Meet Ruby Read online

  Contents

  1 School

  2 Cousin May

  3 Birthday Party

  4 On the River Bank

  5 Christmas

  6 At Victoria Square

  7 Changes

  8 Back at School

  9 Discoveries

  10 Decisions

  11 Goodbye

  RUBY felt trapped. The pale green walls of the classroom seemed to be closing in on her, and the warm, stuffy air was making her feel quite sleepy. If only she could run away! She glanced sideways at Brenda Walker, in the desk across the aisle. Brenda was sitting up very straight and looking interested. How could she? There wasn’t a single thing about maths that was interesting. And the very worst thing about it was Miss Fraser’s droning voice.

  Ruby tried to imagine what it would be like to be Miss Fraser. Everything about her was grey. Her grey hair was pulled back in a tight little bun, and she wore a grey skirt and a long grey cardigan and horrid thick grey stockings.

  Marjorie Mack said that Miss Fraser had once had a sweetheart: he was a soldier, and he’d died in the last year of the Great War. But Ruby didn’t believe that any body could ever have loved Miss Fraser.

  ‘Open your books, girls. We have time for some quick mental arithmetic before the bell goes. Page twenty, problem one.’

  Ruby groaned and turned to page twenty. Sixteen currant buns at a penny-ha’ penny each . . . Picking up her pencil, she began to draw a plate of buns in the margin of the page.

  ‘Perhaps you can give us the answer, Ruby Quinlan? Yes, Ruby, I’m speaking to you. Stand up, please. What is the answer to problem one?’

  Ruby stood up. Oh my hat, she thought. I should’ve known she’d ask me.

  ‘I don’t know, Miss Fraser,’ she said at last.

  ‘Well, work it out. Sixteen times one-and-a-half pennies.’

  Ruby stared at the ceiling. The answer didn’t appear there. She stared at the floor. Not there either. She stared at Brenda Walker. Brenda was scribbling something on a piece of paper, partly covering it with her hand.

  Ruby tried to read what Brenda had written. ‘Um, one pound and four shillings?’

  Miss Fraser’s lips set in a thin line.‘Good heavens, child, use your head. Would you pay one pound and four shillings for sixteen currant buns? I hope you don’t do the shopping for your family.’

  ‘Of course I don’t, Miss Fraser. Our cook does it.’

  Miss Fraser sighed. ‘Sit down,Ruby.Brenda,perhaps you can help us.’

  Brenda stood up, smoothing down her school uniform. ‘Two shillings, Miss Fraser.’

  ‘Thank you, Brenda,’ Miss Fraser said, with an approving smile. ‘Now for something a little more difficult. Hilary Mitchell? Your answer to the next question, please. If it takes three men five days to dig a ditch . . .’

  Ruby saw the startled look on Hilary’s face. As usual, Hilary had been gazing dreamily out of the window. I’ll bet she was thinking about her new little sister, Ruby thought. Baby Cecily was just three weeks old, and Hilary had promised that Ruby could meet her soon.

  Sometimes Ruby wondered what it would be like to have a sister or a brother, but most of the time she enjoyed being an only child. It meant she had Dad and Mother all to herself. Tomorrow was her birthday, and she knew they would have chosen something special for her present. Last year they’d given her a shiny blue bicycle with a wicker basket.

  At last the bell in the quadrangle rang for the end of the day’s lessons. Ruby jumped up and grabbed for her homework books, knocking her wooden pencil-case to the floor with a crash. As she bent forward to pick it up, the end of her plait dipped into her inkwell.

  ‘Gently, Ruby, gently!’ called Miss Fraser. ‘There is no fire, and our building is not about to collapse. This is a college for ladies. Let us have a little decorum, please.’

  ‘Sorry, Miss Fraser.’ Ruby stood still for the tiniest moment, tiptoed to the door, and ran.

  Ruby both loved and hated school. She couldn’t see the sense of school work. When she was about twenty she’d probably get married and go shopping and wear nice clothes, like her mother did. Why did she need to know about isosceles triangles, or the primary products of Brazil? Things like that bored her silly. But as for the school itself – the old stone buildings, the cosy library tucked away at the back of the boarding house, the Moreton Bay fig trees lining the long driveway – she loved it all, and she loved the fun she had with her friends.

  Now, as she set off down the shady drive, past the smooth green expanse of the school oval, she felt free and happy. It was Friday afternoon, and her birthday party was tomorrow! Then she heard running feet behind her, and turned to see Brenda Walker.

