The Extraordinary Colors of Auden Dare

by Zillah Bethell

  PART FOUR

  PINK

  CHAPTER 13

  BOYLE

  “Brunch. Brunette. Brunt. Bruschetta. Brush. Brushed. Brushstroke. Brushwood. Brushwork. Brusque. Brussels sprout.…”

  “Vivi.”

  Vivi looked up at Paragon from her dictionary. “Yes?”

  “I hope you don’t mind me saying this.…”

  “Yes?”

  Paragon looked like it was shuffling uncomfortably on its deckchair in the middle of the garden.

  “But the thing is … you see … well … all this … ‘word’ stuff you’re doing with me…”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, it’s a bit … boring.”

  “Ha!” I couldn’t stop myself from laughing out loud, as I dropped from the branch onto the trampoline below.

  “Boring?”

  “Yes. Just saying the words out loud like that. It feels a bit … tedious. Three days you’ve been at it now and … well…” It stabbed a finger at the dictionary. “We’re only on B.”

  Vivi looked a bit hurt, but I still couldn’t stop myself from laughing. It was annoying me as much as Paragon.

  In fact, there were a number of things eating at me. You see, I hadn’t told anyone my suspicions about Uncle Jonah. Not Mum. Not Vivi. I had swallowed it all down and it was slowly eating away at me, turning me into a nervous mess. At night I lay awake thinking up all the possibilities. Who would have killed him? Who would have wanted him killed? Over a few nights I had mentally accused everyone from other lecturers at Trinity to Mr. Belsey, the headmaster. Whenever I went out of the house I always looked around to make sure I wasn’t being followed. I had even started to peer under my bed at night to check that there was nobody there.

  I was worried.

  And all the while, at the back of my mind, was the thought of the rainbow machine and the battery that was still missing.

  “I mean,” Paragon continued to a horrified Vivi, “I know all those words anyway. If you asked me to give you a definition for each of them … well … that’s something I could easily do.”

  “But that’s not the point,” Vivi said with a slight croak in her voice. “I’ll bet you knew the word achromatopsia before Auden said it the other day.”

  “Yes. Yes, I did.”

  “But it was the actual word being said that made you remember that it was Dr. Bloom who built you.”

  “True. True. It’s just—”

  “Just what?”

  If Paragon could have sighed, it would have sighed. “It’s just a bit boring.”

  Vivi put the book down on her lap. “But you’re a robot. How can you find anything boring?”

  “Coming around to my way of thinking now are you, Vivi?” I called over, and Vivi gave me another of her glares. “You’ll be referring to Paragon as ‘it’ next.”

  Suddenly Paragon stood up. “How about a bit of poetry? Lighten the mood.”

  “Oh no,” I groaned. But before I could say anything else, it was off.

  “‘I think that I shall never see

  “A billboard lovely as a tree.

  “Indeed, unless the billboards fall,

  “I’ll never see a tree at all.’”

  Vivi laughed. I laughed.

  “Ogden Nash,” Paragon finished.

  “I don’t mind that sort of poetry,” I said, jumping down onto the ground, feeling slightly cheerier than I had in days. “Funny poems. I prefer them to all that ‘aren’t daffodils lovely’ sort of thing.”

  “What about some Edward Lear, then?” Paragon asked, its eyes drilling straight into mine.

  “Who?”

  “Edward Lear. Nonsense poet. Wrote limericks.”

  “Nonsense poet!?”

  “Yep.” Paragon brought its clenched fist up to its mouth and pretended to clear its throat. “Ahem.

  “‘There was an Old Person whose habits

  “Induced him to feed upon rabbits;

  “When he’d eaten eighteen

  “He turned perfectly green

  “Upon which he relinquished those habits.’”

  Neither Vivi nor I laughed.

  “That’s just stupid,” I said.

  “Well, it is a nonsense poem,” Paragon said. “It’s meant to be stupid.”

  “Do another one, Paragon?” Vivi asked. “Please.”

  “No. Please, don’t!” I shouted. “I don’t think I can stand it!”

  But Paragon ignored me again.

  “‘There was an Old Man who supposed

  “That the street door was partially closed;

  “But some very large rats

  “Ate his coats and his hats

  “While that futile old gentleman dozed.’”

