Ruby and the Pen E-Book

David Lawrence

• Herausgeber: Exisle Publishing
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Serie: The Pen Series
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 162

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Ruby and the Pen is the story of a 12-year-old, cartoon-drawing girl who buys a pen from a mysterious stall at the local market. She soon learns that the pen has a magical power. Initially the pen protects Ruby from the meanest girls at her new school, but over time the pen’s power becomes dangerous, leaving Ruby facing a whole new set of problems.

Leseprobe

To all those who wish they had a magic pen to sort out their problems.

Ruby stopped doodling and sat perfectly still on her bed.

An argument had started in the next room, and she strained her ears to listen to the slightly muffled words.

‘… but she doesn’t say anything. She just sits there and draws. It’s creepy!’

The angry voice belonged to her mother’s latest boyfriend, David Sykes.

Ruby glanced down at the cartoon drawing of him that she was working on. It greatly accentuated his beady eyes, sweaty brow and comical comb-over hairstyle.

Mmmm, maybe I’ve been too kind, she thought. She added the words ‘Dodgy Dave’ to the top of the drawing, as her mum’s weary voice carried through the wall.

‘Come on, it hasn’t been easy for Ruby …’

‘Easy for Ruby? What about me, Adelaide?’ roared Dodgy Dave.

Ruby rolled her eyes and crossed her arms as the indignant rant continued.

‘Do you have any idea how much it’s going to cost me to send her to boarding school?’

Ruby knew the exact amount — because Dodgy Dave reminded her every day.

‘And I had to call in a huge favour from the headmaster to get your daughter to the top of the waiting list.’

‘And I … we appreciate that,’ said Adelaide.

‘Do you really?’

‘Yes, of course we do!’

Dodgy Dave’s voice softened.

‘Hey, at least when she’s gone it’ll give us some time together. You know, just the two of us …’

Ruby put her fingers in her mouth and pretended to vomit.

She jumped off the bed to take a closer look at a vibrant seascape painting hanging on the wall. Powerful foaming waves crashed over sleek dark rocks, and a brilliant bolt of lightning fractured the stormy grey sky.

As always, her eyes were drawn to the artist’s signature in the bottom right-hand corner:

B.A. West.

Ruby looked back at the candle sitting on her bedside table, then wandered over and picked up the well-worn leaflet next to it. On the front cover it said, ‘In loving memory of Bertie Arthur West.’ Ruby turned to the back page where there were some photos of her father, and tears instantly formed in her eyes.

They were mainly family snaps, and Bertie’s radiant smile was prominent in all of them. He had a shock of thick dark hair, a kind face and a very questionable taste in fashion. When asked about his tendency to wear loose-fitting Hawaiian shirts and tracksuit pants, he’d always say, ‘I’m just going to get covered in paint, so I may as well be comfortable.’

Ruby looked at the photos again, this time focusing on her mum. Shoulder length, sandy blonde hair, a cute button noise and piercing blue eyes — she looked stunning. Adelaide was still attractive, but to Ruby she no longer resembled the dazzling woman in the photos next to her father. Ruby tried to think of the most accurate words to describe her mother at the moment, and the first ones to pop into her head were ‘lost’, ‘broken’ and ‘a complete mess’.

Ruby’s eyes moved to her own image in a photo taken just before Bertie’s death. She was sitting on her dad’s shoulders with a grin from ear to ear, and they both had multi-coloured flecks of paint on their faces. Back then she was eight years old, contented and carefree.

She put down the leaflet, then went over to stare into the mirror above her desk. Her unkempt, mousy coloured hair hung down so that it partially obscured her large brown eyes. Those eyes that sparkled in the photos now appeared much darker, as if their light had been snuffed out. Her face was damp and puffy from crying, and there was an accidental red marker blotch on her cheek that resembled a pimple.

‘Lookin’ good Rubes,’ she whispered.

It was exactly four years ago that Bertie had died, and this morning she had lit the candle to honour his life. Unfortunately, the flame had set off a smoke alarm, and Dodgy Dave had gone ballistic.

She had been ‘grounded’ in her room ever since.

Walking back to her bed, Ruby tripped over an open suitcase in the middle of the floor. Her half-packed bags were a reminder of how little time remained before she had to leave for boarding school. A sudden surge of resentment towards her mother rose from the pit of her stomach.

