The Mystery of the Colour Thief

by Ewa Jozefkowicz

  ‘We can have egg and chips.’ I pulled the chips out of the freezer.

  ‘Good thinking, Diz,’ said Dad, taking out the frying pan and putting it on the hob. He tried to crack an egg on the side of it, but it slid out of his hand and landed on the floor.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll do it.’

  I emptied the chips into the dish and reached instinctively for the red elephant-shaped frying mould, which I knew would make Dad laugh. When it was ready, I dished everything up, grabbed the ketchup from the fridge and arranged it neatly on the tray along with glasses of water.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Dad. ‘What would I do without you, eh? Starve, at the very least.’

  After dinner, he settled on the sofa with his papers, and when I’d finished my homework, I switched on the TV, grateful that he hadn’t gone back upstairs. I kept the volume down as much as possible so he could concentrate, but when I next glanced over, he’d tucked himself beneath the old throw that Milo loved to curl up on (even though he wasn’t allowed on the sofa) and was fast asleep. I’d wanted to show Dad the mural, to see whether he could see the change too, but he had enough to think about already. It was something I’d have to figure out myself.

  Five

  There was smoke curling around the face of the shadow man. His threw his arms out towards me. He was tugging at me, trying to take me with him. I watched, frozen, as the muscles in his arms flexed and relaxed, flexed and relaxed. His sleeves were made of green cloth, and the fabric was coarse to touch. I pushed his arms away, but they came back for me even stronger.

  ‘Don’t look… don’t look right!’ he shouted.

  The heat was rising… the unbearable, stifling heat… His face was so close now that I could hear him panting. Who was he? I wanted to see his features, though I was terrified of them too. He blurred before me, blurred and shifted until he was no longer there at all.

  I’d held my eyes shut long after the alarm went off, trying to shake off the nightmare for the second night in a row, and praying that the mural would have gone back to normal overnight. But the spiders scrambled into life as soon as I dared to look up at my favourite wall.

  Not only was the yellow gone, the green of the grass in the next picture had also dissolved. This one was of me, aged six, sitting in the garden and giving myself a haircut. I’d insisted on playing Peter Pan in the reception play and I was convinced that I needed to be as realistic as possible – devoted to theatre from an early age. Except it now looked as if I was sitting on a plane of snow. The spiders stomped, moving from my stomach to my chest, leaving a horrible tickling ache.

  And then, suddenly, it hit me – the shadow man from the nightmare must have something to do with the disappearance of the colours. He had appeared just as they had started to disappear. It couldn’t be a coincidence. And if only I had experienced the nightmare, maybe only I knew the colours were gone. Of course I could ask Dad to have a look to see if he noticed, but somehow I already knew what he’d say. No one else would understand about the colour thief. But who was he and why was he stealing from me? My head spun with unanswered questions.

  When I made my way downstairs, I found the kitchen empty and the sink still filled with dirty dishes from last night. Dad’s chipped mug rested on the sideboard, perilously close to the edge. Mum had bought it for him. The picture of Batman and Robin had almost entirely rubbed off, but the speech bubble with the words, ‘You’re my sidekick for life’, was just about legible. I emptied the dregs of coffee and put it into the dishwasher. I hadn’t seen the mug in weeks. Even more than the dining table, it belonged in the past. What had made him take it out of the cupboard now?

  I skipped breakfast, ushered Milo indoors and got myself ready quicker than ever before. Toby was waiting for me. Lou was not. I think I’d already known she wouldn’t turn up.

  Toby must have been watching for me to leave the house, because he came out of his front door at the very same moment that I left mine.

  ‘Meet me by the van after school?’ he asked. ‘I’ve got a plan of action to feed Spike.’

  ‘Of course. I’ll be there.’

  ‘Great.’ He smiled, the same mysterious smile as the previous day, and I set off, feeling much happier. I made it to school a few minutes before the bell.

  ‘All hail,’ said Frank, as I walked in. He was fiddling with something on his nose and when he pulled his hands away I thought that his face was covered with blobs of toothpaste. It was only when I got closer that I noticed they were stick-on boils. He looked so ridiculous that I burst out laughing. Maybe sitting next to him wouldn’t be so bad, after all. I couldn’t remember the last time Lou had made me laugh.

