“So, Master Russett,” said Head Prefect deMauve, “what can we expect from you?”
“I will strive to be a worthy and useful member of the Collective during my short stay,” I said, defaulting to Standard Response.
“Of course you will,” he replied. “East Carmine has no room for skivers, loafers and freeloaders.” He said it with a smile, but I took it for what it was: a warning.
“Travel is a very great privilege,” he continued, “but can also lead to the spreading of disharmony, not to mention the Mildew. What is the reason you travel, Master Russett?”
“Actually, sir, I’m here to conduct a chair census.”
They exchanged looks.
“You have orders to this effect?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Sally will be interested in helping, I’m sure,” murmured Yewberry.
“Was it for Humility Realignment?” asked deMauve, looking at my badge.
“Yes, sir.”
“I hope you learn from it, Master Russett. It would be a huge dishonor to your forefathers to waste all the Red they’ve worked hard to achieve, now wouldn’t it?”
“Yes, sir.”
The Russett family scandal was annoyingly well known. Three generations ago an eccentric forebear with considerably more Red than sense decided to marry a Grey. He was called Piers Burgundy, was a prefect and distantly related to First Red. His name and hue were lost in the union, and the diluted perception of barely 16 percent that emerged in their son meant a dynastic downgrade to Russett. We’d been attempting to regain our lost social standing ever since. The whole thing had been unthinkably scandalous, even by today’s standards, but not against the Rules. Marrying for love was not forbidden; it just didn’t make any sense. “If you want your grandchildren to hate you,” the saying goes, “marry down-spectrum.”
The prefects talked among themselves while I handed around the tea, but they all suddenly fell silent. Jane had just arrived with the scones. Both Yewberry and Turquoise looked vaguely worried, and recoiled a little as she approached. I realized then that Jane’s enmity was universal. She didn’t just hate me; she hated everyone higher up. This meant her dislike of me wasn’t personal, which allowed me at least a meager slice of delusive hope—something to build on, at any rate.
“Thank you, Jane,” said deMauve, who seemed to be the only person not wary of her.
“Sir,” she replied, placing the steaming-hot, sweet-smelling plate of scones on the table while Turquoise and Yewberry watched her carefully.
“Spoon packed and ready to go?” asked Yewberry in a needlessly provocative manner.
She looked at him contemptuously, bobbed out of habit rather than politeness and walked out.
“That’s one I won’t be sorry to see the back of,” murmured Yewberry. “Quite out of control.”
“A hard worker, despite the antisocialism,” remarked deMauve, “and her nose is very retrousse.”
“Very,” agreed Turquoise.
They stopped chatting to help themselves greedily to the scones.
It wouldn’t have been considered good manners for me to eat with them unless invited, so I sat quietly, hands neatly folded on my lap. I was thinking about Jane again. Yewberry’s comment about whether she had “packed her spoon” could refer only to Reboot. You didn’t take much with you, but you always took a spoon. Like Travis Canary, Jane was destined for the Night Train to Emerald City to learn some manners.
“She makes a good scone, though,” said Yewberry, helping himself to another.
“Might even be worth a merit,” replied Turquoise.
“It won’t help her,” replied Yewberry, and they all laughed.
“Master Russett,” said deMauve, washing his scone down with a mouthful of tea, “I think I should keep your return ticket for safekeeping. There are elements within the village who are eager to attempt an unauthorized relocation. Have you been asked to sell it yet, by the way?”
“No, sir,” I replied without a pause. Dorian’s secret offer would remain just that—secret.
“We’ll give you ten merits if you report to us who asks.”
“I’ll remember that, sir, thank you.”
“Jolly good. Well, hand it over, then.”
“I—um—would like to keep it, if that is all right.”
“Well, it isn’t all right with me one little bit, Russett,” replied deMauve sharply. “Perhaps you think we are sloppy with our responsibilities here in the Fringes? If your Open Return were to be stolen, your ability to broaden yourself would be much curtailed.”
He was right. Due to a loophole in the Rules, an Open Return could never be questioned or rescinded, and was invaluable to anyone attempting an illegal relocation—hence the two hundred merits Dorian had already offered me.
“No, sir, but—”
“But nothing,” barked Yewberry. “Do as the head prefect requests, or we will have to consider charges of Gross Impertinence.”
They all stared at me, and I caved under their disapproving looks. I handed over my ticket.
DeMauve took it without a word and placed it in his pocket.
And at that precise moment, my father came back in the front door, and we all stood. He seemed to be having some sort of argument with Mrs. Gamboge.
“. . . and I say it is malingering,” she announced. “Anyone who thinks otherwise is obviously not fully acquainted with the Greys’ ceaseless capacity for distortion and untruths.”
“You are mistaken,” my father replied, maintaining an unraised voice as decorum required. “I contend that it is the sniffles and, as such, Annex III—legitimate work absence.”
“A spate of industrial accidents has left us severely lean on the workforce,” she retorted, mostly for deMauve’s benefit, “and none of the younger Achromatics are even approaching their sixteenth. A violent outbreak of the sniffles could spell economic disaster for the village.”
“It could spell more than that,” replied Dad, this time more firmly. “The sniffles has been known to progress to Variant-P Mildew, and if unchecked, an outbreak could spread far and wide.”
He wasn’t overcooking the goose. Green Sector South had lost every single resident to the Mildew in an incident many years ago and was only now getting back up to sector strength. Whether it was the sniffles or not was anyone’s guess, but outbreaks of the Mildew usually had an annoyingly banal beginning.
Luckily, Dad had the protocol of introductions to take him away from the argument.
“Apologies for my absence,” he said as he strode up, hand outstretched. “Senior Monitor Holden Russett, holiday relief swatchman.”
“George Stanton deMauve, head prefect.”
DeMauve then went on to introduce the prefects to my father, who bowed and shook hands with Turquoise and Yewberry in turn, then asked me to fetch some fresh tea for him and Mrs. Gamboge. I relayed the message to Jane, who put the kettle back on the gas without comment.
“Did you see any sign of Riffraff on the journey in?” I heard Mr. Turquoise ask as I walked back in.
“None at all. Do you have them this far west?”
“One can never be too careful. Two years ago some rail passengers were subjected to an intolerable barrage of jeers and obscene gestures about twenty miles up the line. A posse from Bluetown found an encampment a month later, but happily, they had by then all succumbed to the Rot. Riffraff in these parts seem particularly susceptible to Mildew. I think it’s the damp.”
“To be honest,” remarked Sally Gamboge, “it’s the best thing for them.”
“We have some monochrome fundamentalists down our way,” said Dad, “attacking color feedpipes, that sort of thing. But they haven’t been active for a while.”