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 Due to a loophole in the Rules, an Open Return could never be questioned or rescinded, and was invaluable to anyone attempting an illegal relocation—hence the two hundred merits Dorian had already offered me.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.”
“Killjoys,” murmured Yewberry.
“Frightful business,” remarked my father, “Ochre’s fatal self-misdiagnosis.”
“It was indeed,” replied deMauve in a sober tone. “The loss of a swatchman is always regretful, and misdiagnosis is a tragic waste. But it might have been for the best.”
The other prefects appeared uneasy, and I frowned. There was something strange going on.
“For the best?” echoed Dad. “How is that possible?”
Turquoise chose his words carefully.
“There were . . . irregularities regarding the village’s swatch,” replied Turquoise, referring to the large quantities of healing colors stored in the Colorium. A Chromaticologist’s Long Swatch might hold up to a thousand individual shades—well beyond the small traveling set my father carried.
Dad asked what sort of “irregularities,” but deMauve suggested only that they should “meet at the Colorium to discuss it” after tea.
“It’s a situation of the utmost delicacy,” added Mr. Turquoise.
“Did you see our crackletrap as you came in?” asked Gamboge, expertly changing the subject as deMauve helped himself to his third scone.
“One could hardly miss it,” replied my father in a distracted manner. “Most impressive.”
“We have a lot of lightning down this way,” she continued. “Drills are carried out regularly. You’ll find full instructions on the back of the kitchen door.”
There was a pause.
“I understand,” said deMauve, staring at my father intently, “that you were witness to an incident at the National Color outlet this morning?”
“News travels fast.”
“We were telegrammed by Vermillion’s Yellow prefect.”
Dad replied that this was indeed so, and outlined what had happened in the Paint Shop while the prefects listened intently.
“I see,” said deMauve as soon as Dad had finished. “It seems the Grey who committed the outrage of wrongspottedness succumbed to the Mildew soon after he was transferred to their Colorium. They wondered if perhaps you knew anything that could shed light on his identity.”
Jane had returned with a fresh pot of tea and extra cups, and was doing everything extra slowly so she could listen to the conversation.
“He was an LD2,” said Dad after thinking for a moment.
“There are eighty-two LD2s on the national register,” remarked Gamboge, “and it will take a while to trace them all. None of our twelve match the age and description. Purples are quite rightly not asked for verification, so they don’t know when he arrived, or from where.”
“Then I’m sorry I can’t help you,” replied Dad.
“No other clues?” asked Gamboge. “Something you might like to volunteer? Either of you?”
“No,” said my father.
I glanced at Jane, who was looking at me carefully. She knew I was aware of her connection with the wrongspot, and if she’d been anyone else, I would have told. Despite what Dad said about Russetts not snitching, I needed every merit I could lay my hands on if I was to have a chance with Constance. She liked chocolates, and they were expensive—especially ones with colorized centers. Snitching on Jane would bag me at least fifty merits.