Thanks Mum. Another boyfriend. Another school.

Only this time the new school was in another state.

Ruby angrily tossed the ‘Dodgy Dave’ drawing under the bed, on top of the ones of her mum’s previous boyfriends. They also had titles: ‘Caveman Carlos’, ‘Lazy Luke’, ‘Toupee Ted’ and ‘Bad Breath Barry’.

She picked up a roll of sticky tape, ripped off a small strip, then positioned it so that half was stuck to the bedroom door and the other half to the frame. This was a trick her dad had taught her, to detect if anyone entered her room while she wasn’t there. He’d called it, ‘The world’s cheapest security alarm’.

After pulling on a dark blue hoodie, Ruby picked up her sketch pad and crept over to the window. She gently released the lock, quietly pushed up the frame, and silently slipped outside. Ruby scaled the streaky grey wooden fence at the back of the house, then walked briskly up a narrow laneway that led to the corner of a main road. She looked back to make sure no one had seen her — not that she really cared about being caught. The worst thing they could do was send her to boarding school, and they were already doing that.

Ruby set out for the mall, keeping her head down to avoid eye contact with passers-by. She picked up an abandoned green milk crate that was lying on the footpath and found a spot out the front of a very small bookstore called Book World. Wow, if this is Book World, Book City must be tiny!

She sat down on the crate, pulled out a black marker and scribbled a sign that said, ‘Cartoon drawings, ten dollars!’

An hour passed without any customers, and Ruby was about to give up when a young couple slowed down as they were walking by.

‘Hey, can you do a funny drawing of my boyfriend?’ asked the woman with a cheeky grin.

‘No way!’ said her boyfriend.

‘Yes way! And draw something to do with his mum. He’s really scared of her and does everything she says.’

‘I do not!’

‘Really? She calls you up to water her garden, and you go around straight away.’

‘What’s wrong with that?’

‘Um, right in the middle of my birthday lunch …’

While the couple bickered, Ruby drew a cartoonish picture of the boyfriend in an army helmet saluting a scary older woman in a uniform, covered with medals.

At the bottom she added the words: ‘Yes sir, Mummy sir!’

She held up the drawing and the girlfriend burst out laughing.

‘That is brilliant!’ she said. ‘Pay the girl.’

‘I’m not paying for that!’

‘Why not?’

‘What if my mum sees it?’

‘Oh, you are pathetic!’ said the girlfriend, reaching into her handbag.

She scrounged around for a while before looking at Ruby apologetically.

‘I’ve only got, um … five dollars and … twenty-five cents, sorry.’

Ruby gratefully stuffed the money into her pocket, and watched the young couple continue to argue as they strode off.

‘You cannot show that to my mother!’

‘Show her? I’m framing it and giving it to her for Christmas …’

As Ruby weighed up what to do next, she spotted a billboard advertising the local Sunday market.

With a shrug of her shoulders, she ambled off in that direction.

As she started walking, the temperature suddenly dropped dramatically, and a small shiver went down her spine. Behind her a thick fog began rolling slowly down the mall, swallowing traffic lights, cars, buildings and everything else in its path. This spectacular blanket of mist seemed to follow Ruby to the market, where she was greeted by a wonderful variety of sounds and smells.

The aroma of sausages and onions blended nicely with the gentle wafts of Indian curries and Spanish seafood paella. Peals of laughter rang out through the foggy haze, as well as the voices of stall vendors offering their wares, and enthusiastic bargain hunters gently haggling over prices.

After half an hour of aimlessly wandering around, a stall suddenly appeared in front of Ruby. This was strange because she had already been along this particular row twice without noticing it. Must have missed it in the mist, she thought.

It was a quirky-looking stall with a worn plastic banner that said, ‘Second Hand Treasures’. Ruby glanced down at the rickety wooden trestle table that was covered with a variety of items, including antique clocks, painted plates and colourful figurines. She was about to move on when a flash of gold from the far end of the table caught her attention.

It was a pen.

A very old-looking pen.

She moved closer to take a better look. It was a deep wooden brown, but its exterior was so scratched and worn, it looked like it had been placed in a tumble dryer for a week.

Ruby tentatively picked it up, and without any warning a surge of warm energy flowed through her fingertips, then spread throughout her entire body. All her problems seemed to disappear, and it felt like she was wearing an invisible suit of armour.

