in full-time Spectrum employment. Ruby hadn’t even heard of Spectrum six weeks ago.

This, in itself, wasn’t surprising. Not many people had heard of Spectrum. It was an organisation so secret that access to its headquarters could change from day to day, hour to hour. Once you exited, you could never be quite sure you would ever find your way back: which was just the way Spectrum liked it.

Spectrum – a spy agency set up to foil the plots and plans of evil geniuses capable of grand theft, extortion, fraud and murder – did not employ agents who were less than a hundred per cent smart and a hundred per cent discreet. As far as LB was concerned, ‘You mess up, you leave forever.’

LB – the big cheese, the top dog, the head honcho in charge of Spectrum 8 – was not big on second chances, so the odds of getting kicked out were high and Ruby would have lost her agent status almost before she’d begun if it hadn’t been for one thing: she was brilliant.

Actually, brilliant was an understatement. Ruby Redfort was a genius: her speciality lay in puzzles and codes. In fact she had won the Junior Code-Cracker Championships when she was just seven, and the following year was offered a place at Harvard University though she had turned it down flat. She didn’t want to be regarded as some kind of geek freak.

It was because of this phenomenal skill at cracking codes that LB had recruited Ruby. The Spectrum 8 boss had no desire to employ a kid – kids could be trouble, LB knew that – but what choice did she have? Her ace code breaker, Lopez, had been murdered at the hand of Count von Viscount, a villain so dread that one shivered to speak his name.

When one dared to speak his name at all.

Ruby had first encountered LB about a month ago, on her first visit to the Spectrum offices. The spy boss had been dressed entirely in white and sitting behind a huge desk that dominated an entirely white office; the red polish on her toenails being the only flash of colour in the room. At fifty-something she looked both beautiful and intimidating: one tough cookie. Ruby was a confident, somewhat fearless kid, but she instinctively knew that in LB she had met her match: an intelligent woman who did not suffer fools gladly. In fact did not suffer them at all.

It was fair to say Ruby hadn’t exactly followed orders during the weeks spent working on her first Spectrum assignment, but she had foiled the Fool’s Gold Gang and prevented Count von Viscount from stealing the priceless Jade Buddha of Khotan.

It was for this reason that LB had granted Ruby Redfort a second chance, and for this reason that she was now being trained up at the Spectrum dive camp.

‘If you do come face to face with one of our ocean friends,’ continued the dive instructor, ‘then just stay where you are, don’t back away. If it comes toward you, then swim toward it. He’ll probably get the message.’

‘Oh yeah,’ said Ruby. ‘And what message is that?’

‘That you aren’t lunch – lunch usually swims in the other direction,’ said the dive instructor with a wink.

‘And what if this shark ain’t so smart?’ asked Ruby. ‘What then?’

‘Then,’ said the dive master, ‘it will probably try to explore you with its teeth – that’s how they check things out, only you don’t really want them to do so as it could mean waving bye-bye to an arm or a leg.’

‘Well, I kinda need my arms for waving – my legs sorta tend to come in handy too,’ said Ruby.

‘So that’s why I suggest you swim with this stick.’ The instructor picked up a retractable aluminium pole. ‘If said shark gets too near, just prod him and he’ll most likely back off.’

‘And if he doesn’t?’ asked one of the other divers – a guy called Bosco. He was trying to sound casual, but you could tell the whole mentioning of sharks thing had him worried.

The dive master smiled. ‘Then try to look unappetising.’

Ruby rolled her eyes.

‘Don’t you worry Redfort,’ said the instructor, chuckling. ‘It’s highly unlikely they’ll want to snack on you – far too small.’

‘On the other hand,’ said Kip Holbrook, another of Ruby’s fellow trainees, ‘maybe the kid’s the perfect bite-size portion.’

‘Funny, really funny,’ said Ruby. She pulled down her mask and fell backwards off the boat.

Ruby Redfort was not scared of sharks – not yet anyway.

NOW, THERE ARE A FEW LOGISTICAL PROBLEMS involved in being a school kid secret agent, the most obvious one being: how to get enough time off class to carry out your secret agenting missions.

Not easy. But Ruby Redfort was a good persuader: she could convince most people of most things. She avoided ‘complete’ untruths if at all possible, preferring to steer clear of certain topics. Her tactic was to leave out various details, keep the picture blurry; this wasn’t so much lying as being economical with the facts. As far as this particular trip went, Ruby’s friends believed her to be on spring break family vacation. She hadn’t told them that she was with her family; she hadn’t told them she was on vacation; they had just put two and two together and come to this conclusion.

As far as Ruby’s parents were concerned, Ruby was on a school dive trip: ‘An opportunity not to be missed,’ this was how Ruby had sold it to them. She had not actually told them that it was a school dive trip, but they had naturally made this assumption.

RULE 65: PEOPLE BELIEVE WHAT THEY WANNA BELIEVE.

In other words if they expect you to be on a school dive trip then they’ll assume that that’s where you are.

Ruby’s personal dive instructor was called Agent Kekoa. Ruby had never seen Kekoa in anything but swim gear or dive suits, and her hair – black, long and sleek – was always tied neatly back from her face in a practical way.

Kekoa was the strong, silent type, not what you would on the whole call blabby; she only spoke if there was something she really needed to say. Perhaps this was a habit developed in the ocean where talking was not an option. Or perhaps she had found the career that perfectly suited a person who didn’t particularly need to ‘share’.

Ruby on the other hand was indeed a talker – she often found it hard to keep her mouth shut and so to her, Agent Kekoa was a conundrum.

‘But what if I need to tell you something – urgently I mean?’ said Ruby.

‘Signal,’ replied Kekoa.

‘Yeah, but I mean how many signals are there?’

‘Enough,’ said Kekoa.

‘But I mean what if I need to say something that there isn’t a signal for?’

‘Then keep it for later.’

‘So you’re saying there’s no gadget for underwater talking?’

‘There is,’ replied Kekoa, ‘but I don’t use it. Much better to listen with your ears, your eyes, your hands; use all your senses and keep your mouth shut. Just…’ Kekoa drew her fingers across her lips. Her meaning couldn’t have been clearer: keep it to yourself, zip it, or shut your cake hole, depending on how polite you thought she was being.

Ruby shrugged, put her breathing tube in her mouth and sank beneath the waves. Of course, Kekoa was right. Signals did the job fine – there was no need for words down here and Ruby, despite her talkative nature, enjoyed this watery universe full of sounds rather than voices.

As they swam deeper into the ocean, they saw some incredible marine life, passed cities of coral, met creatures that were beautiful, a few that were lethal and several that were both. Useful to know the difference, but the general rule seemed to be, don’t touch! A lot of these things could sting and some of these stings could kill.

If you were unfortunate enough to brush tentacles with something unfriendly, then there was still hope. Each Spectrum agent was equipped with a tiny phial of anti-sting Miracle antidote, just enough to save a life if administered at once. It came in a little fluorescent orange envelope bearing a tiny logo of a fly, with a picture showing the canister attached to the zip of a dive suit. It was very discreet and looked like it was just part of the design, a tag or something.

The label said:

ANTIDOTE SERUM FOR SEVERE UNDERWATER STINGS

Administer fast for successful results.

CONTAINS ONE DOSE.

Followed by the caution:

Attach canister to wetsuit zipper and DO NOT REMOVE.

Kekoa repeated this particular instruction more than once. ‘Keep it attached to the zip on your dive suit and never be without it. These few drops could be the most important liquid you ever tasted. You understand?’

Ruby had nodded. She had no intention of letting go of the tiny life-saving tincture – why would she? Only a total bozo would deliberately part company with a piece of kit that could prevent his or her death.

Once the dive basics had been mastered, Ruby picked up other skills. She learned how to navigate underwater, in daylight and in moonlight, and, finally, in pitch-dark swimming through underwater caves. It was here that Ruby came up against the one thing she was truly afraid of.

Small confined spaces. Spaces that might be short on air. Spaces where you might find yourself gasping for breath. Spaces where you were highly likely to die.

They brought on her deepest fear: her claustrophobia.

As Ruby discovered, claustrophobia made cave navigation particularly challenging. A large part of underwater caving was about discovering ways in: fissures in rocks that led to secret caves, to spaces inhabited only by sealife. Sometimes the rock entrance would appear impossibly small, but with a certain amount of contortion and expertise one could make it in and hopefully out. How to look for telltale signs of ways out was a key part of the training, for obvious reasons. Ruby had rarely been so grateful to learn anything before.

The less time she had to spend in underwater caves, the better – in fact she wished quite fervently never to have to go in one again.

It was a wish that wasn’t going to be granted.

DURING DIVE TRAINING, Ruby was also given instruction in unarmed underwater combat. This was even harder than it might sound. Punching underwater was a little like running in space. The trick seemed to be to disable your opponent by cutting off their air supply, or releasing their dive weights. Kekoa was an expert: she was slight and she was fast and Ruby mastered dodges and grips and tackles.

Agent Kip Holbrook was Ruby’s in-training dive partner and the two of them spent a whole lot of time winding each other up.

‘Redfort, you call that a punch – I coulda sworn I just got patted on the nose by a plankton.’

‘Holbrook, you call that a nose – I coulda sworn I just spotted a rare and ugly sea cucumber.’

They got along like a house on fire.

Ruby particularly looked forward to mealtimes. Ruby Redfort might be shrimp size compared to the other trainee agents, but she’d always had a big appetite, and Spectrum camp food was surprisingly good. On the whole, she was having a pretty good time, her fellow trainees were a friendly bunch and hanging out on a Hawaiian island was no huge chore. Everything was swell.

Well, except for Sergeant Cooper.

