The Trouble with Perfect

by Helena Duggan

  “I’ll let you all think about it for a while,” the teacher announced, “and if anyone has anything to tell, you can come to me in private. You won’t get into trouble.”

  Yeah right, they wouldn’t get in trouble! Violet imagined Mrs Moody hanging her upside down from the Rag Tree.

  She looked out the window into the schoolyard. A big black bird sat on the bench. She was sure its beady eyes were staring straight at her. Violet shivered. Black birds were everywhere these days.

  “Do you know anything, Violet?” Beatrice whispered across the desks.

  Violet shook her head; her first lie. At least she hadn’t lied to Mrs Moody yet – she just hadn’t said anything. Beatrice turned back around, ignoring Boy.

  By lunch, suspicion seeped into all conversation, and the whole school was speculating over what had happened to Conor. Boy didn’t talk to Violet as they left the classroom, and spent his break with Jack and some others.

  Jack was an ex-orphan too, and one of Boy’s best friends from No-Man’s-Land. He’d found his family again when Perfect fell. Now, instead of the orphanage, he lived on George’s Road, out towards the tea factory. He was a year or two ahead of them in school.

  Violet sat alone on the bench, eating her lunch.

  “I saw Conor leave school yesterday,” Beatrice told the girls sat in a semicircle round her spot on the ground, “but I didn’t see where he went.”

  Violet nudged nearer to the group.

  “Was he on his own?” she asked, butting in.

  “Yes, I think so, Violet…” Beatrice continued, “or no, maybe he wasn’t. Actually, Bobby was with him.”

  Everyone gasped and looked over at Bobby, who’d just elbowed past a small blond boy.

  Bobby Broderick was a good friend of Conor’s. It would make much more sense if he were the one with Conor yesterday, but Violet was sure she hadn’t seen him.

  “Imagine if Bobby killed Conor!” a girl in the circle gasped.

  “Bobby kicked my cat once!” another girl cried.

  Everyone started talking very excitedly about all the bad things Bobby Broderick had ever done.

  “Bobby wasn’t with Conor,” another girl said, interrupting the gossip. “He was at my house yesterday evening, with his mam. Our mams are best friends.”

  Then somebody else came up with another explosive claim, and the group continued their gossip.

  Violet turned her back on them. Hanging around with Beatrice and her posse would be more painful than hanging around on her own.

  She watched Boy. He was eating alone now too, while the others played football. Violet stood up and walked across the yard, making sure not to awkwardly catch his eye from a distance as she approached.

  “Can I sit down?” she asked, standing above him.

  “It’s a free country,” he mumbled, not looking up from his lunch.

  They sat in silence for a minute, until Violet couldn’t hold her tongue any longer.

  “Why didn’t you tell Mrs Moody about Conor? You won’t get into trouble.”

  “Because there’s nothing to tell?” Boy sounded puzzled.

  “But I saw you!”

  “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about, Violet. I wasn’t with Conor yesterday!”

  “Well if it wasn’t you, then who was it?”

  “How am I meant to know? You’re the one who said you saw me!”

  “Did something happen? Is Conor hurt? Has it got something to do with Lucy’s bike?”

  “What are you on about, Violet? Have you gone crazy? If you don’t believe me, that’s fine, but don’t go around accusing me of things I didn’t do!” Boy sounded angry.

  He stood up, and was about to walk away, when he stopped and looked back down at her.

  She waited for him to say something, silently pleading him to tell her the truth.

  Then he shook his head, smirked, and joined his friends playing football. Boy was acting as if nothing had happened. How could he just pretend like that?

  Violet looked around, hoping nobody had seen them fight. She caught Beatrice’s eye and the red-haired girl turned away quickly.

  The bell rang, sounding the end of lunch. Violet stood up from the bench and filed back inside with the rest of the school.

  She didn’t talk to Boy for the rest of the day, not even when Mrs Moody mentioned Conor again, asking everyone to think long and hard about the last time they’d seen him.

  At the end of school, Violet walked to her bike alone.

