Shades of Grey (10 page)

“We’re not fussed. Who was the wrongspotted Grey in the Paint Shop?”

If I’d known better, I wouldn’t have asked. She paused for a moment, then grabbed the nearest utensil from the counter and hurled it in my direction, where it struck the door frame with a
thunk
. It was a carving fork. I stared at the quivering handle barely five inches from my face, then back at Jane, who was glaring at me, so livid with rage that I could see the red in her cheeks. Pretty nose or not, she had a serious temper.

“Okay, okay,” I said. “We’ve never met.”

The doorbell rang. Ordinarily, I would have expected Jane as maid to go and answer it, but she didn’t.

“I’ll, um, get that, shall I?”

She ignored me, so I left the kitchen, then came back, pointed at the fork where it was still stuck in the door frame, and said, “You wouldn’t really kill me, would you?”

“No.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“Not
here
. Too many witnesses.”

I must have looked shocked, for she allowed herself a wry smile at my expense.

“Joke, right?” I said.

“Right.”

But it wasn’t, as it turned out.

I again expected it to be the head prefect at the front door, and again it wasn’t. On the step was a wrinkly old woman with two rosy bumps for cheeks and a cheery grin. She wore a dress that was to my eyes a dark burgundy, but it wasn’t. It was natural purple—I was just seeing the red component in it. She wore a bright synthetic Purple Spot and, below that, several merit badges and an upside-down head prefect badge—she had once run the village. Instinctively, I stood that much straighter in her presence. She was also carrying a cake: a plain, jamless sponge cake, but with the unusual luxury of a single bright red glacéed cherry atop a sheet of perfect white icing.

“The new swatchman?” she asked in an incredulous tone. “You seem barely out of short pants.”

“That would be my father,” I replied. “He’s with Mrs. Gamboge, sorting out the malingerers. Can I help?”

“I suppose one must get used to the swatchmen getting younger,” she said, sighing, as if I’d not spoken. “Welcome to East Carmine.”

I thanked her, and she told me that her name was Widow deMauve, that she could see lots of purple and that she was our next-door neighbor. After relating a tedious yet mercifully short story regarding a fatal industrial accident that had left three households struggling to find a cleaner, she finally asked me if I would like the cake.

“That’s very kind,” I replied, taking the cake from her, “and with a cherry of all things. Would you like to come in?”

“Not particularly.”

She paused for a moment, and then leaned closer. “Since you are new here, it would be only fair to warn you of Mrs. Lapis Lazuli.”

“Yes?”

“Yes. Despite her honeyed words and faux generosity, she’s a thieving, Rot-dodging congenital liar whose contribution to the village would be much improved if she were soap.”

“You don’t like her?”

“What a suggestion!” replied the Widow deMauve in a shocked tone. “She is one of my closest and dearest friends. She and I log Pooka sightings. Have you seen one recently?”

“Not recently,” I replied, not thinking an ex-head prefect would concern herself with something as childish as specters.

“We also run East Carmine’s reenactment society—would you care to join?”

“What do you reenact?” I asked, which was a reasonable question, since there wasn’t much
to
reenact except scenes from Munsell’s
Life
, which was too dreary to even contemplate.

“We reenact the previous Friday every Tuesday, then every Saturday morning is reenacted the following Thursday. It’s a lot of fun when the whole village gets involved. At the end of the year we reenact the highlights. Sometimes we even reenact the reenactments. Aren’t you forgetting something?”

I made no reply, so she pointed at the cherry cake.

“That will be half a merit, please.”

It was a ridiculous price, even from someone who could see a lot of purple.

“However, if you decide not to eat it, I would gladly buy it back at cost—minus the seventy-five percent handling fee.”

“The cake?”

“The cherry.”

“Can I buy the cake
without
the cherry?” I asked after a moment’s thought.

“Really!” she said in an affronted tone. “What point is cherry cake without the cherry?”

“Having trouble, Mother?”

A man had trotted up the three steps to the front door. He was dressed in long prefectural robes that must have been pure magenta. He was undoubtedly the head prefect. He was also middle-aged, tall, and athletic, and he looked vaguely affable. Behind him were two other brightly colored and wholly authoritarian figures, who I assumed were the rest of the prefects. Widow deMauve piped up,

“Mr. Russett is refusing to pay for the cake I made him.”

The head prefect looked me up and down. “You seem a bit young for a swatchman.”

“Please, sir, I’m not Mr. Russett, I’m his son.”

“Then why did you say you were?” asked Widow deMauve suspiciously.

“I didn’t.”

“Oh,” she said in a shocked tone, “so I’m a liar now, am I?”

“But—”

“Are you refusing to pay?” asked the head prefect.

“No, sir.” I paid off the old woman, who chuckled to herself and hurried away.

Head Prefect deMauve—I assumed this was he, even though he had not and would not introduce himself to a junior—stepped into the house and looked me up and down as though I were a haunch of beef.

“Hmm,” he said at last. “You look healthy enough. Are you bright?”

It was an ambiguous question.
Bright
could mean either “intelligent” or “highly color perceptive.” The former question was allowable; the latter was not. I decided to meet ambiguity with ambiguity.

“I believe so, sir. Can I suggest you make yourselves comfortable in the drawing room?”

Along with deMauve were the Blue and Red prefects, who I would soon learn were named Turquoise and Yewberry. Turquoise appeared a decent chap, but Yewberry looked a fool. I saw them to their seats before hurrying back to the kitchen.

“The prefects are here, Ja—” I checked myself just in time, then continued, “Listen, what do I call you if I can’t use your name?”

“I’d really prefer it if you didn’t speak to me at all. But if you had even an ounce of self-respect, you’d use my name anyway.”

It was a challenge. I looked around to see if there were any sharp objects within easy reach, and could see only an egg whisk.

“Right, then,” I said. “Jane, the prefects are—”

I hadn’t realized that egg whisks could hurt so much, but then I’d never had one chucked at me before. It caught me just above the forehead. That infraction alone—never mind the impertinence, disrespect and poor manners—would have netted her at least fifty demerits if I wanted to make something of it, and a 10 percent bounty to me for reporting it.

“You’ll
never
get any merits or positive feedback at this rate,” I said, rubbing my head. “How do you expect to get on in life?”

She gave me a weary look.

“Oh,” I said, “do you have
any
merits or positive feedback?”

“No.”

“And you don’t think that’s bad?”

She turned and fixed me with her piercingly intelligent eyes.

“There’s more to good or bad than what’s written in the Rulebook.”

“That’s just not true,” I replied, shocked by the notion that there might be another,
higher
arbiter of social conduct. “The Rulebook tells us
precisely
what is right or wrong—that’s the point. The predictability of the Rules and their unquestioning compliance and application is the bedrock of—”

“The scones are not quite done. You take in the tea, and I’ll follow.”

“Were you listening to a word I said?”

“I kind of switched off when you drew breath.”

I gave her one of my most powerful glares, shook my head sorrowfully, gave an audible “tut” and, after picking up the tea tray, left the room in what I hoped was high dudgeon.

W
hen I returned to the drawing room, the prefects were discussing Travis Canary and his burning of the post. I couldn’t help thinking that disposing of dead people’s mail wasn’t actually an offense but a public service. More interestingly, I couldn’t help but notice that the Council had purloined all the sugar lumps in my absence. I poured the tea as politely as I could, but my hands were trembling. Prefects made me nervous—
especially
when I hadn’t actually done anything wrong.

“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
retroussé.”

“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.