  ‘Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘I’m going for the role of one of the three witches,’ he said. ‘Who said that they have to be witches? They could be wizards. In Shakespeare’s time all the roles were played by men anyway.’

  ‘That’s true.’ I was impressed he knew. It wasn’t something we’d covered in English. Who would have thought – Frank the Skank, a Shakespeare fan? ‘But what do you mean, you’re “going for the role”?’

  ‘The auditions – they’re tomorrow, aren’t they? I’m preparing early.’

  Macbeth. How could I have forgotten about the auditions?

  As if guessing my thoughts, Lou came to hover by my desk. I noticed that she’d curled her lashes today. No wonder she hadn’t had time to pick me up on the way to school.

  ‘I suppose you’re auditioning for Lady Macbeth, are you?’ she asked, raising an eyebrow.

  ‘Yeah, I…’ I didn’t feel like admitting that I’d forgotten about it and was completely unprepared.

  ‘Just to let you know that Jemima is going for it too. She’s semi-professional, so, you know… you might want to choose a different role, to give yourself more of a chance of getting it. Maybe Lady Macduff or one of the chambermaids?’

  ‘What do you mean “semi-professional”?’

  ‘She’s been going to Saturday drama school since the age of five, Izzy. There’s really no point in you trying.’

  I looked into Lou’s eyes to check whether she really meant what she said. I still half-expected her to start laughing and tell me that it had all been a joke and that of course she was my friend.

  ‘I’d like to give it a go, anyway. I’ve always wanted to play Lady Macbeth and it would be stupid not to even try.’

  ‘Even though you know you don’t stand a chance?’ Lou interrupted. She clicked her tongue impatiently.

  ‘It may only be small, but I do have a chance.’

  ‘Whatever.’ She shrugged her shoulders. She was about to walk away when something made me grab her.

  ‘Why are you being like this?’ I whispered. ‘I’m just the same as I used to be.’

  She looked at me pityingly, but I refused to give up. ‘Couldn’t we just start over? Why don’t you come round to mine on Friday night? We can walk Milo and watch horror films. Dad won’t mind.’

  ‘No thanks, Izzy,’ she said. ‘You honestly think that walking your dog would be the way that I’d like to spend a Friday night? You’re weirder than I thought. Anyway, I have other plans.’

  ‘What other plans?’ I was surprised to hear myself sounding so needy. Heads began to turn as we suddenly became the centre of attention. Lou’s face was flushed.

  ‘If you must know, I’m staying at Jemima’s,’ she hissed. ‘It’s her brother’s birthday and we’re planning to sneak into the party. There’s going to be a proper DJ and everything. If you’re so desperate for somebody to spend time with, maybe you could invite Frank to yours for a bit of a horror-movie sesh? He looks just the sort to be into some crazy vampire films, and if you play your cards right, who knows what might happen?’ she said, winking at me sarcastically.

  She said it so loudly that most people in the class heard.

  A red rage erupted inside me and climbed slowly up my throat, the l
ava making me feel as if I was going to be sick. I pushed past Lou and ran blindly out of the classroom, stopping only when I got far down the empty corridor, my hands on my knees. I heard nothing but my breath – my fast, angry breath.

  Why did she say that? Why did she have to say that in front of the whole class? We had been so close that we had practically lived in each other’s houses. We’d shared everything from clothes to the contents of our pencil cases. Back in primary school we even had our own secret language – nobody else had ever deciphered it. Mum and Dad had always been nice to her. And Shelley had taken me everywhere with Lou – shopping, cinema, concerts… How was it so easy for Lou just to forget all that?

  My back slid down the wall until I was sitting on the dusty floor. Slowly, my breathing returned to normal and when I looked up, I saw that I’d gone further than I thought. I was in the history corridor with its display on ‘Milton School Through the Years’. Mr McKenzie always went on about how we were walking through history. ‘Milton Secondary School may not have been around in the time of Milton the poet,’ he would say, ‘but it’s almost a hundred and fifty years old.’

