Ruby Redfort, Take Your Last Breath is the second volume in the Ruby Redfort series. It was published in hardback and eBook format on 27th September 2012. Multiple paperback editions followed, the most recent being released on 8th May 2018.
Plot[]
Prologue
A young Ruby leans over the edge of a boat. She can feel the ocean whispering to her, almost like it is telling her a secret. She falls into the ocean, slipping into the water. There are fish all around her, and for a second, everything is peaceful. Then the fish disappear and she is left alone, except for the big octopus that is underneath her. It wraps its arm around her leg and she is pulled down. She is running out of air when suddenly she is pulled up and onto the deck of the boat. She smiles up at her parents, and she hears the screech of seagulls.
Two years later, Ruby is sitting in her kitchen eating breakfast. As she's reading the cereal box she notices that the word search is a code. It takes her five days, but she finally figures it out. The box says to cut the coupon out on the side of the box and mail it out to win a lifetime supply of Choco Puffles.She fills out the coupon and asks her dad to mail it. He forgets. Ruby finds the envelope when she is much older, around 13 and stashes it in her bedroom door frame. 'It's a shame.' she thinks. 'Choco Puffles are my favorite cereal.'
Main Plot
Nine years later, Ruby is on Spectrum dive camp in Hawaii, learning how to scuba dive, free dive and fight underwater. She is called back to Twinford by Hitch so she can attend school on Monday. She has a dream that she is in the ocean, and something is pulling her into the deep. There is a miniature man who tries to save her, but he can't.
Ruby is then taken to a briefing at Spectrum 5 - Sea Division. LB reveals that an agent has been killed and shipping is being disrupted due to some unknown circumstance.
Ruby's class are forced to take part in the school swimathon as the 9th grade, who usually do it, are all sick. However, Clancy is terrified of the ocean. Ruby gives him her lucky white badge, which he believes protects him from the sharks, as he makes it back to shore unharmed. Later, a shoal of sharks are spotted swimming around Twinford Bay - one example of a lot of unusual marine activity.
Meanwhile Ruby's parents, Brant and Sabina, along with the Humberts, Ambassador Crew and Dora Shoering are on a History Society tour of Twinford Bay. Their boat is hijacked by pirates, who throw Brant and Sabina overboard, and shoot into the water for several minutes, making everyone believe them as dead.
Ruby attends swim practice but is pulled out of the pool by Hitch (who is posing as a lifeguard) and taken to Spectrum to meet with Blacker and Froghorn. She and Blacker lay out all the incidences of confused shipping (there are a lot), and Froghorn gives her the job of listening to some unusual music that Chime Melody has been broadcasting.
Freddie and Marjorie Humbert arrive back from the boat trip and tell Hitch about what happened to Ruby's parents. Hitch asks LB for his friend Agent Zuko to conduct a search for them, which she reluctantly agrees to, as long as it does not link back to Spectrum. He tells Ruby and Mrs Digby, and they wait for news. Then there is a news story that a middle-aged couple have drowned, and it is assumed that they are Ruby's parents.
Ruby goes to the harbor, and while she is there the Runkelhorns appear with her parents. It turns out Brant and Sabina managed to swim to the Sibling Islands, where they were then picked up by the Runkelhorns. Agent Zuko spotted the yacht, whose engine had failed, and fixed it for them. Ruby is very happy.
Ruby starts to piece together the strange events that have been happening in Twinford and makes a mind map. She then figures out that the strange Chime Melody broadcasts are a code, and with Blacker figures out that pirates are trying to keep people out of the Sibling waters. She goes to the library and finds an account of the wreck of the Seahorse, centred around Martha lily Fairbank. Ruby creates a theory that the asteroid that is calming the Sibling waters also passed the earth 200 years ago, when the Seahorse was wrecked, and that someone is trying to dive the wreck to get the treasure. She then cracks the Chime Melody code and finds that the messages point to how to dive the wreck of the Seahorse.
Ruby, Hitch and Agent Kekoa dive the wreck, but do not find any clues. Kekoa gets trapped under a wooden beam, and as Ruby goes to the suface to tell Hitch, she encounters a group of sharks. The sharks nearly eat her, but she is saved as Hitch jumps into the water to scare them off. However Ruby drops the one piece of evidence she found: a yellow gem. Hitch finds Kekoa and attends to her wounds.