  Brenda caught up with her, panting. Her owlish spectacles glinted. ‘Can I walk with you?’

  ‘If you want to.’

  ‘You’ve got ink on your shirt.’

  ‘I know.’

  Ruby didn’t exactly dislike Brenda, but she didn’t like her very much either. She’d known her for most of her life because their fathers were in business together. Ruby’s father built houses, and Brenda’s father was his accountant.‘Donald Walker is a genius with money,’Dadhad once told Ruby. ‘I couldn’t possibly run the business without him.’

  Ruby knew that her father was hopeless with numbers, just as she was, and he was happy to leave the money side of things to Uncle Donald. Dad was only interested in houses. Ten years ago he’d built their house – a big California bungalow not far from Ruby’s school. It had a fishpond with a fountain in the front garden, and coloured leadlight in the windows, and an indoor lavatory. It was Ruby’s most favourite place in all the world.

  Brenda walked faster to keep up with Ruby. ‘You’re not wearing your hat,’ she said. ‘Or your gloves. You’ll get into trouble if anyone sees.’

  ‘Who cares?’ said Ruby. ‘My hat makes my head feel hot. And I’ve lost one of my gloves. I think Baxter might’ve eaten it.’

  ‘Baxter is so naughty.’ Brenda ran a few steps. ‘I wish I had a fox terrier too, or maybe a cocker spaniel. But Mama thinks dogs are too expensive to keep, with all the meat they eat.’

  ‘Baxter doesn’t eat meat. He just eats my clothes. And my books. And my shoes.’

  ‘Really?’ Brenda pushed back her spectacles, which were beginning to slide down her nose.

  ‘I’m only joking.’

  ‘Oh.’ Brenda looked relieved. ‘What are you wearing to your fancy-dress party tomorrow?’ she asked, after a pause.

  ‘It’s a secret,’ Ruby said. ‘You’ll have to wait and see.’

  ‘I’m going as a rose. I really wanted to be a mermaid, though. I saw some green spangly material at Myer’s that would’ve made a good tail, but Mama thought it was too expensive.’

  I’d never choose to be a mermaid, thought Ruby. If you had a fish tail you couldn’t use your legs, could you? You’d just have to sit around. Even now she felt impatient to move faster. She wanted to skip and jump and run.

  ‘Brenda, I have to go,’ she said. ‘I’ve got heaps to do. See you at my place at two o’clock tomorrow!’ She made a dash for the gate, only to be stopped by a school prefect.

  ‘Where is your hat, Ruby Quinlan? And why aren’t you wearing gloves? You know you are not to leave the school grounds improperly clothed.’

  Ruby pulled her battered straw hat from her satchel. ‘Here’s my hat. I don’t know where my gloves are.’

  ‘Final warning, Ruby Q. If I catch you without gloves again, you’ll be explaining yourself to Miss Macdonald.’

  The thought of explaining herself to her tall, elegant headmistress didn’t appeal to Ruby one bit. ‘Sorry. I’ll look for them, I promise.’ She scowled as Brenda, neatly hatted and gloved, walked past her with a smirk.
r />   ‘Told you,’ Brenda said.

  ‘Oh, Brenda,’ Ruby burst out. ‘Don’t you ever get sick of being right all the time?’

  ‘I’M home!’ Ruby slung her satchel on the kitchen table and fell into a chair. ‘It smells beautiful in here, Mrs T. What can I have to eat?’

  Mrs Traill, the Quinlans’ cook and housekeeper, was at the stove, giving the ash-pit what she called ‘a good riddling’. She did this twice a day to help the fire burn up brightly. ‘There’s some fresh-baked rock cakes,’ she said over her shoulder, ‘or else there’s a bit of fruit pie left over from last night. Those fairy cakes on the dresser are for the party, so it’s paws off.’

  ‘I’ll have a rock cake, please. Have you done my birthday cake yet? And the ice-cream?’

  ‘I’ve made the sponge for the cake, Miss Impatience.’ Mrs Traill closed the grate and wiped her hands on her apron. ‘I haven’t made the ice-cream yet because we’re nearly out of ice. I’ll do it tomorrow morning, after the iceman has been.’

  ‘I don’t know why we can’t have a refrigerator instead of that awful old icebox,’ said Ruby. ‘My friend Marjorie has a refrigerator. It runs on kerosene, and she can have ice-cream whenever she wants.’

