“But why would they hide lumber in the secret room?” I asked Maris as we sat in the library after class. There was no hint of rubies, or jewelry, or anything that was recognizably valuable. There were only stacks of timber; wrapped in cotton sheets, and neatly placed on the shelves in the locked room.
“It could be Narra wood from its deep red color. There’s also the rosy smell coming from it,” Maris said. “If they truly are smugglers, then they could’ve acquired them from illegal logging.”
“Most likely. They wouldn’t have called them rubies for nothing,” I said.
Maris and I arrived at the conclusion that they were using the codename ‘rubies’ as it pertains to the red color of the timber. Ruby, as it appears, comes from the Latin word ‘ruber’ which means red.
