The Extraordinary Colors of Auden Dare

by Zillah Bethell

  “I wish I could make the war stop,” I hissed. “I wish this stupid war had never started. If the war had never started, then my dad would be home right now and he would never have deserted his post and ended up ashamed and in prison.” I felt a tear building in the corner of my eye. “We’d be playing football and making model airplanes and things, and everything would be okay.”

  Paragon rested his hand on my shoulder. “I know it’s not the same, Auden.… I realize that.… But I could play football with you and make model airplanes. If you wanted.”

  I smiled up at him.

  “Like I said, it’s not the same thing. I’m not your dad. But if you wanted me to … I think I might be quite good at football.”

  “Thanks, Paragon.”

  Sandwich got up, arched her back into an enormous stretch, yawned, and jumped down from the bed.

  “That’s okay,” Paragon replied. “I hope Vivi’s feeling better.”

  Vivi had QWERTY’d me earlier that morning to say that she wasn’t feeling very well and that she wouldn’t be going out today. A bad stomach, which meant that she had to drink more water than normal. That was every parent’s nightmare, a child with a bad stomach. They could work their way through their usual weekly allowance of water in just a matter of hours. After that the family would have to scrimp on their usage, or—even worse—illegally buy some of the terrible, dirty Cat’s Pee that was available on the black market.

  “She’ll be okay,” I answered, wiping my nose on my sleeve. “I know that Immaculata has a small case of water locked away in a cupboard for emergencies. She’ll be working her way through that.”

  “Good.”

  “You know what I find most incredible about war?” I jumped awkwardly back on the subject. “You know the strangest thing about it? It’s that they have rules about what to do. What’s allowed and what’s not allowed on the battlefield. At some point in the past, the leaders of all the countries sat around a big table and decided that certain things were forbidden and other things were okay. You would think that in a war, as long as you defeated the other side and killed as many of their soldiers as possible, that that would be all that mattered. But, no. You can only kill people in a certain way.”

  Paragon watched me as I chattered on.

  “So they came up with a big set of rules about how to fight and kill. Ridiculous! A big set of rules called … what is it? It’s named after a city in Europe somewhere. What is it? The … er … that’s right … the Geneva Conventions. They’re the set—”

  I stopped.

  Paragon whirred and straightened up, clanking loudly as he locked himself into the stiff position—arms dangling vertically, head level and staring ahead—like he did on the hilltop a few weeks previously, when he’d heard the word achromatopsia for the first time.

  He was doing it again.

  Suddenly, he spoke, with the same dull, monotonous, robotic voice that he’d used on the hilltop.

  “Dr.… Milo … Treble … The … Wellspring … Science … and … Innovation … Center … Dartford … Road … Huntingdon … The … Fleming … Building … Third … Floor … Room … F318.…”

  Then he stopped talking, moments before his entire body slumped to the floor, hitting the carpet with a solid thump.

  “Paragon!” It was my turn to rush to his aid. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  “Oh…” He pushed himself up and steadied himself against the wall. “I’m okay, Auden. Don’t worry about me. Just another of those funny turns. Very peculiar.”

  I grabbed his arm.

  “What was that you said? You said somebody’s name. And an address. Who is that?”

  Paragon checked himself over. He bent and straightened his limbs and ran his fingers over the lights and switches. Everything appeared to be working as it had before the seizure.

  “Milo Treble.”

  “Who’s Milo Treble?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. But I believe it’s somebody who could help me with this.” Paragon pointed to the dead light on his chest—the one I’d always previously been so quick to dismiss. “I think he might be able to help me get this working again.”

  CHAPTER 16

  THE 726

  Huntingdon, it turned out, was about twenty miles away. To get there we had three possible options. First, we could tell Mum about Paragon and then—after she’d got over the shock of it (which, let’s face it, might be weeks)—ask her to drive us there in the Bot Job. That didn’t seem like a sensible plan to me. For a start, I couldn’t really rely on the Bot Job to even get us the other side of the city. Since Mum had bought the thing it had broken down at least eight times and it was only a matter of time before the wheels fell off completely. No, it was all too much of a risk.