  ‘If you can have something whenever you want, it’s not special, is it? Refrigerators, indeed! Give me a good reliable icebox any day.’ Mrs Traill opened a round biscuit tin printed with a faded coronation portrait of the king, and passed it to Ruby. ‘Here’s your rock cake. Your cousin made these before your mum took her off to her dentist appointment in town: she wanted something to do, she said. A proper good little cook she is, too.’

  A small cloud passed over Ruby’s happiness. She’d completely forgotten about her cousin. May Cameron had arrived that morning, while Ruby was at school, and she was staying till Sunday. Ruby and May were almost strangers, even though their mothers were sisters, and Ruby never knew quite what to do with her or what to say to her. As she bit into the rock cake, thinking, she heard the hurried click-click of claws on the linoleum floor, and Baxter launched himself into her lap.

  ‘Hello, darling Baxter. Have you been a good boy?’ She hugged his firm, smooth little body, and then broke off a piece of rock cake and gave it to him. ‘Has he been a good boy, Mrs T?’

  Mrs Traill smiled. ‘As good as can be. He’s been keeping your cousin company. She’s been quite poorly this afternoon.’

  ‘I suppose I should go and see her.’

  ‘Indeed you should. She’s in the front room, with your mum.’

  Ruby put Baxter down and went to the sitting room. It was her favourite room in the whole house: big and sunny, the walls panelled with English oak, the floor covered with Persian carpets. A bowl of roses from the garden sent a faint sweet scent into the air.

  May was lying on the big chintz-covered sofa, propped up with cushions, and Ruby’s mother was sitting in a chair next to her, working on a piece of tapestry.

  Ruby kissed her mother on the cheek, and sat down on the bit of sofa May wasn’t lying on.

  ‘Hello, May,’ she said.

  May opened one eye. ‘Hello, Ruby,’ she mumbled. ‘How was school?’

  ‘School was boring. How was the dentist?’

  ‘I needed four fillings. Big ones. And I had a tooth pulled at the back, too.’

  ‘Ouch. It was Mr Turner, wasn’t it? I go to him too. Don’t you just hate it when he cranks up the drill? That grinding noise goes right through your head. And when the needle hits a nerve . . .’

  May winced. ‘Don’t remind me. And don’t make me talk. It hurts to open my mouth. I shan’t be eating much at your party tomorrow.’

  ‘All the more for us,’ Ruby said cheerfully.

  Ruby’s mother frowned. ‘You might show a little more sympathy, Ruby. May, you must be hungry. Shall I ask Mrs Traill to get you something nice and soft to eat? Some bread and milk?’

  ‘Nothing, thank you, Aunt Winifred.’ May closed her eyes again.

  Ruby jiggled one foot, and then the other. ‘Well,’ she said at last, ‘I have thousands of balloons to blow up for my party. I don’t suppose you’ll be able to blow up any balloons, May? You don’t have to eat them. It wouldn’t hurt your teeth.’

  May shook her head.

  ‘Never mind, then. Is Dad home, Mother? He promised to help me.’

  ‘He came home early today. He’s in his study.’

  ‘Good-oh.’ Ruby sprang up from the sofa and left the room. In the hallway she stood on the carpet runner and skidded on it down the polished floor till she reached her father’s door.

  Ruby loved Dad’s study. It was cosy and smelt of pipe tobacco, and the walls were hung with framed black-and-white photos of country scenes. Dad was a keen photographer, and Ruby thought his work was good enough to be in a magazine.

  Harry Quinlan was sitting at his roll-top desk, leafing through a pile of papers, but he raised his head and smiled as Ruby bounced into the room.

  ‘How’s my girl?’

  ‘Never better. I can’t wait for tomorrow!’

  ‘Tomorrow? What’s happening tomorrow?’

  Ruby aimed a pretend smack at him. ‘It’s my party, of course! You said you’d help me blowup balloons, remember?’

  ‘Balloons?’

  ‘Dad, stop pretending you’ve forgotten my birthday!’

  Her father looked astonished. ‘Is it your birthday, Ruby? Well, I never. How fast you are growing up! You must be – why, you must be six years old, at least. Or is it seven now?’

  ‘I’ll be twelve, as you know very well.’ She put her arms around his neck. ‘Isn’t it wonderful that I’m nearly twelve? And only three weeks after that, the school holidays start. I’d simply hate to be anybody but me!’

