The Trouble with Perfect

by Helena Duggan

  “Violet, what did you mean by, ‘Town is in big trouble’?” Jack asked.

  “The Archers are trying to take back control. They’ve locked Dad, Merrill, Madeleine and William in the clock tower,” Violet replied, before launching into everything that had happened so far that day.

  She told Jack about the weather and how her dad had discovered the twins were controlling everyone’s feelings. Jack looked a little relieved when Violet explained that the anger and sadness weren’t real.

  “I’ve been feeling awful,” he said, shaking his head. “And it’s the Archers who are making me feel this way?”

  Violet nodded before telling them about the Committee meeting and how it was a trick. How the Archers had attacked themselves.

  “Do you mean they actually beat themselves up?” Jack shook his head again, as if trying to take it all in.

  “Yeah, it was really creepy.” Violet nodded. “They’re trying to pretend William and the others attacked them and tried to take over Town for the No-Man’s-Landers.”

  “But the twins are the ones trying to take over Town!” Anna huffed.

  “Exactly, Anna. We have to stop them,” Violet replied. “They want to bring back Perfect and have all of us locked in No-Man’s-Land again.”

  “But they can’t do that.” Anna quivered. “I want to be with my family. I don’t want to go back to the orphanage!”

  “People won’t fall for it, Anna – don’t worry,” Jack reassured the little girl.

  “They already have, Jack. Like I told you, the Archers are controlling our emotions and using them against us. They made us all believe that Town was a bad place. Now that Boy is helping the Archers, people will believe every bad thing about William.”

  “But Boy wouldn’t help them,” Jack insisted, anger playing round his words.

  “I saw him, and he is. But maybe the Archers are controlling him somehow.” Violet pulled the photo from her pocket, remembering Nurse Powick.

  “This woman has to be involved,” she said, pointing to the picture. “I’ve seen her with Boy – she’s the one who told the Child Snatcher to bring me to the cell. Jack, do you remember her?”

  She passed the photo over and watched his face as he studied it.

  “I think she worked in the orphanage, that’s what the writing on the back says,” Violet continued. “Boy wrote on the back too – at least, it looks like his handwriting, but I don’t understand what he meant. He just wrote, Two of me?”

  Jack’s face turned slowly white, as if he’d seen a ghost.

  “What is it?” Violet whispered.

  “I know what Boy meant by ‘Two of me’,” he replied softly.

  Jack’s hand was shaking as he passed the picture back to Violet.

  “You’re scaring me,” Anna said, tugging on his sleeve.

  “Look at the photo again…really closely,” he stressed.

  Violet did as directed, unsure what Jack wanted her to see.

  “Are you in the picture?” Violet asked, confused.

  “No.” Jack shook his head and pointed to the back corner of the photo. “Do you recognize anyone there?”

  A boy and a girl were huddled together, staring stone-faced at the photographer, and tucked in – almost hidden behind them – was another small figure.

  Violet looked closely at the boy shyly peering over the little girl’s shoulder. Then she looked to Powick and the boy in her arms.

  “Boy’s right,” Jack whispered. “There are two of them.”

  “I don’t understand,” Violet said, looking back and forth between the two identical boys in the picture.

  “Boy has a twin!” Anna exclaimed excitedly.

  “Twins?” Violet shook her head, confused. “But Boy never said anything to me… Did he say anything to you, Jack?”

  “No,” Jack answered, still staring at the image. “Maybe he didn’t know. I don’t remember him ever talking about a brother, and I never met one. I was seven when I was taken from my parents, though, and Boy had already been in the orphanage five or six years by then. Maybe his brother was gone before I got there?”

  “It says on the back of the picture that Powick was retiring, and she said something about rearing Boy – or, I mean, his brother, I guess – when they were talking in the graveyard. So maybe the nurse took his twin when she left the orphanage?” Violet mumbled, trying to make sense of her thoughts.

  She couldn’t take her eyes from the image. The two boys were identical except, strangely…

  “His brother’s eyes are white!” Anna announced, as if reading Violet’s mind.