  Second, we could walk. Twenty miles was probably nothing to Paragon, who could run so incredibly quickly. But to me and Vivi, twenty miles might as well have been a hundred miles. There was no way we could get there and back in a single day. It was far too far.

  In the end, we settled on the third possibility. That was to catch the bus. Two buses, in fact. One into Cambridge, then another from the bus station to Huntingdon itself. It would be another massive risk, but with no other way of getting us all to Huntingdon, it was a risk we would have to take.

  So far, Vivi and I had always taken Paragon in the opposite direction to the city. Out into the fields and onto the hills where very few people bothered to go. There, it was easy to keep him out of the way of inquisitive eyes. But by taking him into the city, we would be exposing him to hundreds and hundreds of people.

  That meant he needed a better disguise.

  “What”—Paragon held the wig between his finger and thumb and stared at it like it might have been a dead rat—“is that?”

  “A hairpiece.” Vivi smiled.

  “Am I right in thinking that you want me to put that on the top of my head? So that it looks like I have hair?”

  I nodded.

  Paragon plonked the thing comically on the very top of his shiny metal skull and looked at us. The hair fell down over his eyes and, as he turned his head, the wig slipped a couple of inches so that it covered his left cheek.

  “What do you think? Is it my style? Do I carry it off?”

  Vivi and I laughed out loud and Paragon gave it a center part, which made it look even more ridiculous.

  “I think,” Vivi eventually said, “we may need to glue it on.”

  Vivi had brought a large bag of clothes and accessories from her mother’s cast-offs sack. She dug about inside and brought out a pair of sunglasses. “Try these.”

  “I think”—Paragon snatched the shades from out of Vivi’s hand—“that you are only doing this to have a laugh.” He positioned them on his nose and tucked the arms behind the small raised bumps on the side of his head where the ears would normally be, just under the wig. “Hey, man!” His voice was deliberately deep and gravelly. “This is soooo cool. Wanna go and shoot some pool? I hear there’s a real rad band playing down at the Golden Nugget.”

  Vivi and I struggled to control our laughing again.

  Paragon was brilliant at playing the fool. It was like he didn’t take himself too seriously. He was happy to sit there and do funny voices and look utterly ridiculous if it meant that we enjoyed it.

  He reminded me a little of Dad.

  “Perhaps you’re a sort of performing robot. Designed to act on the stage,” Vivi said.

  Paragon stayed in character. “Me? Some kinda common actor? Huh! Are you pulling my string? Are you pushing me under a bus? Whaddya think, like, I’m only good for singing and dancing, huh?”

  By the time we’d fully dressed Paragon, my sides were aching and my cheeks were sore from laughing. We both stood back and admired our handiwork.

  Vivi had somehow managed to strap a pair of size twelve shoes around Paragon’s feet. She’d had to make a slight cut at the back for them to fit, but somehow they stayed on. Over his legs were pulled a pa
ir of canvas chinos—a belt of string around the waist held them in place. A thick woolen sweater covered the chest and arms, and over that Paragon had put on and buttoned up his rather ragged trench coat. Leather gloves disguised the metallic hands. And the wig that Vivi had glued on framed the sides of his head. The sunglasses hid Paragon’s eyes and the wide-brimmed hat—positioned at its usual cheeky angle—threw a shadow over much of his face.

  The only things that were not completely covered were the mouth and chin.

  “What’s the point in keeping the rest of him covered up if everyone can see that he’s not got a normal mouth?” I asked. “They’ll spot that straightaway.”

  “Hold on.” Vivi rummaged about in the bag. “Here.” She pulled out a stripy scarf. “Wrap that around the bottom half of your face, Paragon.”

  He took it off her and twisted it around and around his mouth.

  “Any good?”