  ‘WHAT’S your cousin’s name again?’ asked Marjorie Mack. ‘She seems a bit strange. I don’t think she likes parties very much.’

  ‘Her name’s May,’ Ruby answered, raising her voice against the music playing on the gramophone. ‘She lives on a farm. She’s only in Adelaide because she had to go to the dentist, and she’s going home tomorrow, on the train.’

  ‘Is she all right in the head? I tried to talk to her, and she just stared at me.’

  ‘She probably didn’t know what to make of your fancy dress,’ Ruby teased her. ‘Maybe she thought you were a clown. Some people are scared of clowns.’

  ‘I’m a pierrette,’ Marjorie said, looking hurt. ‘It’s quite different. Clowns are ugly and have red noses. Pierrettes are pretty and wear white. Anyway, I asked her what her fancy dress was. I thought maybe she was Little Orphan Annie.’

  ‘Oh my hat. She’s not wearing fancy dress! You didn’t really say that to her, did you?’

  Marjorie giggled. ‘I did, actually. I thought that ugly dress was her costume. Her hair is sort of ginger and curly, so she does look exactly like Little Orphan Annie. You have to admit it.’

  Ruby peered past a happily chattering group of girls to where May was sitting by herself, Baxter lying at her feet. Her cousin’s dress really was quite odd. It was bright red, and it was awfully old-fashioned – it looked like something Mother might have worn, years ago.

  She sighed. It was time to start the games, and Mother had told her to make sure that May wasn’t left out. So far the only person who had taken any notice of May was Hilary Mitchell. Ruby had seen her with May earlier, the two of them going through the gramophone records together.

  Hilary had been at Ruby’s school for less than a term, so Ruby didn’t know her very well yet, but she liked her. She had always thought that one day she and Hilary might be real friends, best friends. She’d never had a proper best friend.

  Ruby felt a little guilty now because Hilary had tried harder to be kind to May than she had herself. She wandered over to where her cousin was sitting.

  ‘Hello, May. Are you having fun?’

  May was playing with Baxter’s ears. She looked up. ‘Not really. I don’t know anyone.’

  ‘Yes, you do. I introduce
d you to all the girls. And there’s only eight of us – it’s not a big crowd. You know Hilary, don’t you? She’s dressed as Alice in Wonderland.’ Ruby looked around the room. ‘And over there is Marjorie, who’s a kind of clown; and Sally, who’s a little Dutch girl; and then there’s Brenda Walker, who is . . . I don’t know what Brenda is. She looks like a toad stool, with that weird red hat. No, I remember – she’s a rose. And Thelma, standing by the bookcase, is an elf, and so is her twin sister Violet, who’s talking to Sally . . .’

  ‘And what are you?’

  Ruby raised her eyebrows. ‘Isn’t it obvious? I’m Cinderella.’

  ‘Oh. Cinderella at the ball?’

  Ruby looked down at her costume. It was made of pink silk taffeta, and it had taken Mother a whole day to whip the edging of all the frills. ‘Of course I’m Cinderella at the ball. If I was Cinderella before the ball I’d be wearing dirty old rags, wouldn’t I? Look, I’ve got glass slippers.’ She stuck out a foot to show May a dainty shoe painted with silver paint.

  May didn’t look impressed. ‘That’s not a glass slipper. It’s a perfectly good shoe you’ve wrecked by painting it with silver paint.’

  ‘Well, of course they aren’t real glass, May. It’s only pretend.’ Ruby made a face. May was starting to annoy her. ‘Anyhow, you have to join in now, or Mother will be cross. We’re about to play Pin the Tail on the Donkey. Do you know how to play that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh. Well, it’s easy. You get blindfolded and then you have to stick a tail on that big picture of a donkey over there. Whoever pins it nearest to its bottom wins.’

  Dad put another record on the gramophone, and the game began.

  May did join in, but Ruby could see that her heart wasn’t in it. All the other girls started squealing with laughter straightaway, but May looked as if she’d just sucked on a lemon. And when her blindfold was taken off, and she found that she’d pinned the tail in almost exactly the right place, she didn’t even look pleased. She just sat down again and watched while the others chattered and pushed each other and giggled hysterically when Brenda stuck the tail on the donkey’s nose and Thelma pinned it on an armchair.