  The clouds were thick and heavy, almost ready to burst. The low sun only peeked through in part, so the streets of Town were unusually dark as she pedalled towards home.

  Posters of Conor Crooked now hung from every lamp post. He was wearing a smart black suit, and his normally wild hair was brushed cleanly to one side, with only a single curl visible, right in the middle of his forehead. He looked a picture of innocence and was almost unrecognizable without that bullish grin.

  Violet rose the next morning a little worse for wear. She’d slept badly, again. Her fight with Boy played over in her head. Groggily, she put on her uniform and trudged down the stairs. Her dad was sitting at the kitchen table, also looking worn out.

  “You okay, Dad?” Violet asked, as she opened the fridge in search of milk.

  “Fine,” he said, but he seemed distracted.

  “The Committee has ruled there’s no school today,” Eugene continued, his voice a little softer. “We’re searching for Conor, and need everybody’s help.”

  “Okay,” she said, as a sickly feeling filled her stomach. Violet wished it was all a dream, but Conor was still missing and, somehow, Boy was involved.

  “It’s an unfortunate situation but we have to stay strong.” Her dad sighed. “We’ll be searching the Ghost Estate and that side of the river today.”

  “The Ghost Estate… Really?” Violet replied, trying to keep an even tone. “Why are we searching out there?”

  “Vincent Crooked got a tip-off, and a search party went out there last night. We found a few things in one of the old houses,” her dad said, looking straight at her. “Now we need to expand the search.”

  “Oh.” Violet felt a little breathless.

  She looked away, and put some bread in the toaster.

  “Are you okay, pet?” her dad asked.

  “Uh…yeah, I’m grand,” she stuttered.

  “If you have anything you’d like to tell me, Violet, I’m all ears. Conor’s parents are very worried, you know.”

  “I know, Dad, but I don’t know anything, I swear,” she said, staring at the toaster. Violet hated lying to her father.

  Her toast popped, in a wisp of smoke, breaking the tension, and she busied herself buttering it. Then she dropped the cremated bread on a plate and headed back upstairs to her room, leaving her dad to grumble over the latest edition of the Town Tribune.

  Violet ate looking out of her bedroom window, and watched the darkening clouds. Every day now, they seemed to threaten a storm. There were never storms in Town.

  A black bird was there again, sitting on the branch of a tree across the gravel yard. She was sure it was staring at her. It couldn’t be the same bird, could it?

  Squinting, Violet tried to study the bird’s markings for anything that might single it out from all the other big black birds that circled the skies.

  “Violet, are you coming to look for Conor? We’re almost ready,” Rose shouted up from below.

  “Coming!” she called, quickly getting changed.

  Her mam and dad were waiting at the door, as Violet bounded down the stairs into the hallway.

  “Do you think we should bring coats?” her mother fretted, looking out the window. “I’ve never seen clouds so angry over Town. What does the forecast say, Eugene?”

  “Nothing about rain, Rose,” Violet’s dad answered. “It does look like we might have a storm coming, though.”

  “Grab your jackets, just in case. Here’s me fussing about the weather
, when the poor Crookeds must be out of their minds with worry. I couldn’t imagine it,” Rose said, wrapping an arm protectively round her daughter.

  “Right, everyone ready?” Eugene half-smiled, opening the front door onto the grim, grey day. He had just closed the door and descended the steps to their gravel yard, when he looked up and muttered, “Well, isn’t that strange?”

  “What?” Rose asked.

  “I know it sounds mad, but I get a funny feeling that bird is stalking us. I’ve seen it perched on that spot a few days in row. Haven’t you noticed it?” he asked, pointing up across the yard.

  The black bird was sitting in the same place it’d been in earlier, when Violet watched it from her window.

  “What kind of a bird is it, Dad?” she asked, curious.

  “I think it’s a raven, Violet,” he replied. “There’s lots written about those particular birds – people seem to be fascinated with them. I’ve always thought they look a little threatening. Perhaps it’s their size and their tiny black eyes. Popular folklore says they’re the carrier of ill omens.”