  Silence.

  “They are so not funny,” I said.

  “Well, they were written a long time ago,” Paragon replied. “I suppose the sense of humor in those days was significantly different to the sense of humor nowadays. Things evolve. Even jokes. Nothing stays the same for long.”

  “I can’t imagine anyone laughing at that—even back then,” I said, taking the dictionary from Vivi and throwing it to the floor.

  “Hey! What are you doing?”

  “Come on. I’m fed up with listening to you reciting the dictionary and Paragon reciting terrible poetry. Let’s go and do something fun.”

  *   *   *

  “Are you sure we should bring him here?” Vivi said, a worried look on her face. “Won’t there be people?”

  “There might,” I replied. “But most of the people who come here seem to spend their time down in the office complaining about the place. I don’t think they’re exactly on the lookout for seven-foot-tall robots dressed in the discarded clothes of an old philosophy professor, do you?”

  As we climbed over the broken-down fence, into the field of long-trampled grass, Paragon looked around at the mess.

  “Hmm,” it said. “Sunny Vale. Did you name this place, Auden?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Well, the amount of sarcasm needed to come up with a name like that would fill an entire desalting unit. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  I grinned at the stupid machine. “I would agree, Paragon. Definitely.”

  *   *   *

  “Do you know the rules of hide-and-seek?”

  Paragon could barely control the tut that formed somewhere in its amplification unit. “Of course I know how to play hide-and-seek. What sort of high-functioning creature would I be if I didn’t understand the rules of hide-and-seek?”

  The word creature made me wince, but I let it go.

  “Great. So … we have an extra rule that we also like to use when we play around here.”

  “What’s that?”

  Vivi answered. “We try not to be seen by anyone. Anyone at all.”

  Paragon sort of shrugged. Again, if it had eyebrows, it would probably have raised them. “Are you sure that’s not a rule you’ve only just made up because of the big metal guy you’ve brought with you today?” I laughed again. Paragon was proving to be very funny. “You sure it’s not because you don’t want some random person seeing me?”

  Vivi was smiling, too. “No, honestly. We always play like that. You see, we shouldn’t really be here.”

  “Ah.” Paragon’s shoulders swelled like it understood. “Illegal trespassing.”

  “You don’t have some program that prevents you from doing something illegal, do you?” I asked.

  Paragon’s fingers tapped a rhythm along what would probably have been its lips. It was thinking. “Hmm. Let me think. Is it just a teeny bit wrong?”

  “Oh yes,” I said. “Really little.”

  “On a scale of one to ten, just how wrong do you think trespassing on Sunny Vale Caravan Park is?”

  “Ooh, about—”

  “Three,” Vivi interrupted.

  “Three?” asked Paragon.

  “Not even that,” I quickly added. “I’d say probably abou
t a … point-five.”

  “Point-five, eh?” It seriously looked like it was weighing it all up. “Point-five’s nothing. Well, practically nothing. Five percent. One in twenty. Hmm…” The fingers tapped out their rhythm. “Okay, then.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep.”

  We all edged our way over to where the long-abandoned caravans started.

  “Now, you’re not allowed to use any of your tricks to try to find us, okay? No heat sensors or movement sensors or anything like that. No lasers. Nothing. Right?”

  “O-kay. So I’m going in blind, so to speak?”

  “Yes.”

  “Should be interesting.” Paragon adjusted the collar on the jacket so that it was sticking up and covering its face. “Deliberately disabling myself to see just how difficult life must be for you humans. Should be quite an insight.”

  “Don’t get too excited, Bot Brain,” I said. “It’s just a game of hide-and-seek. Nothing more. Now count to a hundred.”

  “Do you want me to put my hands over my eyes?” Paragon asked, its fingers spread all over its metal face.

  “Don’t think there’s any need, is there? All you need to do is turn off your vision … thingy until you get to a hundred, don’t you?”

  “Oh no.” Vivi shook her head half violently. “I think you should put your hands over your eyes. Makes it all more authentic, doesn’t it?”

  Honestly. I give up sometimes.