‘Redfort! Get your sorry behind out of that bunk before I inhale my next breath or tonight you and your bed ain’t even gonna make contact.’

This order – given every daybreak by the drill sergeant Sergeant Cooper, employed by Spectrum to ‘motivate’ – was beginning to wear.

Oh brother, thought Ruby. She was not a natural early bird, and so would reluctantly and with some effort drag herself from her uncomfortable bunk. More than once she had found herself scrubbing the bathroom floor with an orange toothbrush (her own) – punishment detail.

If Sergeant Cooper wasn’t impressed by Ruby’s time-keeping then her flouting of the camp dress code really got him marching up and down. His least favourite item was a T-shirt printed with the words: could you repeat that? I wasn’t actually listening.

‘Redfort, how many times have I told you about that T-shirt of yours?’

‘I’m sorry Sergeant Cooper, I haven’t been counting, but I can take a wild guess if it’s important to you.’

Sergeant Cooper was keen to put Ruby ‘back in her box’ whenever he got the chance. He was under the misguided impression that this hard-nut approach would instill respect in the kid.

He was wrong about that.

One such time was when Ruby had done particularly badly in her free-dive training, free-diving being the art of swimming underwater unaided by any breathing apparatus. Ruby’s parents were big fans of free-diving; indeed, her father Brant had gone to Stanton University on a free-dive scholarship.

In fact free-diving was how Ruby’s parents had met. Brant had been working with a famous Italian marine biologist, free- diving from his yacht off the coast of Italy. Sabina had been sailing single-handed round the Mediterranean and had bumped into Brant while underwater. She was pretty good at holding her breath too, championship good.

As a result, there wasn’t a lot that Ruby didn’t know about breath-hold diving, but for the life of her she just couldn’t begin to contemplate holding her breath for a whole lot longer than seemed entirely sensible. It went against everything that was natural and sane. Dive down 220 feet without oxygen? No thank you. It was a claustrophobic’s nightmare. The free-dive training involved a lot of slow, rigorous preparation – years of it in fact. It was a difficult and dangerous technique to master and Ruby wasn’t about to risk her life for something that seemed so wrong. Diving to great depths with scuba gear: no problem. Diving with just snorkel and flippers: a breeze. But ask her to hold her breath for more than one minute and one second? No way was she gonna do that. She didn’t have the lung capacity, and this combined with the darkness at great depth made her feel claustrophobic.

One Thursday she resurfaced just as Sergeant Cooper walked by. This chance encounter was not a good one.

COOPER: ‘Well, well, well, look who it is, Agent Redfort coming up for air.’

REDFORT: ‘Jeepers, I should have stayed down a few minutes longer.’

COOPER: ‘I doubt that you are capable of that Redfort. I hear you can only make one minute, hardly a record.’

REDFORT: ‘If I’d known I was going to be coming face to face with a giant sea cucumber when I next took a lungful, I might have put some effort in.’

COOPER: ‘You don’t know what effort is Redfort. Now, Bradley Baker, he really could hold his breath. Seven minutes I heard. Years and years of hard work and training.’

REDFORT: ‘No kidding. Were you standing there holding the towel?’

COOPER: ‘It would have been a privilege to hand that young man his towel. You should take note: Baker also started his Spectrum duty as a kid – younger’n you an’ smarter’n you too.’

REDFORT: ‘What? That’s meant to bug me?’

But of course, it did bug her. This Bradley Baker guy bugged the life out of her. Of course, he had long since grown up, become the most versatile agent Spectrum ever trained, loved and admired by all – the youngest, smartest agent Spectrum had ever hired, and no one was going to let her forget it. To make matters worse Bradley Baker had tragically met his end, dying in a plane crash in the line of duty, and so had died a hero’s death. If Bradley Baker’s ghost didn’t haunt Ruby, then his legendary status certainly did.

Of course, no one got away with speaking to Sergeant Cooper this way and Ruby found herself scrubbing all the latrines in the camp for the following three days. Kip Holbrook, who despite all the constant metaphorical hair-pulling was actually a nice guy, was kind enough to wade in and help her out. He didn’t exactly know why but he found himself liking this kid from Twinford.

‘Can I give you some advice Redfort?’ he asked in the middle of day three’s latrine scrubbing. ‘You might wanna learn to keep that mouth of yours shut, it gets you in some unsanitary situations.’

‘I can’t help saying what’s on my mind,’ replied Ruby, ‘it’s the way I am.’

‘Then buy yourself a pair of good rubber gloves because it looks like you’re going to be scrubbing latrines for many years to come,’ said Holbrook.

Having endured two weeks of what she saw as Drill Sergeant Cooper’s poor attitude, Ruby wasn’t exactly grief-stricken when one day she swam up through the clear ocean water to see a sign.

Well, to Ruby Redfort it was a sign: to the mere mortal it was just a donut on a plate sprinkled with candy numbers. The numbers she recognised without rearranging them: they were all digits that together and in the right order made up one long familiar number. Without any hesitation she crammed the donut into her mouth and made her way hurriedly to the bank of telephones outside the canteen.

One of the phone booths had a half-drunk milkshake balanced on top of the phone and next to it a stack of coins. Ruby picked up the receiver and dialled the number. The phone was answered on the third ring.

‘Double Donut, Marla speaking.’

‘Hey Marla, it’s Ruby.’

‘Hang on, I’ll get him, he’s right here.’

One minute twenty seconds later a man’s voice came on the line.

‘Hello.’

‘What took you?’ Ruby said.

‘Kid, can’t a person eat a donut in his favourite diner without getting harassed?’

‘I believe you wanted me to contact you,’ said Ruby.

‘Glad you can still read the signs,’ he said. ‘So how are the plankton?’

‘Oh, the plankton are OK, it’s the sea cucumbers I’m having trouble with.’

‘Sergeant Cooper?’

‘Uh huh.’

‘I gather he isn’t your biggest fan.’

‘I’m not too fond of him either.’

‘Well, this is your lucky day Redfort. Dive school is done with you and Twinford Junior High would like you back Monday at 8am pronto. So slip out of your flippers, you’re on a plane back to Twinford in… oh, seventeen minutes.’

Ruby Redfort smiled, but before she hung up, she asked, ‘So Hitch, why didn’t you just leave a message with the camp co-ordinator, like a normal person? It’s not like you’ve gotta be covert about it; everyone knows you’re my sidekick.’

‘Kid, you can fool yourself that you have a sidekick, but you’ve got a long way to go before you’re going to fool me, LB or anyone else in Spectrum.’

‘OK man, I’m just kidding with you, I haven’t forgotten that you are Spectrum’s number one numero uno action agent – I was only asking. Why all the secrecy?’

‘Just keeping you sharp kid. Don’t want you getting sloppy.’

Ruby smiled. Yep, that was Hitch all right, one royal pain in the behind.

THE DREAM HAD BEGUN IN THE USUAL WAY: Ruby alone, treading water in a bottomless ocean, an ethereal voice whispering to her, almost singing. She would turn this way and that, but she could never see ‘the thing’ until it was too late.

Suddenly she would feel something grab her leg and she would spin down, down, down into the indigo depths. And the miniature man who appeared in the water just couldn’t save her. And all the while the calling, like someone whispering a song to the ocean.

The vision was so real that whenever she awoke, she felt sure it had happened, the whispering so familiar that she could believe that she must have heard it once before, a long, long time ago, perhaps in a past life.

Ruby sat up in bed. She was covered in perspiration, freezing cold, and her head was thudding. She put out her hand and blindly felt around for her flashlight. But somehow the beam it shone just made things worse, more dramatic. She fumbled for the switch on the lamp beside her bed.

Click.

The room was bathed in light and Ruby could breathe again. Through the blur of her less than perfect vision she was reassured: there was the comic she was working on, spread out on her desk; there were the floor-to-ceiling shelves crammed with books, hundreds of them – fact, fiction, graphic novels, codebooks, puzzle books. Her record player, her records, her telephone collection – eccentric designs, from a squirrel in a tuxedo to a conch shell – all perched haphazardly on shelves and furniture. There was the jumble of clothes on the floor. She was definitely in her room and not miles beneath the heavy ocean, sinking through indigo.

Ruby lay back on her pillow, sighed a deep sigh and drifted back into sleep, this time dreamless, her glasses still perched on the end of her nose. She was only wrenched from her slumber when her subconscious tuned into the sound of screaming, coming from the backyard.

Ruby scrambled to get out of bed, tripped over the tangle of discarded clothes and limped to the window. There she saw clouds of seagulls swooping and diving around the house, filling the air with their wings, legs trailing ready to land. Seagulls are sizeable birds and as they dodged and swooped, their grey and white feathers almost made contact with the glass and Ruby found herself instinctively backing away.

The noise they made was enough to drown out most other noises, but not the screaming – this was coming from a small elderly woman who was darting around the yard waving a broom.

It was Mrs Digby.

Mrs Digby was the Redforts’ housekeeper and she had been with the family ‘forever’, which is to say longer than Ruby had existed and longer than Sabina had existed. No one could do without her and no one wanted to do without her: she was the family treasure.

Ruby stood transfixed, watching the tiny woman tackling the birds, shouting abuse at them and generally telling them where to go. It seemed that they had made the mistake of settling on her freshly laundered sheets and this had got her hopping mad.

‘I didn’t get up before six in the am, work my fingers to the bone only to have you feathered vipers do your business all over my clean linen!’

It was fair to say Mrs Digby was furious.

Just then a well-groomed man came into view. He was wearing a beautifully cut suit and appeared entirely unruffled as he calmly strolled out into the yard, in his hand a tiny device. He held this up to the sky, depressed a button and suddenly, in a deafening screech, the birds all rose as one and squawked their way back in the direction of the sea.

