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‘In that case, sleep tight!’ said her mother.
‘Bon appétit,’ said Ruby.
An hour later and she was woken again, this time by the sound of a fly. Judging by the insistent racket it was making, it was in its death throes, and was making a noise like it might be buzzing about on its back, legs in the air.
Still caught in sleep, Ruby attempted to bat it away, but her hand hit the edge of something solid and her eyes blinked open to find, not a noisy upside-down insect, but her Spectrum Escape Watch vibrating on the nightstand. Words in green blinked at her from the face on the dial.
A message from Hitch.
City planetarium 04.35 Row F seat 6
It was four am, really not a good time to greet the day. But if Hitch was planning on taking her into HQ to meet with her (possibly) murderous boss, then four am was as good a time as any.
Ruby reached for her glasses, struggled to her feet, fell over, cursed, hobbled to the bathroom, washed her face, brushed her teeth, combed her hair, and peered at herself with bleary eyes.
Redfort, you have to pull it together, she told herself.
Ruby decided the only way she could wake up would be to stand under the shower. This she did, and it did the trick. She peered out of the window into the still-dark morning. Cold, she thought, colder than yesterday. The temperature was really dropping.
She dug out some thermal leggings and pulled her jeans on over them, found a thermal undershirt, a T-shirt with the words, don’t wake me printed across the front, a black zip top and a snow parka and earmuffs. Snow was not forecast, but the air had turned icy. When she was ready, she picked up her backpack, tiptoed down the stairs and out of the front door. The only people riding the subway from Green Street were nightshift workers and early birds.
She arrived at the planetarium and was surprised to find the doors open and a guy selling tickets. She had been prepared for a little breaking and entering.
She went up to the booth. ‘What’s the deal?’ asked Ruby.
‘What do you mean what’s the deal?’ said the young man in the ticket booth.
‘How come you’re open? It’s four-thirty in the am.’
‘It’s to celebrate the anniversary of last year’s moon landing, you know, Apollo 17?’ said the guy.
‘I hate to burst your balloon, but you know you’re early?’ said Ruby. ‘The anniversary is December seventh.’
‘Yeah, we do know that, but a lot of people want to come so we’re doing a whole month of events,’ said the guy, pointing at the huge poster framed there on the wall. ‘There’s a whole deal of stuff going on. You might have heard, the Observatory on Meteor Island is building a new telescope … it’s been in the news, you know: Planet Twinford – 1974’s City of Space?’
‘But it isn’t 1974,’ said Ruby.
‘Yeah, but it will be in like four weeks,’ said the guy. ‘You really haven’t heard anything about this?’
Ruby was looking blank. Then, ‘Oh yeah, I think maybe my parents were invited to something spacey, what was it?’
‘Could it be the Galaxy Concert? Or the Astro Lectures? Or the Deep Space Gala?’ suggested the guy, before adding a little sarcastically, ‘what planet have you been on, man?’
‘Planet Geek,’ said Ruby. ‘I guess you might have a ticket for me, in the name of Redfort.’
The guy shuffled through his stack of prepaid tickets and handed her an envelope.
‘Enjoy!’ he said.
Ruby opened the door to the auditorium and tiptoed quietly down the steps. All the seats in the middle section were taken but towards the edges there were plenty of empty seats. She found F and began sidling along the row.
She sat down. All the seats around her were unoccupied and there was no sign of Hitch.
Mr Punctuality appeared to be late.
She began to watch the show and quickly became absorbed by the commentary.
‘Hey,’ said a voice.
RUBY:‘Jeepers! I didn’t hear you arrive.’
HITCH:‘You seem tense, kid.’
RUBY:‘Well, now you mention it …’
HITCH: ‘By the way, have you eaten breakfast?’
RUBY: ‘What, are you kidding? It’s not even five am.’
He handed her a paper bag.
‘Thanks,’ she said. She pulled out a donut.
HITCH: ‘From Blacker.’
RUBY:‘What’s he doing up at this hour?’
HITCH: ‘It’s all hands on deck while there’s a madman at large.’
Like every other member of the audience his eyes were trained on the ceiling, where the night sky rotated slowly above them.
Hitch pointed up at a cluster of stars. ‘That’s Hercules, right?’
Ruby tutted. ‘Orion,’ she said.
‘You sure?’
‘Course I’m sure,’ said Ruby. ‘I read up on all that stuff about a billion light years ago when I was five years old. I can draw you every constellation going – blindfolded and with my hands tied behind my back.’