  “Well…” I stood there with my arms folded, shaking my head to myself. “They’re definitely not going to be looking at you because you look like a robot,” I said. “There’s no worry about that. But they will be looking at you because you look ridiculously overdressed for a hot day like this.”

  “That’s all right,” Vivi said. “That doesn’t matter. We can just pretend that he’s our uncle or someone and that he’s not very well.”

  “Not very well?” I smiled. “I don’t think I’d feel very well dressed like that.”

  Paragon gave a twirl. “To be honest, I think I look very dapper. Like a proper human being. I don’t think anyone will pay me any attention whatsoever. I think I’ll fit right in.”

  *   *   *

  The bus pulled up in front of us and the doors hissed open.

  “I’ll buy the tickets,” I whispered. “Paragon, just keep quiet.”

  “Okeydokey.”

  We stepped onto the bus and I dug some notes out of my pocket. “One adult and two children for the city center, please.”

  The driver stared openmouthed at Paragon.

  “I said one adult and two children, please.”

  Silence.

  “Don’t worry. I’m their uncle,” Paragon suddenly blurted out from behind the scarf. “And I’m not very well.”

  The driver’s mouth fell even wider.

  “Lovely day, isn’t it.” Paragon adjusted his scarf and looked nervously around. “Lovely bus you have here. Very … full of seats.”

  I slapped some of the money down on the little ledge. The driver jumped and shook himself back to normality.

  “Er … eight thousand pounds, please,” he said, his eyes leaping back and forth between me and Paragon. The driver fed the money into the cash machine and three tickets dropped out. I scooped them up and tugged on Paragon’s coat.

  As we walked up the aisle, the passengers all watched the strange, tall, overdressed man make his way toward the back of the bus. I shoved Paragon into a window seat and sat down next to him. Vivi sat on the empty seat in front and twisted around to see us. A second or two later the bus started to move.

  “I thought I told you not to say anything,” I mumbled to Paragon.

  “Oh, I know you did. But when he looked at me like that I got a bit jumpity. I think this scarf and the sweater are ever so slightly overheating my decision gate boards. Quite frankly, I don’t understand why human beings have to wear so many clothes. It can’t do you any good, surely.”

  “Well, try not to say anything. We don’t want to attract too much attention, do we?”

  “No. Okay.”

  As we got nearer the city center, more people got on the bus. An old lady with a knotty wooden walking stick came and sat across the aisle from us, and from the corner of my eye I could see her staring.

  “Excuse me,” she said.

  I tried to ignore her.

  “Excuse me.”

  “Auden.” Paragon nudged me with his elbow. “Auden. That old woman wants to talk to you.”

  “Shhh.”

  He nudged me again. “Don’t be rude. She wants to talk to you.”

  “Excuse me.”

  Sighing, I turned around. “Yes?”

  “Is your friend all right? He looks a bit hot and bothered to me.”

  “No. No. He’s fine.” I smiled.

  “I’m their uncle.” Paragon pointed to both Vivi and me. “And I’m not very well. Thank you for asking, madam.”

  “Oh.” She sat back in her seat, confused, and deliberately looked out the window for the rest of the journey.

  *   *   *

  The bus station was just as stressful. Too many people in too small a space, most of them wondering what the issue was with the tall man in a hat. Why was he wearing sunglasses inside? Why did he have a big scarf wrapped around his face on a sunny summer’s day? And why was his hair looking so lopsided?

  “I think the glue’s melting off,” Vivi said as we scanned the screens for the correct bus number. “I think he’s getting all heated up and the glue’s gone and melted.”

  “Oh no. Try not to move your head too quickly or your wig’ll come off,” I said to Paragon.

  “I’ll try.”

  We made our way along to Stand 6 and waited for our bus to come in.

  “You going to Huntingdon?”

  A man with a fluffy beard and a huge head of hair standing behind us was directing a question at Paragon.

  “You waiting for the 726 to Huntingdon?”

  “Er … yes, I believe I am,” Paragon replied.