Ruby pushed open the large square picture window that made up most of the wall beside her desk (the Redfort house was a miracle of modern architecture) and leaned out.

‘Wow!’ she said, somewhat sarcastically. ‘I didn’t know you could talk to the animals.’

The man looked up and winked.

‘Hey kid. Surprised to see you up before noon.’

‘Oh, you should know Hitch – early bird catches the worm and all that.’

‘Too late for worms,’ said Hitch. ‘Gulls got ’em, but I can rustle up some pancakes kid.’

Ruby pulled on her clothes: jeans, sneakers and a T-shirt printed with the words honk if you’re happy, hoot if you’re not, toot if you couldn’t care less and scooted down the stairs two at a time. Mrs Digby and Hitch were already in the kitchen and discussing the avian invasion.

‘So what is it?’ asked Ruby, sliding into her chair. ‘Some kind of bird-banishing gizmo?’

‘Works on the same principle as a dog whistle – it emits a sound that humans can’t hear and birds can’t stand,’ replied Hitch, tucking the device into his shirt pocket.

Ruby was impressed – not a bad gadget to have up your sleeve when the wildlife went wild.

‘I might have to get myself one of those,’ said Mrs Digby. ‘Where dya buy it – SmartMart?’

‘Well, they do say SmartMart’s the smart place to shop!’ said Hitch, quoting the store’s tagline.

‘Well, all I can say child,’ said Mrs Digby earnestly, ‘is that it’s just as well your parents ain’t here to see this. Your mother would have a three-cornered fit if she witnessed what those critters have done to her sheets.’

Mr and Mrs Redfort were currently away – as they so often were – this time on a mini cruise which was taking them and the local Historical Society around Twinford’s coast. Dora Shoering was giving a series of on-board lectures about the smugglers’ caves, the famous Twinford shipwrecks and various other seafarers’ legends.

‘Don’t you give those sheets a second thought Mrs D,’ said Hitch. ‘I’ll get the laundry service to pick up the linen – no need for you to waste your valuable energy on that.’

‘Shucks and fiddlesticks,’ said Mrs Digby. Which didn’t really mean anything, but often translated as, If you insist.

It had been less than two months since Hitch had joined the Redforts as house manager (or butler, as Sabina Redfort preferred to think of him) but to look at Mrs Digby you might have thought he had been there always. She had accepted him at once and woe betide anyone who said a bad word about him. As far as she was concerned, he was the best darned butler, house manager (or whatever else he wanted to call himself) this side of anywhere.

Of course, what Mrs Digby didn’t know was that Hitch was actually an undercover agent, sent by Spectrum to protect and work alongside Ruby. She had no idea that the butlering was just a cover – that really would have impressed her.

But it was a Spectrum imperative that Mrs Digby should never know, never even suspect, that this alarmingly attractive man might not be all that he seemed. Although Ruby and Hitch had got off to a somewhat rocky start, they made a dynamic team. LB had seen this: she was a smart woman and she knew that unflinching loyalty was what made a good agent, and agents who were loyal to each other made for a solid agency.

‘So,’ said Hitch to Ruby. ‘How are you going to get yourself in and out of trouble today?’

‘I’m not,’ said Ruby. ‘I’m gonna lie low – take it easy – probably hang out with Clancy.’

She went over to where the kitchen phone sat, picked up the receiver and dialled a number she had dialled approximately several thousand times.

‘Hey bozo, meet me, usual place, just as soon as.’ She replaced the receiver.

‘And they say the art of conversation is dead,’ commented Hitch, shaking out the newspaper.

Mrs Digby looked at Ruby and shook her head. ‘It’s a crying shame,’ she said. ‘All life’s good manners and fine etiquette gone to pot. I tried to raise this child a nice child, but I probably got to accept failure here.’

‘Ah, Clance don’t mind,’ said Ruby. Which was true: Clancy Crew was Ruby Redfort’s closest friend and they understood each other without words – though that said, they spent most of their time ‘non-stop yacking’, as Mrs Digby would often comment.

For this reason there was very little Clancy Crew didn’t know about Ruby Redfort – though another was that it was almost impossible to keep a secret from him – he always sniffed them out, and Ruby was good at keeping secrets. So, despite all her efforts, Clancy had managed to find out about her recruitment to Spectrum. Ruby had been forced to assure LB that from now on she would keep her mouth shut, that she would not blab to him again, that she would keep it zipped at all times.

But Hitch was astute enough to know that this was a promise Ruby Redfort just couldn’t keep. So they had made a little agreement – LB must never know that Clancy knew everything and Clancy must never tell anyone anything, on pain of death. He never would; there was no question about that. Clancy Crew knew how to keep it zipped.

However, Ruby did still have one secret that not even Clancy Crew was aware of.

She kept it in her room under the floorboards and not one living creature except perhaps a spider or a bug knew anything about it. Since Ruby was just a kid of four she had written things down in little yellow notebooks. Not a diary exactly, but a record of things seen or overheard, strange or mundane. She had just completed notebook 623 – this she had placed underneath the floorboards along with the other 622. The one she was working on now, 624, was kept inside a compartment concealed in the frame of her bedroom door.

Now, Ruby went upstairs and took the notebook out.

The way Ruby saw it you just could never be sure when something inconsequential could become the missing link, the key to everything. RULE 16: EVEN THE MUNDANE CAN TELL A STORY. Though usually it was just inconsequential.

She opened the notebook and wrote:

Sixty or seventy seagulls invaded the garden.

She added other important details she had noticed and replaced the notebook in its hiding place. She was just about to exit via the window when she heard Mrs Digby calling.

‘Ruby, you troublesome child, you better not be about to climb out of that window! I want you down here on the double!’

Now, Mrs Digby was one of the few people Ruby could not always twist round her little finger – sometimes Ruby just had to do things Mrs Digby’s way and today, unfortunately, was obviously going to be one of those days.

AFTER APPROXIMATELY FORTY-FIVE MINUTES of running errands, dropping things off and picking them up, Ruby finally pointed her bike towards Amster Green and rode the short distance to the small triangle of grass where a big old oak tree grew, its vast branches reaching off in every direction. She leaned her bike against the railings, quickly looked around just to make sure no one was watching and then, in a blink, swung herself onto the branch above and up and out of sight before you had time to think you had seen her.

‘What kept you?’ came a voice from high in the tree.

‘Mrs Digby,’ said Ruby, climbing up the tree.

‘Oh,’ said the voice. ‘I was about to give up on you. I’d just finished writing you a message.’

‘Yeah? What did it say?’ she asked, still climbing.

‘Here,’ said the voice, and a piece of paper fashioned into the shape of a condor came floating towards her. She unfolded it.

Ec spgkwv kxoss kzi ulabtwwyj’w klmj srv hrvjv llw emiojkevsrpoc uej xo avv eedp*

‘No kidding?’ said Ruby, impressed. The paper, like most of the messages they left each other, was folded into an origami shape, the words encoded using their own Redfort-Crew code, which no one, but no one knew how to decipher.

‘So how did training camp go?’ asked Clancy.

‘Good,’ replied Ruby.

‘Good? That’s it?’

Silence, and then Ruby’s head appeared through the leaves. She shuffled along the oak’s limb to where a skinny boy sat, binoculars around his neck and a sun visor shielding his eyes.

‘Good to see you Clance. What gives?’

‘Truth is, it’s been kinda boring without you, but I’ve been making it work – getting by,’ said Clancy.

‘Glad to hear it,’ said Ruby.

Clancy was eager to get back to the subject of Ruby’s agent activity, but Ruby just wanted to hear about Twinford life and what was going on with Clancy and his efforts to train his dog, Dolly, and had his sister Minny managed to get out of trouble or was she going to be grounded for life?

Clancy saw Ruby wasn’t in the mood to talk about herself and if she wasn’t in the mood, then there was no point trying.

So instead they talked about Clancy’s fortnight, and after that they discussed Redfort home affairs: in particular how Consuela, the brilliant if temperamental chef loathed by Mrs Digby, had resigned in the most dramatic of ways and left to go work for the Stanwicks.

And when they had exhausted these topics, they talked about the amazing events of just one month ago, the museum, the bank, the gold and the Jade Buddha of Khotan. They talked about Nine Lives Capaldi and the diamond revolver she had held to Clancy’s temple.

They talked about Baby Face Marshall, now safely incarcerated in a maximum-security prison somewhere far from Twinford. And they shuddered when they remembered the Count, still at large and free to practise his evil-doing – where in the world was he?

When the sun had gone down and it was beginning to get chilly, Clancy and Ruby climbed back down the oak, picked up their bikes and set off in opposite directions.

‘So see you tomorrow!’ shouted Ruby.

‘My place or yours?’ Clancy shouted back.

‘Mine!’ called Ruby, as she disappeared round the corner.

THE NEXT DAY WAS A SCORCHER – it came out of nowhere and the whole of Twinford seemed to have unfolded their sunloungers and lit their barbeques.

Ruby Redfort and Clancy Crew were sitting on the roof reading comics. It was late afternoon, but the sun was still warm and Clancy was sporting a pair of heart-shaped sunglasses; they were his sister Lulu’s. Nothing wrong with a thirteen-year-old boy wearing heart-shaped sunglasses, nothing at all; plenty of hip boys his age might want to express their sense of style and individuality by wearing heart-shaped sunglasses. But Clancy wasn’t wearing them as a style statement: he didn’t know what a style statement was; they were simply the first thing in the form of eyewear that came to hand. No one could accuse Clancy Crew of vanity – he always wore exactly what he felt like wearing. Didn’t matter how ridiculous he looked – it was one of the things that Ruby liked most about him.

‘Hey Rube,’ he said. Ruby was concentrating hard on the RM Swainston thriller she was reading and didn’t respond.

