Ruby Redfort 1 - Look Into My Eyes by Lauren Child

reading it.
    He looked up, startled, and immediately began to spread it with peanut butter.
    “Toast?” he said.
    Not just an airhead but a weirdo too
, thought Ruby.
    Today, Ruby felt like taking the bus. She made it to the stop in plenty of time, clambered aboard, and sat down, barely acknowledging her friends Del and Mouse. The two girls tried to get her attention.
    “Hey, Rube,” called Del.
    Ruby didn’t even look up.
    Del looked at Mouse. “Was it something I said?”
    Ruby was staring at the card she’d picked up in Organic Universe and chewing furiously on her pencil — what was it she wasn’t seeing? What was there to see? Just the words
Don’t call us we’ll call you
and the simple decorative border — nothing to give any indication as to where the meeting would take place.
    “Tomorrow night at eight for eight”
was all the voice on the telephone had said.
    What am I missing?
    “So Ruby, I see your toe is all mended,” said Del.
    Ruby looked down at her foot — she had forgotten all about her fake injury. “Oh, yeah,” she answered.
    Mouse looked at Del and sort of widened her mouth and rolled her eyes — this was her silent way of suggesting that all was not right with Ruby Redfort. Even Clancy Crew couldn’t get any sense out of her — and when Vapona Begwell dared to suggest that Ruby’s “recovered” broken toe was either a miracle or she was some cowardly faker who had chickened her way out of the basketball game, she barely even blinked.
    “Hey, Redfort,” sneered Vapona. “Did those burglars steal your guts along with the furniture?”
    Clancy couldn’t believe it. “You gonna let her get away with that, Rube?”
    “Look, my mind’s got bigger concerns than Bugwart right now.”
    “Has something else happened?” said Clancy eagerly. “More burglars? Something else go missing?”
    “As a matter of fact, yes.”
    “What?” said Clancy.
    “Mrs. Digby,” replied Ruby
    “Mrs. Digby?” mouthed Clancy.
    Ruby nodded. “She isn’t at cousin Emily’s and she isn’t back home. We don’t know where she is.”
    Clancy’s eyes were saucers. “Do you know what I think? I think the butler who isn’t a butler took her.”
    “And why would he do that, Clance?”
    “So he could get her job — get her outta the way.”
    “My mom didn’t
give
him the job because Mrs. Digby had
gone
— she didn’t even
know
Mrs. Digby had gone when she hired him.”
    “Yeah, well, I still think he’s bad news,” Clancy said firmly.
    “Yeah, well, maybe you’re right ’cause guess what? I saw his injured arm — he doesn’t know I saw it but I did and I am telling you. Clance, that’s no housemaid’s elbow he is suffering from — more like gangster’s shoulder.”
    “So I was right,” marveled Clancy. “He
was
in a shoot-out.” His face lit up. “You know he’s probably on the run, hiding out at your house, stealing your stuff and selling it.”
    “Clance, that brain of yours never ceases to amaze.”
    But she couldn’t help thinking he might not be so far from the truth.
    Ruby pretty much sleepwalked through her morning classes, so distracted was she by the puzzle she needed to solve. And then at 2:30, during History, she suddenly saw what it was she couldn’t see before.
    Mrs. Schneiderman was giving a very tedious lecture about the ancient Greeks, and those students who weren’t staring out of the window were busy painting their fingernails with Wite-Out and generally working hard to keep from falling asleep. It wasn’t that anyone didn’t
want
to be interested, it was just that Mrs. Schneiderman was one of those people who managed to make even the most interesting things sound very dull indeed. It was something to do with her delivery; she tended to ramble. Ruby was brought out of her thoughts and back into the classroom by the sound of one hundred thumbtacks falling to the floor. Ruby looked across the room and saw the ever accident-prone Red Monroe frantically