  “Dreadful service, the 726,” the man said, seemingly unaware that Paragon was dressed like somebody preparing for the worst winter storm in a hundred years. “Late most of the time. That’s if it isn’t canceled at all. You going to Huntingdon to see family?”

  “Er … no. No. Er … an old friend.”

  “Old friend, is it? I have an old friend in Huntingdon. I wonder if it’s the same one. Tell me, what’s your friend’s name?”

  Paragon gave a nervous twitch. “Er … Milo Treble.”

  “Who?”

  “Milo Treble.”

  “Never heard of him. No. My friend’s name is Rory McDonald. Do you know him?”

  “No. I’m afraid not.”

  “Nice guy, Rory.”

  Vivi and I were trying not to laugh as we listened in on the conversation.

  “Used to run a biscuit factory. That wasn’t in Huntingdon, mind. That was in Saffron Waldon. Doesn’t do it anymore. Retired, see.”

  The man peered around us all.

  “Where is this darn bus?”

  Suddenly Paragon moved just a little too quickly and his hat and wig slid to the floor.

  “Oh!” The man with the beard bent over and grabbed hold of the wig before reaching up and slapping it back onto Paragon’s bald head. “There you are!” He patted it back into place. “Can’t have that coming off now, can we? After all”—he tapped the top of his own head with his finger—“we toupee-wearers must stick together, mustn’t we?”

  *   *   *

  The journey to Huntingdon was easier. There were fewer passengers and hardly any of them paid Paragon any attention. The three of us sat on the long seat at the back of the bus—Paragon staring out of the window while Vivi and I talked.

  “What was the word that started him off, again?” Vivi asked softly.

  “I said something about the Geneva Convention. Straight after that he began spouting off the name and address.”

  “Why ‘Geneva Convention’? I don’t understand.”

  I shook my head.

  “The Geneva Convention is to do with war, isn’t it? Perhaps this Milo Treble has something to do with the war. Or killing.” She suddenly looked nervous. “Do you think we will be able to trust him? I mean, we’ve not even told our own mothers about Paragon. And now here we are, about to show him to a complete stranger. What if he takes him away from us? What then?”

  I didn’t want to think about it. It had taken me so long
to come around to accepting Paragon for what he was that I didn’t want to lose him now. I’d only just started to get to know him. It would be like some sort of sick joke. First my dad gets taken away, and then Paragon.

  It was too horrible to consider.

  Still, I had to trust Paragon. There was no other choice.

  “Paragon seems to think Treble might help him,” I said. “I’m hoping he might know something about the rainbow machine—might be able to tell us where the battery is. I mean, Treble is obviously a scientist. Perhaps he knew Uncle Jonah. There are lots of questions we don’t know the answers to. I hope Milo Treble can give us some.”

  CHAPTER 17

  THE WELLSPRING SCIENCE AND INNOVATION CENTER, DARTFORD ROAD, HUNTINGDON

  We hopped off the bus on the very outskirts of Huntingdon and walked the mile and a half to the Wellspring Science and Innovation Center. The road was long and sweeping, and clearly underused, judging by the hardy weeds that sprang up along the edges of the curbs. It took us away from the direction of the town and out into even more sparse countryside. After a while, the road opened up and directly ahead of us we saw the buildings.

  It was an enormous complex. Tall, boxlike buildings—lots of them—with shiny mirrored windows, sticking out of the ground like the pins on an upturned plug.

  “Wow,” I found myself saying. “Look at this place.”

  Around the complex ran a twenty-foot-high fence with barbed wire strung across the top and, even from where we were standing, you could hear the strong buzz of electricity running along its length.

  As if to hammer home the fact, a signpost nearby warned in a severe font: KEEP OUT. ELECTRIC FENCE. RISK OF DEATH.

  The road led all the way up to a gate where a bored armed guard was prodding some dried-on old chewing gum from the tarmac with the tip of his boot.

  “Not exactly the inviting scene I thought it might be,” I said. “Do you think they’ll even let us in?”