‘Rube! Can you hear me?’ He prodded her with a stick.

‘Huh?’ She peered up at him. The large red floppy sunhat obscured most of her face and she managed to appear at the same time comical and stylish – neither look, however, was intentional. Like Clancy, she wore what she liked; unlike Clancy, she had an innate sense of style. Style was just something she had. She even managed to lend a certain chic to her T-shirt, which bore the less than elegant words shut your pie hole. Most of Ruby’s T-shirts were emblazoned with upfront messages of this kind; her mother, in particular, loathed them.

‘So?’ said Clancy.

‘Huh, what?’ said Ruby.

‘You were gonna tell me about your training – in Hawaii – remember?’

‘Oh, that,’ said Ruby. ‘It’s kinda confidential, I’m sure you understand.’

Clancy started flapping his arms. ‘What are you saying, confidential? You promised me you were gonna tell me, you promised Ruby, you weasel.’

‘I’m just kidding with you, don’t get your underwear in a bunch,’ said Ruby.

She put the book, The Strangled Stranger, under her chair, took a breath and paused; she did this not only for the sake of drama, but also because, well, everything she was about to tell Clancy was strictly confidential. Classified information. Spectrum had forbidden her to tell anyone, anything about the code breaking and undercover work she was doing for them, but then Clancy Crew was not anyone. Clancy Crew knew how to keep his mouth shut. Clancy Crew would rather die a painful death than betray a secret.

Ruby sucked the last dregs of her banana milk up the clear curly straw sticking out of her glass, swallowed and said, ‘OK, the training basically involved scuba-diving.’

‘Really?’ said Clancy. ‘That’s kinda cool, so you actually went in the ocean?’

‘Yeah Clance, I went in the ocean. Where dya think I went, the paddling pool?’

Clancy had a deep fear of the ocean: it wasn’t just the sharks, it was everything.

Though it was mainly the sharks. He had once read a book when he was younger, a novel, that had given him cause for many sleepless nights. Admittedly, the book had been one his mother was reading and not recommended for fourth graders – he had spotted it on her nightstand and was lured in by the image of the huge shark’s head shown on the front cover, its dead eyes staring up at a lone swimmer. It had made quite an impression. Clancy had found it to be unputdownable and read the whole 649 pages in four sittings, locked in the bathroom. He had paid for this every night of his life for the next 1,366 days – his dreams invaded by this great white monster.

Ruby always did her best to reason with him.

‘Clance,’ she said. ‘Sharks are not interested in human flesh – most attacks happen by accident. The shark spots a swimmer, mistakes it for a seal and goes over to investigate. The problem comes because sharks explore with their teeth – more often than not they take a bite and think better of it.’

‘That’s very reassuring Rube – I feel a whole lot better – just wait while I go dive into the ocean.’

‘What you gotta do,’ continued Ruby, ignoring her friend’s sarcasm, ‘is try not to pee – they take this as a sign of vulnerability. Failing that, if he’s got you in his jaws, bop him on the nose with your fist. The nose is very sensitive on a shark. He’ll soon let go – on the whole sharks can’t be bothered to fight. They’re not used to it.’

‘Well,’ said Clancy, ‘that must be the only thing that sharks and I have in common.’

‘In any case, it’s very rare – I mean you probably have the same likelihood of being trampled to death by a rhinoceros.’

‘Yeah, well, the difference is I would see the rhinoceros coming – at least I could run for it.’

‘Well, you say that Clance, but rhinoceroses are awful fast runners – personally, I’d rather take my chances with the shark.’

Perhaps because of his terror, Clancy also had a deep fascination for anything to do with the sea. He liked to read about all those things that kept him awake at night sweating with fear. Killer jellyfish, killer whales, poisonous coral, giant squid, killer squid, killer-giant-squid, tuna fish, anything aquatic. He was a bit of an expert.

So he listened eagerly as Ruby told him about the stuff she had learned, the dives she had been on, the depths she had swum to and the things she had seen.

‘So did you – you know – come face to face with any of our toothy friends?’ said Clancy, his eyes all wide with anticipation.

‘Yeah, but they were only small ones – just little reef sharks – nothing to write home about,’ said Ruby.

‘You wanted to see them?’ said Clancy, flapping his arms again.

‘Sure I did, it’s all part of the experience of the ocean.’

‘Prehistoric things with razor-sharp teeth swimming toward you – yeah, I can see how you wouldn’t wanna miss that experience.’

‘Anyway,’ said Ruby, ‘I’m not a bad scuba-diver now – I’ve done my advanced training and I’m all set for nearly any underwater mission Spectrum choose to send me on.’

‘So your next mission will be underwater?’ Clancy shuddered.

‘Well, I would hope so,’ said Ruby. ‘I’m gonna look pretty dumb in scuba gear anyplace else.’

‘So you aren’t trained up for anything other than diving?’ said Clancy.

‘Give me a break Clance, I’ve only been in training a month – I guess I’ll be covering other things soon. I mean I’m not sure when they’re gonna teach me skydiving, but I imagine jumping out of a plane is off limits until they have.’

Clancy fanned his face with the comic he had been reading. ‘Boy! Am I burning up.’

Ruby looked at him sitting under the giant parasol, his feet in a bucket of cold water, a glass of iced lemonade to one side of his sunlounger.

Just about her whole life Ruby had had to put up with her friend’s complaints about being too hot, being too cold, not being just right; Clancy was a regular Goldilocks. He seemed to have been born without a thermostat.

‘What’s wrong with you?’

‘Can we please go indoors?’ he whined.

Ruby rolled her eyes heavenwards and struggled up from her very relaxed deckchair.

‘OK, OK, let’s go watch some TV before you evaporate,’ she said. ‘At least it might take your mind off your ocean fears for five minutes.’

But, as Ruby would be the first to point out: RULE 1: YOU CAN NEVER BE COMPLETELY SURE WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN NEXT. As it happened, Clancy’s ocean fears were about to get a lot bigger…

RUBY LIFTED THE HATCH ON THE ROOF and, barefoot, the two of them made their way down the open-tread staircase to Ruby’s room. It was perfectly cool in the house. Bug, the Redfort husky, was sleeping on the large beanbag that sat in the centre of Ruby’s bedroom. He pricked up his ears when he heard Ruby and Clancy’s footsteps and decided to follow them to the kitchen. There was a good chance someone might drop a cookie on the floor and Bug was quick. There was no chance of Mrs Digby sweeping it up before he had got to it.

Ruby and Clancy padded into the kitchen, drunk from the sun and exhausted from doing nothing. The transistor on the counter was tuned to Twinford Talk Radio and was blaring out some news story about Twinford City Square. Mrs Digby always had the set turned up too loud because she was a little hard of hearing – though she claimed it was ‘’cause those radio folk always mumble’.

‘SO KELLY, HAVE YOU SEEN THOSE GULLS IN TWINFORD SQUARE? CREATING QUITE A RUMPUS I BELIEVE.’ ‘YOU’RE NOT WRONG THERE BOBBY. I CAN’T SAY I’VE SEEN THEM, BUT I’VE CERTAINLY HEARD THEM! NO ONE CAN FIGURE OUT JUST WHAT HAS BROUGHT SO MANY SEAGULLS INTO THE CITY CENTRE, PERHAPS IT’S THE UNUSUALLY SCORCHING WEATHER. BACK TO YOU BOBBY.’ ‘THANKS FOR THAT INSIGHT KELLY. MOVING ON TO ANOTHER ANIMAL-RELATED STORY, SEVEN DOLPHINS WERE DISCOVERED IN TWINFORD HARBOUR THIS MORNING AND DESPITE ALL BEST EFFORTS FROM THE AQUATIC RESCUE TEAM, THEY SEEM TO BE REFUSING TO MOVE ON.’

Clancy grimaced.

‘What’s with the face?’ said Ruby.

‘Dolphins,’ said Clancy.

‘What have you got against dolphins? Everyone likes dolphins. What makes you such an individual?’

‘Just don’t trust them,’ said Clancy.

‘Oh Clance, don’t tell me you’re scared of them – no one’s scared of dolphins.’

‘I am,’ said Clancy firmly.

‘Why?’ said Ruby. ‘What possible reason could you have for being scared of a dolphin?’

‘For the following reason: I could be out swimming one day and spot what I think is a dolphin, and get lulled into a false sense of security only to find out it’s actually a shark.’ Just a month ago Clancy had been waiting at the dentist’s office, killing time leafing through the old magazines, when he had stumbled across a story about a man who had unfortunately mistaken a shark for a dolphin – the consequences didn’t bear thinking about, but Clancy couldn’t stop thinking about them.

‘And how is that the dolphin’s fault?’ asked Ruby.

‘It’s got a fin,’ said Clancy, folding his arms. ‘They make themselves look like sharks.’

‘The fin shape is totally different,’ said Ruby. ‘Look in any encyclopedia and you’ll see.’

‘Oh yeah, I’ll remember to do that next time I’m swimming along.’

‘Well, you know what Clance? It’s never gonna be a mistake you get to make because you’re never gonna be swimming along; you never go anywhere near what might or might not be a shark. You never even paddle!’

Mrs Digby emerged from the pantry where she had been lining up canned food in alphabetical order. The Redfort housekeeper liked to run a tight ship (as she put it) and keep an A–Z larder.

‘Hi Mrs Digby,’ said Clancy.

Mrs Digby put her hands on her hips. ‘Well, howdy, and what can I do for you? Since I don’t imagine either of you have come in here to volunteer for potato peeling. Am I right or am I right?’

‘Just wondering if you might have some kinda snacky type of a thing up your sleeve?’ said Ruby, her eyes all big and innocent.