  Paragon started counting and Vivi and I both sprinted away toward the caravans. As we neared the first of the rotting box-shaped chalets, Vivi peeled away from me and dashed down behind a hefty clump of trash. I pushed on past—I knew exactly where I was headed.

  Three aisles into the park—way before the potential of bumping into anyone unfortunate to actually be staying there—was a caravan under which someone had (optimistically) stuck two water barrels alongside one another. A strip of guttering ran across the roof of the caravan—now complete with a twisted, dislodged aerial—and two grubby plastic pipes slid down into the tops of the barrels.

  The gap between the two barrels was just wide enough for a flexible young man—such as moi!—to fit into. I had used this particular hiding place a number of times before when playing with Vivi, and with a bit of a squeeze and a tight-hold-of-the-breath, it was possible to slot myself in and be practically unspottable by the outside world. I shuffled myself around and let my back slide down the dusty wall of the caravan and crouched out of sight, trying to keep my breathing as under control as possible.

  I squatted there quietly and waited. I listened as the breeze gently brushed across the long, uncut grass and through the straggly hedges.

  Suddenly something flashed quickly past the gap—far too quickly to be made out—and I held my breath even tighter. A moment later and—

  “Oh!”

  It was Vivi’s voice, far off.

  “Found you!”

  Paragon’s.

  “Now to find Auden.”

  Whoosh!

  The blur flashed past the gap once again.

  I fixed myself to the spot. If that was Paragon, he was moving at an incredible rate. Perhaps that was his purpose. Speed. Perhaps he was some sort of messenger drone—carrying important messages from one place to another. Or a news drone, taking back news stories to the etherweb composition centers.

  Whoooosh!

  I crouched and half squinted up my eyes. The tension was almost unbearable.

  Suddenly—

  Tap, tap, tap.

  Something was tapping on my head. I looked upward and found myself staring straight into the fake, metal eyes of Paragon. It had climbed up onto the roof of the caravan behind me and was leaning over the edge, knocking me on the top of my head with the tip of one of its multi-jointed fingers.

  “Hello, Auden. I appear to have found you. Ha!”

  I scrambled out from between the barrels.

  “Yes, yes. Well done.” I dusted my clothes and tried not to look too impressed with the irritating lump of metal above me. “Bit of a risk climbing up there, though. Might get seen. Might get spotted by someone on the other side of the park. A bit reckless, if you ask me.”

  “Oh, nope. I don’t think so.” Paragon was now lying down, supporting its “cheek” in the palm of its hand, its elbow digging into the roof. It looked as if it was resting. “I might have disabled my senses for you, but not for the rest of the world. I was still aware of what the rest of the world was up to, you know. I even managed to avoid that funny-looking boy.”

  “What funny-looking boy?”

  “The one with the swollen head.”

  Suddenly, there was a loud shout from somewhere far off.

  “I SAID YOU’RE TRESPASSING! WHAT’RE YOU DOING HERE?”

  “What’s that?” I asked as Paragon shifted position up on the roof of the caravan to try to see.

  The shouting continued. “YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED ON THIS SITE. I COULD GET THE POLICE AND THEY COULD CHARGE YOU WITH TRESPASSING. THEY COULD LOCK YOU UP FOR IT.”

  “It’s the boy,” Paragon said, craning its neck. “He’s shouting at Vivi.”

  “What?”

  Paragon started to climb down.

  “No. Wait. You can’t be seen. You need to stay there. Keep your head down.”

  “But I—”

  “No!” I ordered. “Stay there!”

  Paragon gave a sort of tut but stayed where it was.

  I crept my way around a couple of the caravans, toward the area where the noise was coming from. As I came around a corner, I could see Vivi up against the side of a rickety-looking shed, her entire body shaking, her cheeks shining with tears. In front of her was a dark-haired boy with his back to me. Even though I couldn’t see his face, I could sense that he was knotted up with anger.

  “YOU’VE GOT NERVE COMING ROUND HERE! ESPESHALLY AFTER WHAT YOUR LITTLE FREAK-SHOW BOYFRIEND DID TO ME THE OTHER DAY.” He pointed to his forehead and as he did so, he turned a little to reveal a large, dark bruise that had swollen up on the left-hand side of his head.

  Boyle!