  Anna was right, but Violet wouldn’t describe his eyes as white exactly. Boy’s brother had startling ice-blue eyes, a direct contrast to his twin’s almost black ones.

  William Archer, their father, had different coloured irises. Violet had noticed it when she first met him, after ducking into his house to avoid the Watchers. She had found it almost impossible not to stare at his eyes, though she’d gotten used to them now. One was dark, almost black, and the other, cold blue, like an icy winter’s morning. Edward had even talked about them in his recent speech on the steps of the Town Hall. He’d called William a Divided Soul and used it as a reason to explain his brother’s made-up madness.

  Violet had always thought Boy’s eyes unusual in their darkness, and now, as she looked at his brother’s icy pair, she shuddered. It was almost as if William Archer had been split in two.

  A memory hit her.

  When Boy was in Violet’s garden, the night of the first rainstorm, she’d noticed a thin sliver of ice blue rimming his eye. A flicker of the same colour had also edged his black iris when he poked his head through the cell bars, just before Edward staged the rescue.

  Nurse Powick was angry with Boy when she’d met him in the graveyard. She’d ordered him to put something back in, in case someone saw him. Violet hadn’t thought much about it then, but Boy had fiddled with his eyes for a while.

  One Halloween, Violet’s mam had worn green trousers, a red top and wrapped lots of red silk scarfs around her head. She’d said she was dressing up as a rose, in honour of her name, and even went as far as wearing red-coloured contact lenses.

  Except for their eyes, the infant twins looked identical in the picture, so Violet imagined they still were. If Boy’s brother wore dark-coloured contact lenses, no one would be able to tell the difference. They would think he was Boy.

  Her heart pounded.

  Lately, when Violet believed she was talking to Boy, had she really been talking to his brother? It would explain why she thought Boy was acting weird and talking strange, using big words Violet was sure he didn’t know. It explained too, why Boy didn’t have a clue about Lucy’s stolen bike or playing with Conor in the Ghost Estate.

  The Boy Anna talked to – the one who was acting the same as the Boy Violet knew, the one who hid in Anna’s secret place under the stairs in the orphanage, and left the picture of himself and his twin behind – that Boy must be the real one. But where was he now?

  Violet looked at the back of the photo again.

  Two of me?

  Maybe Jack was right, maybe Boy didn’t know about his twin either.

  A pang of guilt hit her. All along, she’d been angry with him for lying to her. She thought he wasn’t her best friend any more. But it was Violet who wasn’t being a good friend. She hadn’t believed him, when Boy was telling her the truth.

  “So it’s not Boy, it’s his twin helping the Archers?” Anna asked, wide-eyed with excitement.

  “I think so,” Violet replied, a little red-faced from her memories. “I think he’s been pretending to be Boy for a while.”

  “I knew Boy wasn’t bad,” Anna said.

  Violet explained to Anna and Jack about Boy’s eyes the night in her garden, in the cell underground and in the graveyard with Powick.

  “I feel awful,” Violet said softly.

  “Why?” Jack asked, looking straight at her. “This is great n
ews – it means Boy is good.”

  “But I thought he was lying to me, and I was angry with him,” she blurted out.

  “We were all angry.” Anna hugged Violet. “The Archers made us angry. It wasn’t your fault.”

  “But even before the weather got worse, I didn’t believe Boy. I was so confused. I can’t imagine how he felt.”

  “How were you to know he had a twin?” Jack stated bluntly.

  Jack was right: how was she to know? But one person at least did know. Violet felt her blood boil.

  “Macula knew,” she snapped. “Why didn’t she tell the truth? Everyone believes Boy is bad, and she could easily fix that.”

  “Boy said she’s been acting strange lately,” Jack replied, shaking his head. “Maybe there’s something wrong with her?”

  “Yeah, Boy told me that too,” Violet replied quietly.

  The group slipped into silence for a moment.