The old lady clucked her tongue, pretending to disapprove, but actually loving nothing better than preparing food for Ruby and her friends – they were always so appreciative.

Mrs Digby had known Ruby since Ruby was a minute old and there was nothing she wouldn’t do for her. Not that she was any kind of pushover – she was most definitely not. One tough old bird in fact. Only a month ago she had been accidentally kidnapped during a robbery, but it was like water off a duck’s back to Mrs Digby.

‘Been through a whole lot worse during my long and mainly miserable life,’ was all she had said about the incident. Mrs Digby always described her life as miserable though in fact this was not the case, certainly not for the past fifty years anyway.

The housekeeper set about making what she called ‘a Digby Club’, which was actually just a regular club sandwich, but with her own home-made mustard mayonnaise, and topped off with a gherkin. For some reason it tasted a whole lot better than any other club sandwich that you might ever have tasted and anybody who ate one never forgot it.

‘By the way,’ she said, pulling something from her apron pocket, ‘I found that watch of yours on the front stoop; you oughta be more careful with your possessions child, or you’ll have nothing left to call your own.’

‘Darn it!’ said Ruby. ‘The clasp is all bent so it keeps coming loose. I told them to fix it.’

‘Told who?’ asked the housekeeper.

‘Um… the fixers,’ said Ruby. She was being cagey because this watch was no ordinary watch; it was a Spectrum-issue Escape watch (also known to agents as the Rescue watch) and had once belonged to the wonder kid, Bradley Baker. It was a clever piece of kit: it looked like nothing more than a child’s watch, but this timepiece, though old and not the latest in terms of spy gear, was still a gadget to be reckoned with. It had saved more than a few lives in its time. It had a brightly striped strap and an interesting clasp. The second hand was a fly and the watch face itself was coloured enamel, painted with cartoon eyes. The eyes followed the hands as they ticked tirelessly round. Spectrum had repaired the malfunctioning rescue features, but had neglected to fix the faulty clasp so it was always coming loose.

Ruby took the watch and fastened it round her wrist, making sure that the clasp clicked home.

‘Well,’ said Mrs Digby, ‘mind you fix it or you’ll be sorry. A stitch in time saves nine is what I always say.’

The housekeeper popped the sandwiches on plates and slid them across the countertop like she was a short-order chef.

Ruby and Clancy were sitting at high stools still chatting about dolphins and sharks. They paused their conversation only to convey their appreciation, picked up their plates and made their way to the living room. Mrs Digby nodded and started chopping up vegetables ready for the evening meal.

Both kids flopped down on the floor and, propping themselves on their elbows, tackled their snacks. Ruby reached for the remote and flicked on the TV set. Clancy gave directions through mouthfuls of Digby Club.

‘Try channel three,’ he urged. ‘No, wait a minute, seven. Nah, maybe try nine.’

Ruby looked at him. ‘You wanna stop barking orders and do it yourself?’

‘Nah, you’re doing great. What’s on eleven?’

They finally settled on some lame show about a seal who solved crimes with his seal’s sixth sense. The seal narrated at the beginning and the end of each episode which made it all the more unbelievable. It was pretty bad, but Clancy and Ruby didn’t mind that. They kind of liked bad shows, almost as much as they relished good ones – there was nothing as enjoyable as ripping a truly terrible show to shreds.

‘Oh, like that would ever happen!’ Clancy would say whenever anything super stupid occurred in the plot. And Ruby was very fond of exclaiming, ‘Yeah, right, I totally would go out in the dark alone if there was a psychopath on the loose.’

Watching this ‘seal’ show was providing them with ample opportunity to make a whole lot of wise remarks. Splasher – the seal of the show’s title – was busy listening to a conversation that some villainous-looking types were having on the harbour wall, and he was getting pretty distressed by what he heard.

Clancy was killing himself laughing. ‘Can you believe this show!’ he squealed.

Bug, hearing the commotion, bounded into the room, stepping on the remote, changing the channel to the local news station.

The words BREAKING NEWS flashed up on the screen and a wind-blown reporter was standing on Twinford beach talking into the camera.

‘IT HAS JUST COME TO LIGHT THAT THE BODY OF A DIVER HAS WASHED UP ON TWINFORD BAY BEACH.’

Ruby and Clancy sat up.

‘IT IS NOT YET KNOWN HOW THE VICTIM DIED, BUT IT WOULD APPEAR THAT HE WAS JUST AN UNFORTUNATE CASUALTY OF THE SEA’S UNPREDICTABILITY. ALL WE CAN TELL YOU IS THAT THE DECEASED IS MALE AND OF AVERAGE BUILD.’

‘Like I was saying,’ said Clancy, letting out a long breath, ‘the ocean is a dan-ger-ous place.’

Meanwhile,

somewhere off the

coast of Twinford…

It was a glittering day, and it seemed that most of Twinford’s glitteringly wealthy were on-board Freddie and Marjorie Humbert’s sixty-foot yacht, the Golden Albatross.

‘Isn’t this just one hundred per cent perfect?’ said Sabina Redfort, smiling.

‘More than that,’ said Brant Redfort. ‘It’s at least two hundred per cent perfect!’

‘Perfect is perfect,’ said Ambassador Crew. ‘No more, no less.’

‘Exactly,’ agreed Sabina. ‘It’s double perfect.’

Ambassador Crew rolled his eyes heavenwards. He found the Redforts very agreeable company, but frustratingly dim. Just how Brant Redfort had ever got into Stanton University he could not imagine.

It was the invitation of the season: a mini cruise around the Twinford coast, sailing the passengers as far as the Sibling Islands, taking in sights most Twinfordites rarely if ever got to see. It had been set up by the Twinford Historical Society, which for the first time in twenty years had had to turn away applicants – its membership having swelled threefold as soon as it was discovered that the trip involved ten days on-board the Humberts’ luxury vessel.

‘Isn’t it wonderful to see just how many people are actually interested in history?’ said Sabina.

‘Might have something to do with this million-dollar yacht we’re on,’ replied Ambassador Crew. He was a very cynical person.

‘Why, is it old?’ asked Brant. ‘Gee, I didn’t know it was of historical interest.’

‘Give me strength,’ muttered the Ambassador under his breath.

Dora Shoering was giving a series of lectures on the facts, myths and legends relating to smuggling, piracy and long-lost treasure. The facts, it had to be admitted, were few and far between, but no one much minded as it was naturally a glamorous affair and everyone was having an elegant time.

Along with Brant and Sabina Redfort, the guest list included Barbara and Ed Bartholomew, Mr and Mrs Gruemeister and their bothersome dog, Pookie. However, Mrs Crew had declined the invitation due to a horrible problem with seasickness and the Sibling waters were notorious for their restless currents.

Dora Shoering, a self-proclaimed intellectual who had almost attended Berklard as a student, gave a fascinating, if not entirely accurate, series of talks, but it was that Sunday afternoon’s lecture that sparked most chatter.

‘Fascinating,’ said Sabina. ‘I just love the story of the lost treasure of Twinford. Of course, much of it I knew already, because you see it was my ancestor’s treasure that was lost. Did you all know that?’

The others did know this, because Sabina had not stopped repeating it all through the lecture – how her great-great-great-grandmother Eliza Fairbank (she wasn’t sure how many greats) had been lost at sea off Twinford on the way to South America along with all her gems and rubies; only her little daughter Martha survived.

‘Utterly gripping,’ said Marjorie Humbert. ‘Wouldn’t it be divine if it were true?’

‘But there is every possibility that it is true,’ said Dora. ‘Though it has never been proved one way or the other.’

‘Why did no one look for it?’ asked Brant.

‘Well, of course they did,’ Dora replied. ‘But they never found a thing. Plus, they had a few other concerns.’

‘Such as?’ asked Ambassador Crew.

‘A giant sea monster,’ replied Dora. ‘It was said it guarded the treasure, sat on it, they say, and no one could ever retrieve the gems from its razor-sharp talons.’

‘Talons?’ spat the Ambassador. ‘You’re saying that this sea creature was an aquatic eagle-bird?’

Dora looked uneasy: she had made up the bit about the talons. ‘Or crab claws, no one knows,’ she said hurriedly.

Ambassador Crew couldn’t help but display his utter pity for anyone who would believe such total garbage, but the rest of the party was electric with excitement.

‘We should search for it!’ said Brant. ‘Imagine – Sabina coming face to face with her own ancestor’s jewels.’

‘Good luck to you,’ said Ambassador Crew. ‘It would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. You’d have to search the whole ocean floor just to find the wreck and in these dangerous waters I wouldn’t fancy your chances.’

‘Gracious,’ said Sabina. ‘Sounds like quite a quest.’

‘Exactly!’ said Dora Shoering. ‘It’s no surprise no one’s ever found it.’

‘A nice fairy tale is what it is,’ said Ambassador Crew.

‘Hey, look at that boat on the horizon.’ Barbara Bartholomew was pointing to the south-west. ‘Doesn’t it look romantic against the setting sun?’

‘Yes,’ agreed Sabina, looking at the old-fashioned sailing ship. ‘One could almost imagine oneself back in pirate times.’

THE NEXT MORNING WHEN RUBY REDFORT turned the corner of Amster Street, she walked on past the bus stop, crossed the road and headed for the Double Donut Diner – she figured there was plenty of time to grab a shake and still make the school bus.

It wasn’t that the Double Donut Diner particularly specialised in donuts – it was really because Marla, the owner, thought it was a catchy name and apparently it was because everyone in Twinford seemed to know the Double Donut.

The diner was popular with all sorts of locals and Ruby liked to hang out observing the comings and goings of Twinford folk. It also did particularly good French toast – something Ruby’s mother was very much against due to the quantity of maple syrup her daughter drowned it in.