  “‘Ill omens’?” Her mother smirked. “Aren’t you meant to be a man of science, Dr Brown?”

  “I was simply answering Violet’s question, Rose!”

  “What’s an omen, Dad?”

  “It means a sign of the future,” he replied.

  “So a raven can tell the future, like magic?”

  “No.” Her dad shook his head. “The bird was just seen as a sign of bad luck to come. It’s folklore though, pet, not fact. I never believe that nonsense.”

  The hairs on Violet’s arms stood on end as they passed it, onto the tree-lined avenue towards Town.

  Edward Street began to fill up as they walked past Archer and Brown. A big crowd had turned out to search for Conor. People looked serious and spoke in hushed tones. There was an unusual tension in the air.

  As they turned onto Archers’ Avenue, Violet’s parents fell into conversation with Merrill Marx, the toymaker. He had helped them save Perfect, and was a Committee member and one of William Archer’s best friends.

  Merrill now had a toyshop towards the bottom of Edward Street, and it was everyone in school’s favourite place in Town. Violet sometimes spent hours there with Boy, asking Merrill a million questions about anything she could think of. He never got cross or told them to go away, and seemed to enjoy their company while he carved his creations.

  The toymaker was standing by the bed of eye plants just at the corner of Archers’ Avenue and Edward Street. It looked like a big chunk of the plants had gone missing from the middle of this bed now too, and Townsfolk whispered to each other about it as they filtered by.

  Violet slipped quietly past her parents and followed the crowd down Rag Lane into No-Man’s-Land. The chatter distilled to a low hum.

  She spotted William Archer through the crowd. He was walking beside a man who seemed to be angry.

  “If your Committee was any good, William, we wouldn’t be having this trouble,” the man said, loudly enough for everyone around to hear. “There’s been a spate of robberies, and now a child is missing! The Brain is clearly not working.”

  “We’re doing our best, Peter, I assure you. We will catch whoever’s doing this. Please don’t be afraid, Town is not a dangerous place.”

  “Not a dangerous place? You are mad, Archer. A child has disappeared!”

  “I know, and we will find Conor,” William replied calmly. “I promise we’re doing our best!”

  “Your best is not good enough!” the man said, as he grabbed his child’s hand and strode through the crowd.

  William’s face was glowing bright crimson. Everyone was looking at him, and some were whispering. Violet heard one woman say something like, “Boy’s dad…should be ashamed of himself.”

  “Violet!” William called, spotting her across the sea of bodies.

  People were looking at her now and, embarrassed, she pretended she didn’t hear Boy’s dad. Instead she sped forward, pushing past everyone, out onto Forgotten Road.

  A pang of guilt hit her.

  How could she have ignored William like that? Why was Violet embarrassed to be seen with him, after everything he’d done for her, her family and for Town?

  But people were whispering about him. Lucy’s bike and some eye plants had been stolen, and, even worse, Conor was missing.

  Maybe William deserved people to be just a little annoyed with him. After all, he and the Committee were in charge of Town, and his invention, the Brain, was meant to stop anything bad like this ever happening, but it clearly wasn’t working.

  When Violet arrived the Ghost Estate was full of people searching for Conor Crooked.

  Stepping through the pillars that marked the entrance, she allowed the weight of awful feelings to overtake her, just as they had done every time she’d previously been in the estate.

  When it first happened, about a year ago, she’d been cocooned in mist, huddled under the old lamp post that overlooked the estate, at the top of the hill near the graveyard. She’d felt worse than she ever had in her life – her mind had been taken hostage by worry and fear. Boy had comforted her then, telling Violet it was just the effects of the estate. He’d explained how it happened to everyone who walked inside its entrance, and that people believed it was because the place was haunted.

  After Perfect fell, Iris Archer had explained to Violet that Macula’s dad, Oliver Lashes, had been in the middle of building the Ghost Estate when strange things began to happen. First, shovels went missing and tool belts disappeared, then windows were broken and the builders started to hear whispered voices, telling them to leave the place.