  “Why don’t we just ask Macula why she didn’t tell anyone about the twins? Maybe she knows where our Boy is now too,” Anna suggested. “Mam always tells me if I want to find out something about a person, I should ask that person. She said in Perfect she just believed the stories she was told about other people, without ever finding out if they were true or not. She said she’d never do that again, because it’s not a nice thing to do.”

  Jack smiled, and rubbed the little girl’s head.

  “Anna’s right – we should ask Macula. If we could find Boy, we could prove the Archers are telling lies. Macula might know where he is, or at least know something about his twin that might help us find Boy,” he said.

  “But what if Macula doesn’t want anyone to know about him?” Violet asked nervously. “If she didn’t tell Boy he had a brother, then maybe she didn’t tell anyone else.”

  “Well, her secret’s out now.” Jack shrugged.

  “You’re right, Jack,” Violet said, before stepping from the doorway.

  “Where are you going?” Anna looked worried.

  “To talk to Macula.”

  Anna jumped with excitement as the threesome slipped from the cover of the tea shop. Violet didn’t know if this was the best idea she’d ever had, but they needed to find Boy, and Macula might be the only one able to help them. The whole of Town was quiet as they passed through the rain, down Forgotten Road, across Market Yard and into Wickham Terrace.

  Jack’s fist shook as he took a deep breath and raised it to knock on the door of 135 Wickham Terrace, Boy’s home. It was clear the rain was still affecting everyone but, equipped with new knowledge, they were much better able to handle it now.

  Violet and Anna stood beside Jack, filling the doorway.

  Since their first meeting in the Ghost Estate, Violet had always been fascinated by Macula.

  Boy’s mam was beautiful – one of the most beautiful people Violet had ever met. Her long black hair had once swept down to the floor, but now rested just off her shoulders. Her eyes, green like grass in summer, shone from her clear, pale skin. People were in awe when they saw Macula and, when she spoke, Violet’s dad said she’d stop a room.

  Macula was smart too; she always seemed to know what she was talking about, though not in an annoying way, like Beatrice. Macula’s brain could fit everything she’d ever seen inside it, Boy told Violet one day. He was explaining how his mam could name all the elements in the periodic table, when his dad couldn’t, even though he was the scientist.

  Macula was also an artist – she had painted all the pictures that once hung from the walls of her room in the Ghost Estate, the ones that looked like freedom. Her pictures always seemed alive, as if the things in them could get up and walk off the canvas.

  The door creaked open and Macula peered out, bringing Violet’s thoughts back to the present.

  “What are you three doing here at this time of night?” she asked, stepping back to let them inside.

  Boy’s house had no hall, and they walked directly into the warm kitchen. A large cream stove heated the room.

  “Erm…” Jack looked awkwardly at Violet as he stepped inside.

  “Ah, we…erm…we came to talk to you,” Violet answered.

  Boy’s house was nothing like it had been when Violet was first there. William lived alone then, and everything had been piled up and covered in dust.

  Macula loved colour. Every door and room was a different bright shade. Boy’s bedroom was yellow with an orange door, and the kitchen they were standing in was purple with a lime-green entrance.

  “What did you want to talk to me about?” she asked, looking at the three children curiously.

  Violet searched her brains for a way to phrase the question. Her dad always told her to think before she spoke.

  “Does Boy have a twin brother?” Anna blurted out.

  Violet threw her hand over the little girl’s mouth.

  Macula’s cheeks flushed, and her eyes dropped to the floor. Violet’s heartbeat quickened.

  “Is that what you’ve come to ask me?” the woman replied after a moment, her tone even.

  Anna nodded.

  Violet’s head spun – she couldn’t grasp a single thought.

  “It seems the others have lost their words?” Macula said, leaning against the wooden kitchen table.

  “Ahem, we…we hadn’t meant to ask you that way,” Violet stammered.

  “But you had meant to ask me?”

  Violet nodded.

  “I think you’d all better sit down.” Macula sighed.