  “BUT HE’S NOT HERE TO HELP YOU NOW, SO I’M GONNA TEACH YOU THE LESSON HE SHOULDA GOT THE OTHER DAY BUT HE WAS TOO MUCH OF A COWARD TO TAKE.”

  “Please, Boyle…” Vivi pleaded.

  “Fabius! Oh, Fa-bi-us!” Suddenly, a woman’s singsong voice from somewhere far off seemed to start calling.

  “WHA?” Boyle looked confused. “WHAT IS IT NOW?”

  “Fabius! Lunch is ready.”

  Boyle sighed.

  “Fa-bi-us.”

  Something softened in Boyle’s tone. “OKAY. COMING, MOTHER! JUST A MINUTE!” he called back, before quickly turning to face Vivi once again, the snarl in his voice reinstated.

  “Tell your freak-show boyfriend that I’m going to make life so hard for you both at school next year that you’ll do anything to be expelled.”

  Without warning, Boyle lurched forward and grabbed Vivi by the shoulders before shoving her into the dirt.

  Angry, I stomped forward a step or two only to be quickly and silently pulled backward by someone behind me. A cold, metallic hand slipped over my mouth to stop me from shouting, and I twisted my head to find myself staring straight into Paragon’s unblinking eyes.

  “Oh, and … er … give your boyfriend this little present from me!” Boyle rushed at Vivi and landed a solid kick right in the middle of her stomach.

  I wriggled hard in Paragon’s grip, desperate to get out and show this bully that he had no right to hurt my friend like that. But Paragon just held on tightly, refusing to let me go.

  “Sorry to leave you like this,” Boyle said, sneering at Vivi. “But … er … lunch is ready. Adios, Rookmini.”

  Boyle turned and strutted away toward the little house on the edge of the site. Paragon kept its arms clasped around me until Boyle had gone inside.

  The moment Paragon released me I raced over to Vivi. She was still crying, her hands clutching her stomach.


  “Vivi! Are you okay? Vivi?” I picked her up and tried wiping the muck from out of her hair.

  “Vivi.” Paragon came alongside her and helped her straighten up. “Are you hurt?”

  “Why didn’t you just let me go?” I shouted at Paragon. “I could have stopped him from hurting her.”

  Paragon shook its head. “Not always the best idea. Not when you’re angry, Auden. You should never make any decisions when you’re angry. You might have made things worse.”

  “You don’t understand! You’re not human! You don’t—”

  “Please!”

  It was Vivi.

  “Please! Don’t argue. Not now. Not about this. I’m okay. I’ll be all right.” She pulled a lump of dry mud from out of a pocket on her trousers. “I’ll live.”

  *   *   *

  “Boyle? Hmm. Appropriate name,” said Paragon.

  We were sitting in the back garden of Unicorn Cottage, Vivi dusting herself off with towels.

  “His family must own the caravan park,” she said. “He’s not a nice person—as you can see. Doesn’t like anything that isn’t ‘normal’ in his opinion.”

  “The concept of ‘normal’ is, of course, based entirely on the individual’s perception,” Paragon started wittering on. “What one person sees as ‘normal’ is considered completely ‘abnormal’ by others. Thus rendering a generalized concept of ‘normality’ entirely redundant, i.e., there is no such thing as ‘normal.’ Or, if you like, on the other hand, everything is ‘normal.’”

  “Thank you, Einstein,” I said, before telling them about my encounter with Boyle, Putter, and Keane just the other day.

  “So he said he was going to get me, too, did he?” Vivi looked concerned. “Thanks, Auden. Thanks a lot. He definitely managed to do that.”

  “Now, now, Vivi,” Paragon interrupted. “Let’s leave the sarcasm to Auden. As he’s so good at it.”

  I gave a huge sarcastic smirk just to confirm Paragon’s point.

  “Sorry, Vivi. Boyle is such a coward. Hurting a girl like that. If I hadn’t knocked him over the head with my Snowflake the other day and escaped, he probably wouldn’t have been so angry. I’m sorry. It’s all my fault.”

  “No. It’s not. He’s just a horrible person,” said Vivi.

  “Yes,” Paragon added. “Definitely the sort of person who needs to be taught a lesson.” It looked straight at me.