Del and Mouse looked up as she came in. ‘Hey Rube, how you doing?’

‘Oh, you know, could complain, can’t be bothered.’ She looked around. ‘Clancy not here?’

‘He had to leave early,’ said Mouse. ‘Said he had to go and see Principal Levine, on account of flunking French, again – Madame Loup is furieux.’

‘How come he didn’t tell me about that last night?’ asked Ruby.

‘He only just found out. Mrs Bexenheath actually called the Crew household this morning,’ said Del. Del was the only person Ruby knew who could speak while at the very same time suck milkshake up a straw.

Ruby winced. ‘A little trip to the principal’s office, huh? That’s gonna get old Clancy’s dad in a stew.’

‘Lucky for Clance he’s off sailing the high seas with your folks,’ said Mouse.

Ruby nodded. Clancy’s dad wasn’t in the business of bringing up losers: at least that’s what he was constantly telling his children. Ambassador Crew liked to think of himself as a winner and that meant having children who were winners. Clancy, in this respect, often let the side down.

‘Poor old Clance,’ said Ruby, signalling to the waitress that she was ready to order.

Just then, in stumbled a girl with long copper hair, golden brown skin and grey eyes. It was the impossibly pretty but strikingly clumsy Red Monroe.

‘Hi Red, what happened to your leg?’ asked Del.

‘Oh yeah,’ replied Red, looking down at her scuffed knee. ‘I tripped over a dog.’

‘That reminds me,’ said Del. ‘My Uncle Charlie, you know, the one who’s with the coastguard? He was saying how this shipment of dog food ended up in Argentina when it was meant to be delivered to Mexico, and how this shipment of bananas was meant to arrive in San Francisco, but ended up in Chile. I mean how about that!’

‘So?’ said Mouse. ‘What’s the big deal? Mix-ups happen.’

‘Yeah, but my Uncle Charlie was saying it’s been happening a lot, I mean a lot.’

Del tried to emphasise what ‘a lot’ was by leaving her mouth hanging open when she had finished speaking.

‘Oh, how interesting,’ said Ruby, yawning an exaggerated yawn.

‘I’m telling you guys, this is a big deal,’ Del insisted.

‘Give us some examples then,’ said Mouse, who was concentrating hard on her milkshake.

‘Like a bunch of sneakers that ended up in Antigua instead of Seattle and a whole load of corncobs that showed up in Miami.’ She paused before adding, ‘Uncle Charlie told me a troupe of Indian elephants on their way to Baltimore still hasn’t shown up at all.’

Ruby looked at her with a tired expression. Del had quite a reputation for turning fiction into fact and this just sounded like the usual garbage that she regularly spouted.

‘For a start it isn’t a troupe of elephants, it’s a parade or herd,’ said Ruby, ‘and for seconds that has to be untrue.’

‘Ask anyone,’ said Del.

Ruby turned to Mouse. ‘So Mouse, did you hear about the shipment of elephants that went missing between India and Baltimore?’

‘Nope,’ said Mouse.

Del sighed – she knew when she was beaten. ‘Hey, how about some French toast? I mean there’s time, right? We just need to eat quick; we can still make the bus.’

Del Lasco could talk a cow into milking itself and before they knew it they were all sitting eating a Sunday-style breakfast as if school was not even on the menu. When the hands of the clock got dangerously near pointing out eight o’clock, the friends slipped down off their stools and headed in the direction of Twinford High.

The bus had long gone.

* * *

‘Late again! What a surprise,’ said Mrs Drisco, without one chime of surprise in her voice. ‘So what was it this time – the cat ate my homework?’

‘Oh, we don’t have a cat Mrs Drisco,’ said Ruby.

The teacher pinched her lips together sourly. ‘Well, that’s a detention then,’ she said, writing a D in the register.

‘I have a note,’ said Ruby.

‘Well, unless it’s from the mayor himself, then I really don’t think I’m interested.’

‘Oh, it is,’ said Ruby.

She reached down to her satchel, opened it and rifled through her notes and excuses section. There were notes inside for any occasion, arranged alphabetically. She selected the one she needed.

Pulling out a piece of paper from the bag, Ruby handed it to Mrs Drisco. Mrs Drisco looked at the piece of paper most carefully. She put her glasses on and took them off again, then sat down. The note was most definitely signed by the mayor himself – it wasn’t a copy.

Just how Ruby Redfort had come by this note is another story, but suffice it to say, Ruby kept a lot of things up her sleeve or, more precisely, in her satchel – who knew when they might come in handy? The Boy Scouts had it right: be prepared – it was front and centre in the Boy Scout handbook, a little bland in its delivery but a good rule. Ruby had chosen it as her RULE 11: EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED AND BE READY FOR ANYTHING.

‘SO HOW DID YOU PULL THAT OFF?’ asked an impressed Del Lasco at lunch recess. ‘You know, the trick with the note.’

‘It’s not a trick,’ said Ruby.

‘So how dya get it?’ said Del.

‘Ah, I have my sources,’ replied Ruby.

‘Yeah, well, a truly “good” friend would share those sources with her closest and mostest,’ said Del.

‘If you need me to get you out of a jam sometime Del, all you gotta do is make it worth my while,’ smiled Ruby.

Clancy arrived at the lunch table, his tray teetering with high-calorie food. He was looking to put on a little weight, but the effort would no doubt prove fruitless, for it seemed no matter how much he ate, Clancy never got wider than a string bean.

‘So Clance, you gonna watch the swimathon on Saturday?’ asked Del.

Clancy shivered. ‘No siree, I’ve got no interest in watching kids from Twinford Junior High get devoured by oversized fish.’

Del looked at him like he had lost a few marbles. She turned to Ruby.

‘What’s with him?’ she said, pointing her thumb in his direction.

‘You know Clance, a boy with a fearful persecution complex – thinks the whole of marine life’s out to get him,’ said Ruby.

Del punched him on the arm. ‘Get a grip Crew, nothin’s gonna bother taking a bite out of your shrimpy body.’ She took a big chomp out of her sandwich and continued to talk. ‘I wish it was our grade taking part in the swimathon; too bad only the kids in 9th grade get to swim.’ Del was captain of the 8th grade swim team and she relished any chance she got to compete.

The 9th grade had been training for this for the past few months and, as a team-building exercise, Coach Newhart was taking them for a seafood cookout – not that he touched molluscs or crustaceans himself. Coach Newhart only ate real food and that meant food that walked on all fours on dry land – no fins, no feelers.

Elliot came and joined them. ‘Hey, where’s Mouse and Red?’ he asked, looking around as if they might be under the table.

‘Chess club,’ said Del.

‘Red plays chess?’ he said.

‘She’s good actually,’ said Del. ‘Well, when she’s not knocking the pieces all over the board, she tends to win.’

Elliot nodded, surprised but impressed. ‘So Rube, how was your vacation?’

‘You know, good,’ she replied.

‘So what did you do?’ he asked.

‘Swim,’ said Ruby.

‘Anything else?’ he enquired.

‘Cleaned the bathroom a few times,’ she said.

‘Well, thank you for that detailed account of your spring break,’ said Elliot. ‘That all sounds really interesting.’ He turned to Clancy. ‘So what did you do?’

‘Hung out mainly – with my sisters,’ replied Clancy through mouthfuls of fries. ‘My dad’s taking this Historical Society cruise; left on Friday, so he didn’t have time for us all to go away on a family vacation before – too busy.’

‘What’s the deal with that?’ asked Del. ‘He gets a vacation and you don’t?’

‘My dad says it’s not really a vacation; they’re learning about the legends and history of the Twinford coast. He says it’s good for the Ambassador to be seen on a trip like this,’ said Clancy. ‘Ruby’s mom and dad are on it too.’

‘Sounds like a riot,’ yawned Del.

‘Actually, the Sibling treasure legend is pretty interesting,’ said Ruby. ‘You should read up about it; as legends go, it’s a good one. Besides, it involves one of my ancestors.’

‘You’re kidding,’ said Clancy.

‘No way!’ said Elliot.

‘I don’t think you ever mentioned that before,’ said Del. ‘Well, maybe once or twice or perhaps three million times!’

‘Oh, ha ha,’ said Ruby flatly. ‘You guys just wish you had some kinda historical intrigue in your families; ain’t my fault that you got nothing to talk about.’

The legend was roughly this: Ruby’s great-great-great-great-grandmother, Eliza, was sailing to South America on the family ship, the Seahorse, with all her worldly goods (very valuable ones by all accounts), when the boat was attacked by pirates who slaughtered all on-board. However, Eliza’s four-year-old daughter Martha, who was a smart child, the smartest anyone could remember, escaped death by hiding in a barrel of apples.

When the pirates had finished raiding and murdering, they began collecting up the spoils from the Seahorse. But unfortunately for them, they hadn’t quite murdered everyone on-board – a few of the Seahorse crew who were still below decks took the remaining pirates by surprise and a violent battle broke out. Most of the pirates had already returned to their galleon, but those who were left fought to the death until the Seahorse, engulfed in flames, sank below the waves.

Miraculously, the child, Martha, managed to escape by floating across the seas in the apple barrel, before eventually washing up in Twinford.

The whole story sounded very far-fetched to Ruby, but she couldn’t deny its appeal. One intriguing part centred round something little Martha claimed to have seen. She was quite convinced of the fact that she had watched her mother carried from the boat by the pirates, kicking and screaming. Martha would not be dissuaded on this point – she was sure that her mother was still alive, although no one else believed it.

The postscript to the story was also intriguing since it became a tale told to children all over the region. It was said that not so long after the Seahorse was wrecked and plundered, a beautiful woman was seen aboard a pirate vessel, raiding any ships that dared to sail in pirate waters. Some said they had seen her brandishing a cutlass and slitting men’s throats, others that she was held captive, destined never to tread dry land again.