‘Nothing can harm me,’ she whispered.

As she studied the pen in more detail, she discovered there were some strange words inscribed in gold on its side. ‘Manibus futuri.’

‘You like it?’ came a deep voice from the other side of the trestle table. It belonged to a peculiar-looking, grey-haired old man. He had a weathered, leathery face and mischievous eyes, and he wore a purple robe covered in gold coloured images of moons and stars, with a matching brimless cap.

‘So, you like it?’ repeated the man.

‘Um, yeah, it’s cool.’

Ruby inspected the pen again.

‘Can you tell me what, um, Man-i-bus fu-tu-ri means?’

‘It’s Latin and it means, “The future is in your hands”.’

‘I wish,’ muttered Ruby.

She wanted this pen more than anything in the world, and slowly looked up and asked, ‘Um, h-how much?’

The old man paused to study her. His eyes narrowed and he folded his arms as if he was weighing up an important decision. He reminded Ruby of a judge on a TV talent show.

He suddenly unfolded his arms and said, ‘Five dollars and twenty-five cents.’

Ruby’s spirits soared and she hurriedly pulled out all the money from her pocket and placed it on the table.

‘Five dollars and twenty-five cents exactly!’

With her heart pounding, Ruby picked up her new, very old pen, and quickly turned to walk away. She was desperate to escape before the man changed his mind.

‘Hey wait!’

Ruby froze.

With a sinking feeling in her stomach, she slowly turned around.

‘Don’t forget the ink,’ said the man with a smile.

He carefully handed Ruby a small square bottle filled with a dark blue liquid.

She nodded, slid the bottle into her hoodie pocket and hastily set off.

After travelling about twenty metres she turned around to take one last look at the old man and his mysterious stall. However, they had both been completely enveloped by the swirling mist, giving the impression they had vanished into thin air.

Ruby climbed through her bedroom window, then tiptoed to the door to inspect the strip of sticky tape. It remained unbroken. Phew!

She took the pen and the bottle of ink from her pocket and placed them on her desk to examine them more closely. She had never used an ink pen, and had no idea what to do next. She cautiously unscrewed the lid of the bottle, then picked up the pen. Once again, a wonderful warm glow spread throughout her body.

Ruby’s eyes glazed over and she let out a contented sigh. She felt like she was in a wonderful dream as she dipped the nib into the blue pool of ink, and instinctively flicked up a small gold lever on the side of the pen. The dark liquid started to bubble as it was sucked into the tip, and this reminded Ruby of a quote from one of her dad’s favourite plays.

Double, double toil and trouble,Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

Bertie loved to recite these words whenever he was stirring a saucepan in the kitchen. Ruby had no idea what they meant, but her dad used to say them in a cackling witch’s voice, which always made her laugh.

When the bubbling stopped, she unconsciously snapped the lever back down and grabbed a sheet of paper from the top drawer. She took a deep breath and a feeling of excitement grew as she slowly lowered the pen. Just as the nib was about to touch the paper, Dodgy Dave burst into the room and Ruby spun around to face him.

‘I hope you’ve learnt your lesson young lady!’

No, but I did sneak out and buy a really cool pen, thought Ruby.

Dodgy Dave glanced at the bags in the middle of the floor. ‘You haven’t finished packing!’

Ruby gripped the pen tightly in her hand and looked her mother’s boyfriend directly in the eye.

‘Well spotted, Sherlock Holmes!’

Ruby’s eyebrows shot upwards. Her sarcastic response was supposed to stay in her head, but had somehow tumbled out of her mouth.

Dodgy Dave was just as surprised. Ruby had never spoken back to him before — in fact, she had hardly ever spoken to him at all. His eyes bulged, his face turned bright red and he started coughing like a cat with a fur ball stuck in its throat.

‘[Cough, cough] You [cough, cough] … think that’s funny?’

Ruby did, but she managed to keep her thoughts to herself this time.

‘Finish packing immediately! And after dinner, it’s straight to bed as the taxi’s picking you up at five-thirty in the morning.’

Ruby folded her arms and gently shook her head.

‘Don’t give me that look! I’ll be way too busy to drive you to the airport.’