‘That sounds like quite a party trick,’ said Hitch. ‘Who could know when that talent might come in handy.’
‘Yeah, right,’ said Ruby. ‘What are we doing here anyway?’
‘Oh, you know,’ said Hitch, ‘it’s very soothing contemplating the stars, don’t you think?’
‘I guess,’ she said, giving him a ‘what’s got into you?’ look.
‘So how was geek camp?’ he asked.
‘Geeky,’ replied Ruby. ‘So you been busy?’
‘Pretty busy, at least up until your parents flew to Paris. Boy, do they have a social life!’
‘So what made you think they needed a vacation?’
‘What makes you think it was my idea?’
‘Mrs Digby told me it was.’
‘Well, I have got to admit, they were driving me a little crazy. Do you have any idea how many parties they attend?’
‘I’ve been living with them the past thirteen years – what do you think?’
‘So you understand,’ said Hitch.
‘More than anyone,’ said Ruby. ‘I also understand Mrs Digby mysteriously won a free cruise round the Caribbean, what I don’t understand is how?’
‘I know, who would have guessed?’
‘Not her, that’s for sure,’ said Ruby.
‘Life is full of surprises,’ said Hitch.
‘So what, you felt like you wanted the place to yourself?’
‘We needed to make some adjustments to the house, add some security features,’ said Hitch.
‘For my sake?’
‘For all your sakes.’
‘You think my folks are in danger?’ asked Ruby. ‘Mrs Digby even?’
‘I wouldn’t fancy anyone’s chances if they were to go after Mrs Digby.’ He smiled. ‘But yes, I just don’t want any of them to become any kind of target.’
‘You think that could really happen? Really, I mean?’ asked Ruby. ‘The Count knows that my parents aren’t involved in Spectrum; they aren’t exactly agent material.’
‘You’re missing the point, kid. If the Count has a mind to rattle you, or worse, destroy your world, he knows how to do it. He knows where you live, he knows what makes you tick,’ said Hitch.
‘Meaning … he might make an attempt on their lives?’
‘Meaning, it’s possible.’
‘Hence the safety upgrade.’
‘Hence the safety upgrade.’
‘So what are you going to do when they get back?’ asked Ruby, ‘I mean you can’t stop them going out?’
‘I’ll do my best, kid, anything I can to ensure their safety and I’ll try my darndest to keep them from knowing anything about it.’
‘So what did you tell them? About the house, I mean?’
‘I didn’t want to get them all in a stew about it, so I got a friend of mine who happens to be in construction to persuade them that the windows needed replacing. He told them they had a bad case of window weevils.’
‘How did he convince them of that?’
‘Sprinkled a bit of glass dust around the place and loosened one of the window panes; they got the picture.’
‘Glass dust?’ said Ruby.
‘They were very concerned,’ said Hitch.
‘I’ll bet,’ said Ruby. ‘Since when was it possible for a weevil to eat through glass?’
‘I know,’ said Hitch, ‘alarming, isn’t it?’
‘And Mrs Digby?’ said Ruby.
‘It was a big job and I didn’t want her picking up on what was really going on. She has eyes like a hawk. I told her I had changed the locks and upgraded the alarm system because I had mislaid a set of keys but I kept the real reason from her.’
‘Well, so far you seem to have succeeded at keeping her in the dark. Mrs Digby thinks you packed her off because you wanted to have a high old time with your friends.’ She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. ‘I told her I didn’t think you had any friends.’
‘One day I’ll introduce you to one of them,’ said Hitch.
‘Mrs Digby probably thinks you sent my folks to Paris because you couldn’t handle their crazy social life.’
Hitch winked at her. ‘I’m a trained agent, I can handle any party they throw at me.’ He paused. ‘Speaking of training, right now we have to get our skates on.’
‘Why? Where are we going?’
‘A date with LB,’ he said.
He caught the expression on her face. ‘Jeepers, kid, relax a little. Anyone would think you were about to meet with the Grim Reaper.’
(#ulink_a0246f30-e218-520e-bc89-c5e023d33f1f)
THEY PARKED THE SILVER CAR down a side street and walked perhaps another two hundred yards.
‘Here?’ asked Ruby.
‘Here,’ said Hitch.
‘So you meant literally,’ said Ruby, ‘actually get our skates on?’
They were standing in midtown outside the ice rink on Bowery.
‘No, not actually.’