Clancy’s day was marred by his extra French tuition and, just to add insult to the occasion, a nasty run-in with his two least favourite Twinford Junior High pupils.

‘Oh, look who it is! Nancy Drew, Redridingfort’s little helper! Look, he’s just been to his “French for duh brains” tutorial.’

The girl jeering at him was Vapona Begwell (or Bugwart as she was known by most of the school), one of the few kids who did not like Ruby, but then Vapona didn’t particularly like anyone. Vapona Begwell was an unfortunate-looking girl, sour-faced and mean with it. Tall but strangely lumpen with a sort of leery stoop which made her look very much like a cartoon bully – which was sort of what she was. She hung out with Gemma Melamare, a total viper with cute blue eyes and a snub nose, who lurked at Vapona’s side and leaked poison into the schoolyard, spreading rumours and setting friends against friends. It never worked on Clancy and Ruby; they were wise to the Melamare menace.

‘So Clancy, I notice you and Ruby haven’t been hanging out so much lately. Was it because she said that thing about you being too dumb to be seen with?’

Clancy looked at Gemma blankly.

‘Oh, you didn’t know?’ said Gemma, her sugary voice feigning apology.

He smiled as he pulled his bike from the bike stand; saying nothing was his secret weapon – he knew it made Gemma Melamare crazy. Still smiling, he headed off towards the torture that was an hour’s violin lesson, his face not for one second belying the hell he was about to endure or how much he wanted to sock Gemma with the aforementioned instrument.

When Ruby arrived back from school, she found Mrs Digby singing along to the radio, which was tuned to Chime Melody. Chime Melody was her favourite station for tunes, Twinford Talk Radio for talking. Talk Radio she loved, but Chime Melody was her guilty pleasure. It played the old tunes, and Mrs Digby adored the old tunes, and what’s more she seemed to know every one of them.

She always said, ‘If I hadn’ta been so busy cooking you Redforts your every morsel, I would have sung for my supper and made a bundle on Broadway.’

‘Anything happen while I was busy learning stuff?’ asked Ruby, opening the refrigerator.

‘Only that the fish store was all out of fish. I ask you, we live practically in an ocean, but I swear there’s not one single sprat for sale. In my day fishermen knew how to fish; they could catch a catfish in a rain puddle.’

‘Don’t sweat it,’ said Ruby. ‘I’m not in a fishy frame of mind tonight.’

‘I don’t care what frame of mind you’re in child, it’s what you need that counts and you need fish or that little brain of yours is going to shrivel up like a currant.’ Mrs Digby was a great believer in fish oil.

‘So what are we having instead?’ asked Ruby.

‘You will be having a spoonful of cod-liver oil and some cabbage soup,’ said the housekeeper firmly.

‘You have to be kidding!’ said Ruby.

‘Your mother’s orders,’ said Mrs Digby, her hands on her hips, prepared for the inevitable argument. ‘Your ma said fish or cabbage and I gotta abide by her rules.’

‘But what you are actually saying is fish and cabbage – that’s not the deal,’ said Ruby.

‘I’ll grant you that,’ nodded Mrs Digby. ‘Cabbage it is – cod-liver oil will have to wait.’

Mrs Digby was a stickler for abiding by Sabina Redfort’s dietary rules, so there was no getting away from it: cabbage was on the menu and that was that.

‘Oh, I almost forgot,’ said Mrs Digby. ‘That Elaine Lemon stopped by wondering if you’d like to babysit Archie.’

Ruby made a face. ‘No way, no day,’ she said firmly. ‘Uh uh.’

Mrs Digby chuckled and started chopping cabbage.

It was at supper that night that Ruby got the message. She looked down into her unfortunate cabbage soup to see a fly struggling to make it to the rim – it was making good progress, but just as it was about to reach the bowl’s edge, it would change direction and stupidly end right back where it started.

‘There appears to be a fly in my soup,’ said Ruby, looking directly at Hitch, who had joined them for supper and was taunting Ruby by tucking into a steak cooked medium rare, fries on the side.

He winked back. ‘I had a premonition that that might happen. Let me substitute it for something less cabbage,’ he said, removing the offending liquid and replacing it with food that told her all she needed to know.

It was a slice of toast, and into it was grilled a message.

‘Be ready: 2.30am. Bring your waders.’

The note had been toasted into the bread by the Spectrum-issue toaster fax machine. A discreet way of conveying information – and what’s more you could eat the evidence, which Ruby promptly did.

Finally, the toast she had been waiting for: Spectrum had a mission for her.

AT 2.30AM RUBY GOT OUT OF BED, pulled on her jeans, a T-shirt printed with the words excuse me while I yawn and a sweater, picked up her sneakers, pushed open the window and climbed down the eucalyptus tree. Its limbs stretched towards the west side of the house providing a perfect ladder for the able tree-climber.

Hitch was already sitting in the silver convertible, its engine turning over so quietly you hardly knew it was running.

‘Nice of you to show up,’ he said.

Ruby looked at her watch. It was 2.32am. ‘Give me a break,’ she said.

‘Lives have been lost in two minutes,’ said Hitch.

‘Oh, come on man, what’s the big deal?’

‘The “big deal”?’ pondered Hitch. ‘Let me think… well, I hear you can only breath-hold for one minute and one second so imagine if you were waiting for me to rescue you, and you were stuck underwater, and I took a whole two minutes to get there. You’d be all out of air kid.’

‘You were waiting in the car. You weren’t exactly in total mortal danger.’

‘You didn’t know that.’

‘OK, OK,’ said Ruby. ‘I’m sorry, I won’t do it again.’

‘I wouldn’t bet on it,’ said Hitch. ‘Listening to advice isn’t what you do best.’

‘Well, since we are busy “sharing” here then might I suggest that giving people the benefit of the doubt isn’t one of your strengths?’

Hitch pointed at Ruby’s T-shirt and said, ‘Your T-shirt is on the money kid, so zip it.’

He backed out of the driveway and they drove in silence to Desolate Cove. As the name sort of suggested, no one much visited this place – it had no sand and was nearly always windswept and rarely warm. Hitch parked behind a steep bank of pines, the vehicle hidden from view, and he and Ruby set about zipping their jackets and pulling on rubber waders. In silence they walked across the pebble beach until they reached the place where the cliffs met the water.

‘Stay close to the rock kid,’ warned Hitch. ‘There’s a sudden drop to the left – very deep water and I’m not sure I can be bothered to fish you out.’ The sound of his words was almost drowned by the sound of the sea as it dragged through the stones of the beach, relentlessly pulling and pushing, almost like a chorus of whispering voices.

Here you could perhaps believe in the fisherman’s legend of the sea devil and the sea witch.

The water reached almost to the top of Ruby’s waders and she just barely managed to keep from getting soaked. She had no idea where they were headed or why, but she guessed there must be a pretty good reason for this little jaunt.

They made it round the next sharp corner and then there it was: a hidden low opening in the cliff, not so much a cave, more like a large niche, just big enough to conceal…

… a scuba sub.

‘Kinda cool,’ said Ruby.

‘You have no idea,’ said Hitch.

A metallic pod-like thing, the sub had a reflective glass dome on top.

‘The glass is four inches thick,’ said Hitch. ‘Allows the sub to dive to depths of five miles. When submerged, the light bounces off it in such a way that it is just about invisible.’

‘Even cooler,’ said Ruby casually, like she’d seen a whole bunch of scuba subs in her time.

Hitch raised his eyes heavenwards and depressed a button on his watch and the glass lid slid back. There looked to be enough space to seat three passengers comfortably and four at a squeeze. It looked worryingly unstable and Ruby was concerned that it would tip as she climbed in.

‘Plenty of agents bigger than you have found themselves jumping into this thing, trying to make a fast getaway,’ said Hitch. ‘And I can assure you kid, it never rolls over… so long as you don’t slip, you won’t drown. If you do, it’s anyone’s guess.’

Ruby gave him a sideways look, then climbed in very carefully and buckled up. Hitch took a key from a well-concealed compartment, slotted it into the ignition, turned it this way, that way, another way and then the engine began to purr.

After fiddling with some switches, and once the roof was locked into place, Hitch pushed a lever and they moved forward, dipping smoothly under the waves. The cliff ledge suddenly disappeared and the sub moved into deep water.

‘Keep your safety belt fastened!’ said Hitch, as he pulled on another of the controls and the scuba sub suddenly jetted forward at great speed, silently cutting through the ocean. Things on either side of them vanished into a blur as they passed by.

‘How do you avoid colliding with a whale?’ asked Ruby, who was sort of pinned to her seat, enjoying the ride, but not yet entirely relaxed.

‘Automatic Avoidance Sonar,’ said Hitch. ‘I’ve never hit anything yet kiddo!’

It was a thrill to travel so fast – better than any amusement park – but Ruby wouldn’t have minded slowing it down a little, taking some time to look at the scenery. In the blink of an eye they reached another rock face; this one seemed to be covered in petrified insects – sort of prehistoric-looking flies and insect fossils.

‘We’re stopping here?’ asked Ruby.

‘Not exactly,’ said Hitch, pressing one of the buttons on the control panel.

What looked like solid rock suddenly corkscrewed open and they entered a water-filled channel.

They navigated their way up the passage until they reached a dead end, a round pool. Hitch switched off the engine and a platform under the sub lifted them and their vehicle out of the water.

They had arrived.

Ruby assumed this entrance must be the latest ‘way in’ to Spectrum HQ since it was not unusual for the location to be moved several times a month.

‘So this is Spectrum?’ said Ruby.

‘Not exactly,’ said Hitch.