  Anna sat down beside Macula at the kitchen table, while Jack and Violet sat opposite. Boy’s mam didn’t speak for a while. She looked broken, weak, just like Boy had described.

  “Tell me how you know about the twins,” she said.

  Violet looked at Jack, then slowly took the picture from her pocket, passing it over to Macula.

  “We found this in the orphanage. I think Boy left it there – he’d been hiding out under the stairs.”

  “In our secret place,” Anna interrupted.

  “How long ago was he in your secret place, Anna?” Macula asked keenly. “Do you know where he is now?”

  “No.” Jack shook his head. “We came here because we thought you might.”

  Macula looked down at the picture, and thumbed the paper.

  “No.” She sighed. “I’ve been trying to find him, but so far my search has been fruitless.”

  Macula’s voice finally broke as she looked at the image.

  “My son. I’ve haven’t seen many pictures of Boy at this age. I missed so much of his life!”

  “His brother is there too.” Anna leaned over the photo and pointed him out. “That’s how we found out about the twins.”

  “Oh.” Macula cupped her mouth and took a sharp breath. “Why wasn’t I able to protect them? I let them both down.”

  “No you didn’t,” Violet said. “Boy loves you, and Mam said what you did giving up Boy – or, I mean, giving up both of them – was brave. She said you gave him – them – away to protect them, and that’s the hardest thing any mam could ever do.”

  A tear raced down Macula’s cheek.

  “Thank you,” she sighed, squeezing Violet’s hand. “I don’t deserve praise. I tried to protect my boys, but it didn’t work out as I thought it would. Tom suffered.”

  “Tom?” Violet asked. “Is that his name?”

  Macula nodded.

  “Why didn’t you tell anyone about him?” Anna asked bluntly.

  Violet threw Anna a sharp look.

  “It’s okay, Violet,” Macula replied. “I wanted to, Anna. But the first time I met Boy again I was in shock – everything took place so quickly that night. When he didn’t mention a brother, I wondered if maybe something bad had happened to his twin. The first private moment I had with William, I told him everything, and we’ve been searching for Tom ever since.

  “I didn’t want to tell Boy straight away. The fact that he never talked about Tom made me worry, and so I wanted to wait until we knew more.
Then I got a letter from Priscilla Powick, the woman who took my other son, and we decided not to tell Boy at all until we found Tom. We thought it might be too painful for him. Though I have tried to keep things normal for Boy, the search for his brother has engulfed me. Until now, that is. Now I search for both my sons.”

  “Priscilla Powick!” Violet darted forward, pointing to the nurse in the picture. “She’s called Nurse Powick. Is she the woman who took him?”

  Boy’s mam looked back down at the image, and her cheeks burned red.

  “I never met her, but you’re telling me this woman is Priscilla Powick?”

  “Yes. Well, I think she must be the same woman,” Violet answered. “Her name is Powick and she worked in the orphanage. I saw her with Tom in the graveyard, but I thought he was Boy then and she talked about rearing him or something.”

  “So she is mixed up in all of this? Have you met her, Violet?” Macula asked, her voice barely even.

  “Yes, in the tunnel underground. She got the Child Snatcher to put me in prison.”

  Macula looked confused, so Violet launched into her story about suspecting Boy to be bad, and following him to the graveyard before falling down the pipe into the white room. About the nurse catching her and throwing her in a cell with Conor and Beatrice. Then she told her about Tom, who she thought was Boy, mock fighting with Edward, as he pretended to rescue them.

  “So Edward is behind everything?” Macula said, her cheeks flushed. “I knew it. I knew he had to be, somehow. All those lies he spun. All those lies about William – it just makes me sick. The whole Town believes him.”

  “Edward’s making the Town believe him,” Anna stated. “He’s using the clouds.”

  “What?” Macula looked confused again.

  Violet launched into the rest of her story about the weather, and what had just happened in the Town Hall.

  “So they have William too? I knew he didn’t run away. He would never do that to us.” Macula was angry now. “Why do those brothers insist on destroying my family? They won’t get away with it – not this time.”