  Iris said it was when Mr Lashes was found dead on the green in the middle of the estate one morning that all work stopped and the place was abandoned.

  Rumours began to circulate that souls from the ancient graveyard on the hill above haunted the place. So, people stayed away. That is, until the Archer brothers used the Ghost Estate for their gruesome plot to control Perfect.

  Violet’s dad said ghosts didn’t exist. He told her there was “no scientific evidence to support them”, though she thought ghosts were weightless and didn’t need support. He insisted they were only a figment of the imagination, and Violet had imagination in buckets. Eugene said it was people’s belief in ghosts that brought on fear, and this fear conjured their awful feelings any time they entered the Ghost Estate. He believed people made themselves feel bad and it had nothing to do with ghosts at all.

  Whatever it was, Violet felt terrible every time she passed inside the stone pillars. Her mind clouded over in worry, until she was almost paralysed.

  Last year, she’d developed a tactic to combat the estate’s awful effects. She told herself the feelings weren’t real. They were only thoughts, bad thoughts that made her sad and scared, and she didn’t need to believe her bad thoughts if she didn’t want to.

  Violet tried the same tactic now, as she stood looking round the derelict homes. It worked – the weight of the world played just round the fringes of her mind, and she was able to relax, if only a little.

  She spotted Macula Archer across the green. She was pale and looked sick, just like Boy had said.

  “Violet, where have you been? We were worried!” Her dad interrupted her thoughts as he strode towards her.

  “Oh…um, sorry. I just went ahead with the crowd, Dad,” Violet replied.

  “Don’t do things like that, pet,” Rose said, looking around anxiously. “This place is not safe. Stay close!”

  “I’m fine, Mam,” Violet replied, a little sharply.

  Rose jumped and cowered as if she was frightened. Her hands were shaking, and she nervously put them in her pockets.

  “The thoughts aren’t real, Mam,” Violet insisted. “They’ll go when we leave the estate.”

  “I know, pet, I know. Your father told me I’d feel like this, but it really is awful. Poor Conor, the poor boy, his poor parents…”

  “
Rose,” Eugene said, grabbing his wife’s shoulders. “Relax, just breathe…”

  Violet noticed a table in the middle of the green – the large grassy area that had once been home to the eye plants. Madeleine Nunn was sitting behind the table and people were hovering around it, inspecting something. Madeleine Nunn, as Committee head of public safety, was leading the investigation into Conor’s disappearance.

  Curious, Violet snuck away across the green, while her dad tried to convince her mam to calm down.

  As she got closer, she could see Lucy’s bike resting against the table.

  “Ah, Violet,” Madeleine Nunn said, standing to greet her. “How are you holding up? I know Conor is in your class.”

  “And in mine,” someone else added quickly.

  Violet looked to her right. Beatrice Prim’s lower lip quivered as if she was upset. Beatrice didn’t even like Conor, but she really liked attention.

  “Oh, of course he is,” Madeleine soothed, reaching across to comfort the red-haired girl. “We’ll find him, I promise.”

  “I hope so,” Beatrice sobbed.

  The purple bike with the white saddle and wheels seemed to glare at Violet, making her stomach churn. It was definitely the same bike she’d seen Boy pull from under the footbridge and give to Conor, the evening he’d disappeared.

  She felt sick and her head swam with worries. What if Boy really had done something to Conor?

  She thought about the raven and the ill omens her dad said it brought. What if the future was full of terrible things?

  “Are you okay, Violet?” Madeleine asked. “Do you recognize anything?”

  The woman gestured to the table in front of her. On it were two see-through plastic bags. The first held a school bag that she recognized as Conor’s and the second held a watch. Her stomach flipped once more.

  “Ahem… No, no, I don’t. I, um…I’m just in shock about Conor…”

  “Are you sure you don’t recognize anything, Violet?” Beatrice smirked, picking up the bag with the watch.

  “Put that down, Beatrice!” Madeleine commanded. “Evidence must not be tampered with.”