Ruby and her friends are camping near the beach when they see a dead killer whale on the beach. The authorities say it must have been crushed and then drowned. Ruby goes home and sees the mysterious stranger who she has seen a lot around Twinford. However, when she goes out to confront him, he has vanished. Ruby has her strange dream again (she has had it a lot of times) and does not know what it means. She goes to Clancy's house to read his books about the ocean, and finds out a little about a whispering noise, like mermaids or sirens, heard near Twinford Bay. She then finds a photograph of the stranger - he is standing in front of the boast her dad worked on as a student. Ruby phones her dad to ask about the man, and her dad tells her that he is a marine biologist called Francesco Fornetti, but he started raving about a sea monster and disappeared. Ruby goes to Penny Books to find out more and gets a book written by him about the Sea Whisperer.
Paperback cover of Take Your Last Breath
Ruby goes home to tell Hitch about her findings, but he is not there and has left a Chime Melody coded message that says the pirates will be at Far-West Point. Ruby thinks over all the strange things that have been happening, and tells Clancy to come over. Clancy accidentally turns on all three CD players, which reveals that the three tapes of static that Chime Melody broadcast actually combine to make a voice track. The message reminds Ruby of the lullaby her mother was singing to Archie Lemon - she asks her mother about it and it turns out the lullaby was passed down from Martha Fairbank. Ruby works out that the lullaby points to the treasure. She and Clancy go to stop the pirates from stealing it.
Ruby swims into the caves but quickly runs into the Count von Viscount, who marches her to a pool where his accomplice, Mr Darling, is waiting. The Count explains to Ruby how he planned to steal the treasure (a pirate told his great-great-grandfather the real story about the wreck of the Seahorse) and makes her walk off a plank into a pool full of paralysing jellyfish. The Count then leaves.
Meanwhile, Agent Kekoa reads Francesco Fornetti's book while in Twinford Hospital, and realises that Spectrum need to stay out of the water. She goes to find Hitch, and they search for Ruby.
Clancy is in the boat by the Sibling Islands, but the Sea Whisperer is rocking it, so he takes the Breathing Buckle and swims to the caves. He pulls Ruby out of the water as she has lost all movement in her limbs, and a shark is swimming into the pool. They make their way to the caves where the treasure is kept. They find it on a ledge, but the Count returns and finds them. He demands the treasure but instead of giving it to him, Clancy throws it into the pool. In the ensuing scuffle, Ruby and Mr Darling both end up in the pool where the Sea Whisperer is. The Count leaves Clancy alive though, as he says he only kills one child a day, and it is more dramatic to leave one witness. The Count makes his exit as the water starts to fizz - the currents are returning.
Clancy throws Ruby the Breathing Buckle, and a tiny diver (like the man from her dream) appears and stabs the monster so it lets Ruby go. However, she has ingested its ink, which is like a truth serum, so everything she says sounds cheerful. Ruby and Clancy climb inside a barrel as water fills the cave, and end up on the east side of the Sibling rocks. Hitch and Kekoa take the barrel into their boat and open it to let Ruby and Clancy out. Francesco Fornetti is also on the boat, and he explains to them about how he saved Ruby when she was a little girl. He says the Sea Whisperer should remain a secret.
Ruby goes back home and shows her parents the ruby necklace, which she snatched off the Count before she fell in the pool. Her parents are very confused and think she has sunstroke.
Epilogue
Elaine Lemon gets Ruby to babysit Archie Lemon, which Ruby has been trying to dodge for some time. She watches Crazy Cops with him, but he starts crying. LB contacts Ruby, who tells her what the Count said: "Tell LB the truth is safe with me". LB hears Archie crying and says something to him to make him stop - Ruby doesn't know what.
What I Know And What I Don't Know
Ruby writes that the Count took some of the truth serum, and that he is working for someone bigger than him. She doesn't know who he is working for or what he is planning to do with the serum, though. Also, she writes that she doesn't know what LB said to Archie.
Characters[]
Main Characters[]
Supporting Characters[]
- LB
- Agent Blacker
- Miles Froghorn
- Agent Kekoa
- Francesco Fornetti
- Mrs Digby
- Del Lasco
- Elliot Finch
- Mouse Huxtable
- Red Monroe
Minor Characters[]
- Freddie and Marjorie Humbert
- Bernie and Eadie Runkelhorn
- Martha Fairbank
- Mr Darling
- Elaine Lemon
- Archie Lemon
- Agent Zuko
- The Pirates
Gallery[]
| Previous volume: | Next volume: |
| Ruby Redfort, Look Into My Eyes | Ruby Redfort, Catch Your Death |