‘What does that mean?’

‘This kid is Spectrum’s Sea Division, Spectrum 5. Sea Division, as the name would suggest, is always located somewhere at sea.’

‘So, given that we work for Spectrum 8, what are we doing here?’ asked Ruby.

‘Spectrum 5 have been working on a case that might cross over with a case that Spectrum 8 have been looking into – LB thought it might be an idea to join forces.’

As they walked, some of the slick white corridors became clear glass-tube passageways, and fish swam by on the other side – sunfish, rockfish, cardinal fish, kelpfish, garibaldi, stingrays, and a thousand others. It was sort of like being in a giant aquarium, though the fish might well conclude it was the people who were the exhibits here.

It was strange for Ruby to enter Spectrum as a fully paid-up agent in training. She stifled a smile, remembering that at the tender age of thirteen she had already achieved her lifetime ambition of becoming an undercover secret agent for one of the most undercover and secret of secret agencies in the world.

She looked around her at the huge domed space with its glass floor and sealife moving underfoot.

‘Hey kid!’ shouted Hitch. ‘Want to look lively? LB’s waiting.’

Ruby had taken off her jacket and slung it over her shoulder so it was again possible to read the slogan written in bold letters across her T-shirt: excuse me while I yawn.

Hitch paused a minute. ‘Kid, my advice? Put your jacket back on and zip it right up – LB sees that and she might not find it so funny.’

‘She not in a good mood?’ Ruby called across the hall.

‘I doubt that sincerely kid. That diver who just washed up dead on the beach – he was one of ours and losing an agent always puts a crimp in her day.’

HITCH LED THE WAY DOWN A STEEPLY SLOPING PASSAGE that wound round and round and seemed like it must spiral right through the seabed. When they reached a black circular door, Hitch punched in some numbers and they were admitted to the screening room.

The room was full of agents and Spectrum staff, sitting in cinema-style seats which all faced a large white screen. There was a buzz in the air, everyone knew something big had happened, but few knew exactly what had gone down. Ruby tried to get her bearings, looked around – unfortunately straight into the eyes of Agent Froghorn (he of the silent G). He made much of pointing to his watch, indicating that it was way past her bedtime, and Ruby mouthed a word not to be repeated. Agent Redfort and Agent Froghorn were never likely to exchange birthday cards.

Sea Divison headquarters had much in common with Spectrum 8 HQ, but there were some very obvious differences, the main one being: when you looked out of the window you saw water. Agent Trent-Kobie, head of Sea Division, had been called away on urgent business and so the briefing was to be given by the boss of Spectrum 8.

LB.

Dressed all in white, LB walked into the room – and instantly the chatting stopped. LB had this effect on people. She was immaculately dressed but for her feet, which were bare, red nail polish perfectly applied to her toes. The head of Spectrum 8 did not much care for shoes of any kind and was rarely seen in footwear.

When she reached the front, where the microphone stood, she dropped a perspex file onto the small table to her side, and launched right in.

‘So, as you will know by now, Agent Trilby’s body was found on Sunday evening – he had been diving off the coast not far from Twinford Bay beach. During the past month he has been investigating unusual ocean activity – strange behaviour of marine life. There has been a lot of unusual ocean activity recently and it can all be found in Agent Trilby’s report.’ She continued to go through example after example of things that had been occurring just off the coast of Twinford.

Dolphins refusing to leave the bay, seagulls flocking inland, fishing stock low.

‘As we all know,’ continued LB, ‘Trilby was a very proficient diver and it is highly unlikely that he would have drowned in normal circumstances. We are still waiting for the autopsy, but it would seem that he was unfortunate enough to come into contact with something like a stingray or an electric eel. There is evidence of bruising to his leg that still needs to be explained, but we feel it’s likely that he encountered this sort of creature and this either led to a cardiac arrest or a severe shock that in turn led to drowning.’

It couldn’t have been a stinging creature that killed him, thought Ruby, Trilby would definitely have utilised his Spectrum-issue anti-sting Miracle serum. It was a comfort to know that every diving agent had this life-saver with them even if it couldn’t guard against shocks and bites.

LB pushed her glasses back up to the bridge of her nose. ‘Yes?’ she said, spotting a raised hand.

‘Do you think the strange ocean activity is linked to something else – some dark plot I mean – or do you think it’s all just a consequence of some natural event throwing things off course?’

The question came from Agent Blacker, a dishevelled-looking man in a crumpled jacket – an agent Ruby had a lot of time for. They had worked together on the Jade Buddha case and he was not only a smart person, he was a nice guy. He had a laid-back manner, but was as sharp as a pin tack.

‘There is nothing to suggest that Trilby was the victim of foul play if that’s what you’re getting at,’ replied LB. ‘However, I am interested in his findings in the context of other unusual activity – some of you will have been party to the ongoing investigation into the missing or scrambled coastguard signals and reports of disruption with shipping vessels; cargo going awry, turning up in the wrong place.’

She listed the coastguard reports – and the list was long. Trainers, coffee, corncobs, bananas, you name it, it seemed to have ended up in the wrong port.

‘Even a six-ton elephant on its way to Baltimore has gone astray,’ concluded LB.

Ruby made a mental note to apologise to Del Lasco: give or take a few elephants, she had actually been telling the truth.

LB wound up her talk and removed her glasses, hooking them onto her shirt. ‘To be honest with you,’ she said, ‘we really have no idea what might be going on. To date we are not investigating any criminal activity. All we know is that Agent Trilby was monitoring unusual events at sea and regrettably died. If it wasn’t for the coastguard reports, we would continue monitoring marine life and not look any further.’

Blacker raised his hand again.

‘Yes?’ she said.

‘So you are looking to make a link?’ said Blacker.

‘Either that or to establish that there isn’t one – it could all be a coincidence,’ she replied.

‘But link or no link, you’ll be wanting me to plot through Trilby’s findings and see where they take us?’ said Blacker.

‘Correct. Meanwhile, I understand that Agent Kekoa from Sea Division will take over Trilby’s ocean research. She is intending to make sound recordings – this way we hope to learn just what is causing the marine disturbance. If the strange sealife occurrences are just a series of natural blips and shifts, then so much the better; the information will be passed onto those who deal with such things and we will concentrate on the shipping alone.’

LB stepped to one side and Agent Kekoa walked to the front – Ruby’s dive instructor looked shorter out of the water and less assertive. You could tell she wasn’t particularly comfortable standing there talking. She clearly wasn’t really comfortable out of her wetsuit in fact – clothes made her look strangely out of her depth.

‘There have been reports of a sound, a whispering sound,’ said Kekoa. She clicked the clicker and up popped a slide showing a kid of about seventeen, his photo alongside a map of the Twinford coast, and an arrow pointing to the sea beyond Little Bay.

‘Tommy Elson was swimming out past Little Bay and reported a whispering sound coming from under the water.’

Click: Slide of a young couple in beach gear – the map showed that they were in a sailboat far out at Rock Point.

‘Same story with Hallie Grier and Lyle Greene.’

Click: One of those freckly kids with a couple of missing teeth. She was smiling and shielding her eyes from the sun.

‘Billie-May Vaughn was surfing with her dog and heard a noise which she described as someone calling, but calling in a whisper; she dove under the water but could see nothing to explain it. She claimed her dog reacted to the sound too.’

There was some sniggering in the audience that could have come from Agent Froghorn, but Kekoa took no notice.

‘The girl alerted the lifeguard, who swam out but found nothing to substantiate what Billie-May had told him.’

Kekoa clicked through some more pictures that showed various fresh-faced-looking people and the location references.

‘The sounds have generally been heard when people are swimming a mile or so from shore, or on boats further out to sea. One person, Danny Fink Junior, heard the sound when fishing on a rock which juts out into the ocean, almost an island, but that’s the only example of anyone hearing the sound on dry land.’

‘Have you heard it?’ asked one of the agents.

‘No,’ said Kekoa.

‘And how many years have you been diving in those waters?’ asked another.

‘Seven,’ said Kekoa. ‘But I’ve been in Hawaii the last couple of months.’

‘Yet you yourself have heard nothing?’ said the first agent. ‘Even since you got back?’

‘No,’ said Kekoa.

A rippled whisper went through the audience.

‘So have you considered that these accounts could all be bogus? I mean some of the people who reported it are just little kids,’ continued the first agent.

‘Yes,’ said Kekoa. ‘But I consider it unwise to disregard them just because I, just because you, have no personal experience of them.’

Ruby couldn’t agree more strongly with this statement. There were people who made wild claims about spotting aliens and spacecraft, and there were other people who claimed that this was nonsense and aliens and spacecraft didn’t exist, but either way what you had to accept was that these people had seen something. RULE 5: REMEMBER, THERE IS MORE TO LEARN THAN YOU CAN EVER KNOW.

‘In conclusion,’ said LB, stepping back in front of the screen so the smiling face of Danny Fink Junior was projected across her white suit, ‘I want this case wrapped up all neat and tidy AS…’ she rapped the perspex file with her fountain pen, ‘AP.’ She couldn’t have looked more serious.

‘One of our agents is dead. Spectrum need to know if it was foul play or just plain bad luck. The coastguard need to know if all this disruption to the cargo shipping is incompetence or something a lot more serious. The fishing industry need to know where all the fish have gone. I want to know if I have a team smart enough to give me some answers. I don’t get the right ones and I’m not happy; I’m not happy and some of you are going to have to take a walk.’

‘Yikes,’ whispered Ruby. ‘What’s LB like when she’s unhappy, I mean really unhappy?’

‘You don’t want to see it,’ said Hitch.

Ruby was glad she had taken Hitch’s advice and zipped her jacket up. LB was in one very bad mood.

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