“It’s mostly theoretical,” replied deMauve. “And we have a ninety-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle for rainy afternoons.”
“But someone lost the picture,” grumbled Yewberry, “and there’s a lot of sky.”
“Challenging, we call that, Mr. Yewberry,” remarked deMauve. “Master Russett will be rostered Useful Work by Mr. Turquoise tomorrow, and I will have the junior Red monitor show him around the village.
As part of this year’s Foundation Day celebrations we’ll be performing Red Side Story. If you want to contribute voice or instrument, my daughter Violet is holding auditions. Do you have any questions?”
“Yes,” said Dad. “What’s fainting in coils?”
“We have no idea, but the Rules state we have to offer it as a sport.” And that was it. Following the usual courteous farewells, bows, shaken hands and Apart We Are Together salutations, the door closed, and we were left alone in the hallway.
“Eddie?”
“Yes, Dad?”
“Keep your eyes and ears open. I’ve seen a few odd villages in my day, but nothing like this. What was all that about Jane, by the way? The Prefects actually looked frightened of her.”
“She doesn’t have anything to lose,” I replied simply. “She’s up for Reboot on Monday.”
“Ah,” said Dad, “what a waste of a good nose.”
The front doorbell rang. Dad opened it to find a junior Grey messenger, who told him that there had been another accident at the linoleum factory.
“But there’s no hurry,” said the young lad cheekily, “unless you have a swatch that can stitch heads back on.”
Dad tipped the messenger, picked up his traveling swatch case and made for the front door.
“Keep your eyes open, Eddie. Things here seem a bit rum.”
“Robin Ochre and his ‘irregularities’?”
“Among others. And one more thing.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t put so many sugar lumps out next time the Council come around.”
I wandered back into the kitchen, where Jane was washing the dishes, and asked her what she had put into the scones.
“You’re better off not knowing. And if you think not snitching on me is going to grant you any favors in the youknow department, you’ve got another think coming.”
“You’ve got me all wrong,” I said, trying to sound as though the notion of some illicit youknow hadn’t crossed my mind.
“Sure,” she said sarcastically, “next you’re going to tell me you’re saving yourself for your wedding night.”
“That’s . . . no bad thing,” I said slowly, and she laughed. Not with me, but at me. It felt humiliating. I tried to get her on the defensive by repeating the awkward question: “How did you get to Vermillion and back this morning?”
“I didn’t,” she said. “It’s not possible. And we’ve never met before, remember?”
“You don’t like me, do you?”
“That would take effort,” she replied. “Indifference is much, much easier. Listen, you did me a favor, and I did you a favor. So we’re quits.”
“It was hardly equal,” I replied. “I saved you a whole bunch of awkward questions, and all you did was stop me eating scones.”
“If you knew what I’d put in the scones, you might think differently.”
“What—”
“I’m done,” she said, drying her hands on the towel and getting ready to leave, “and what’s more important, we’re done. Speak to me again and I’ll break your arm. Make a comment about how cute and retrousse you think my nose is and I’ll kill you. Don’t think I won’t. I’ve nothing to lose.”
“But you’re the maid. What if I need extra starch on my collar or something?”
I wished I hadn’t said it. I’d wanted to simply keep on engaging with her at any cost, but the comment came out all reedy and needy. She picked up on this right away. It was abundantly clear who had the upper hand. She oozed authority. But it wasn’t the sort of authority that comes from a fortuitous birth gift; she had something else—a sense of clear purpose and strength.
She took a step closer and stared at me, trying, I think, to figure out if I had any hidden depths. Then, after satisfying herself that I hadn’t, she made for the door.
“If you want anything, you can leave me a note.”
And she departed, leaving me feeling deflated and somewhat confused. I’d thought Outer Fringes would be uncomplicated and wholly parochial, but in the short time I had been out there, it had begun to seem more subtle and complex than anything my uneventful existence at Jade-under-Lime had thrown at me.
There were, however, two things in my favor. First, she had moved from threatening to break my jaw to threatening to break my arm, which I think was a step in the right direction. Second, and far more important, Dad had given me the Grey Purple Pretender’s spoon. And engraved on the back, as with every other personal spoon, was his full postcode: LD2 5TZ. I wish now that I had ignored it, but I didn’t. The yateveo’s barbed snatch-boughs were already descending.
Tommo Cinnabar
5.3.21.01.002: Once allocated, postcodes are permanent, and for life.
“Hullo!” said a lad who knocked on the door about half an hour later. “Are you the Russett fellow?”
“Eddie.”
“I’m Tommo Cinnabar. DeMauve told me to give you the grand tour of East Carmine’s glittering highlights. I expect you’re almost insane with excitement, eh?”
“It’s all I’ve been thinking of for weeks.”
“Actually, it’s a dump,” he said as we moved off. “Even the cockroaches think it’s a toilet. Friend?”
“Friend.”
The lightning lure atop the flak tower was easily the most unusually dominant feature as we walked across the square, and I mentioned this to him.
“Did the Yellow Peril tell you the crackletrap was her idea?”
“I think she mentioned something about it.”
“The old ratbag bangs on about that to everyone. The lure cost the village more than three hundred thousand communal merits, yet we’ve had only six people zapped in living memory—and five of those were ball lightning, against which a crackletrap is no defense. She makes us drill every week, and insists on a manned watch if there’s so much as a single cloud in the sky. I think it’s all grade D hogwash. What say you?”
I liked his unruly bluffness almost immediately. He was a stocky lad slightly shorter than myself, with rounded features and a furtive, darting manner that would not have looked out of place on a Yellow. He wore an IMPERTINENT badge below his Red Spot, along with LOW MERIT and HEAD JUNIOR MONITOR badges, which would seem to conflict with each other.
The Cinnabar family were well known. They were big in the crimson pigment trade until a price-fixing scandal led to a massive demerit and forfeiture of assets. Despite this, they still maintained a certain stubborn, tainted pride—and were never averse to bending the Rules when it suited them. But despite Tommo’s impressive dynastic lineage and the clan’s glamorous FK6 postcode, several ill-advised unions to lesser colors—a clumsy attempt at vanity eugenics, some say—had diluted the line, and now the Cinnabars were generally mid- to low-level perceptors, and heading toward Grey. Russetts were on the way up, Cinnabars on the way down. That’s how it worked .
“Can we stop by the post office?” I asked. “I have to send a telegram.”
The post office was on the corner, as post offices generally are. There was a board outside with the week’s headline from Spectrum chalked on it—something to do with Riffraff committing some outrage somewhere. There was also a mailbox, which was a soft, natural shade of red, quite unlike the high-chroma ones in Jade-under-Lime. In fact, it took me a while to realize that the mailbox was a natural red, and deeply faded. In fact, on looking around, I realized that there was very little synthetic color in the village at all.