‘But Mum could …’

‘As if I’d let her anywhere near my Porsche,’ sneered Dodgy Dave.

He stormed out as Ruby quietly screwed the cap back onto the pen and replaced the lid on the ink bottle.

‘We’ll have to do this some other time,’ she said placing her new, treasured possession into her alligator-shaped pencil case.

The pencil case was an old treasured possession. It had been a seventh birthday present from Bertie, and on the accompanying card he had written, ‘Here’s a gift you can get your teeth into and give your drawings a bit more bite’.

It was corny, but it had made her laugh.

She turned to the bags in the middle of the room and frowned. On a whim, she theatrically pointed at her suitcase and said, ‘Abracadabra!’

But the suitcase stubbornly refused to pack itself.

Ruby’s alarm went off early the next morning, and she reluctantly crawled out of bed.

As she made herself breakfast, the only sound in the house was Dodgy Dave’s snoring. ‘Yeah, way too busy to take me to the airport,’ she muttered.

While she was finishing off some cereal, her mum entered the kitchen and sat down at the table. Adelaide’s face looked haggard, and she avoided looking Ruby in the eye.

‘How are you feeling?’ she asked Ruby.

‘Okay,’ replied Ruby quietly.

‘You’ll make some amazing new friends at Hetherington Hall, and going away is like a big adventure …’

Ruby felt like screaming, ‘If it’s so good, why don’t you send yourself to boarding school?’

Instead, she took a deep breath and said, ‘Sure, Mum.’

‘And Dave says it’s one of the best schools in the country …’

‘I have to clean my teeth,’ interrupted Ruby as she hurriedly stacked her cereal bowl into the dishwasher and raced out of the kitchen.

After packing her tattered toiletries bag into the suitcase, Ruby dragged her luggage into the hallway where Adelaide was waiting for her.

‘You got everything?’

Ruby nodded and stared vacantly out the window. After what seemed like an eternity, Adelaide broke the awkward silence.

‘Rubes … I’m really sorry … but it’s probably for the best, as I’m … a bit messed up at the moment …’

‘Taxi’s here,’ said Ruby as a yellow car pulled up in front of the house. Adelaide sighed and went to help Ruby with her bags.

‘I’ve got it, Mum.’

Just before Ruby hopped into the cab, Adelaide rushed over and gave her a hug.

‘I’ll miss you, Rubes.’

There was so much Ruby wanted to say to her mum in that moment. I love you. I hate you. I’m scared for you. I’m scared for me. But with all those thoughts swirling around inside her head, all she managed was a quick nod, before hopping into the back of the taxi.

Ruby was determined not to look back as the taxi drove off, but she snuck a peak in the rear-view mirror and saw a tear rolling down her mother’s cheek.

Ruby glanced at herself in the mirror, and noticed a tear slowly sliding down her face, too. Twins.

Despite the miserable start to the day, Ruby was excited about travelling on a plane for the first time.

Unfortunately, she found herself seated between two very large and inconsiderate travellers, who she nicknamed Mr and Mrs Rude. Throughout the flight she was elbowed from either side, and she suspected Mr Rude had forgotten to have a shower that morning. The smell was so bad that Ruby wished an air mask would drop from the ceiling.

The low point came when Mrs Rude fell asleep on Ruby’s shoulder and drooled all over her jumper. She took the plastic-coated in-flight dining menu from the seat pocket and used it to scrape off the thick gooey liquid. Ewwwwwww!

But it was when Mr Rude removed his shoes and started to floss his teeth that Ruby finally decided that she had to escape. She politely woke up an extremely unimpressed Mrs Rude, then headed to the toilet with her sketch pad and a pencil. Once the door was safely bolted shut, she sat down and drew a cartoon about her horrible plane experience. At the bottom she added the words: ‘In-flight whining’.

Like every other time Ruby finished a drawing, she wished she could show it to her father. She knew it would put a smile on his face and that thought made her happy. But it also reminded her about how much she missed him, and that made her sad.

She let out a small sigh as the flight attendant’s voice came over the intercom.

‘We will be landing shortly, so please return to your seats, make sure your tray tables are up, and your seats are returned to the upright position …’

Ruby was relieved that her flying ordeal was nearly over, and after sitting next to Mr and Mrs Rude she had a brandnew perspective on life.

At least boarding school can’t be this bad!