  Now, as I looked at the display, I saw the old merging with the new. The black and white photos of lacrosse players from the 1920s didn’t look all that different to the recent pictures of the Year Nine trip to Egypt, in which the once-yellow pyramids were grey and faded. Like my mural, all their colour had seeped away.

  ‘Hey! There you are.’

  I spun round to see Frank running towards me.

  I wondered if he’d been sent to get me. I waited for the snide remark, but it didn’t come.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked. ‘You’re not going to let her get to you, are you?’

  I was so shocked, I didn’t know how to answer.

  A blush spread over Frank’s neck and face.

  ‘I saw you last year in A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ he continued. ‘You were really good. Scrap that – you were awesome. Don’t let her put you off. She’s an idiot.’

  For a moment, I couldn’t speak. But then my anger dissolved, and I felt almost normal. I’d clearly been wrong about Frank. Lou had made him out to be nothing but a disgusting skank, but there were already things that proved her wrong. He was into Shakespeare, he’d seen me in a play, he’d come after me when he saw I was upset. And really there was nothing particularly skanky about him – in fact, his dark mop of hair sort of suited him.

  Frank put out his hand to help me to my feet. I hesitated only for a second. Then I grabbed it and, together, we walked back to class.

  A group of Year Elevens trudged past on their way to the hockey field. I recognised the tall one as the Deputy Head Boy, Cormack Griffiths. Most of the girls from Year Nine upwards were madly in love with him. Personally, I didn’t see the attraction – he was the size of a netball post, and had a permanently mocking expression. He looked as if he was always about to say something horrible.

  He whistled as he walked past us, and told his friend, ‘Young love.’

  I usually would have turned crimson, but this time his words didn’t get to me.

  ‘Thanks,’ I muttered to Frank when they’d gone. ‘Thanks for coming after me.’

  ‘It’s nothing. You would have done the same.’

  Yesterday that probably wouldn’t have been true, but so many things had changed in a day.

  Six

  After lunch we had art and I sat with Mona and Harpreet. It was almost like old times. Mona showed me a photo of the new puppy that her parents had got over the weekend. She was exactly the same breed as Milo, but tiny. So cute.

  Then, when I’d been expecting the arrival of the supply teacher, Mr Leah came in. He’d been off since the start of term, because his wife had had a baby, and I hadn’t known he’d be back so soon.

  He grinned and told us about baby Lucy and asked us all how we’d been getting on without him.

  Several people around the class shouted that they’d missed him, though I doubted that any of them had missed him quite as much as me. Mr Leah was awesome in every meaning of the word. He drew the most incredible pictures of various parts of the human body, and he was the only person who could sketch a hand so well that it looked almost as if it were a photograph. But not only was he amazing at drawing, he made every lesson seem as if it was an adventure.

  We’d just finished doing self-portraits, and without his encouragement, we somehow couldn’t concentrate and we’d spent all of our time in the past few art lessons doodling and messing around.

  I was glad when Mr Leah told us that he’d missed us too.

  ‘Right, let’s finish mounting the self-portraits you’ve worked on and next week I’m going to get you started on something new. What do you say?’

  ‘Sounds good,’ said someone at the front. ‘What will it be?’

  ‘Ah, I was going to keep it a surprise, but I’ll give you a clue and you can go away and see whether you get it. Let’s see… it will be working in the style of a particular artist. And this artist was preoccupied with dreams and is known for painting some very unusual clocks. Don’t think about it now. Jot it down in your homework diary and see if you can solve it over the weekend.’

  I thought about Mr Leah’s mystery as I walked home from school. Dreams and clocks were linked to the colour thief. He’d appeared first in a dream, which was really more of a nightmare, and when he’d faded from my mind, the first things I always saw were the luminous numerals on my clock. The spiders wrestled in my stomach at the thought of him.

  But they were defeated when I opened the door to let Milo out. He brushed up against me fondly and then dutifully followed me to the river, getting more and more excited. He bounced along the path between the houses. He was running so fast that he slipped and ended up rolling down into the shrubbery where we’d first seen Spike.

  I bolted after him, scared he might have fallen into the water, but by the time I arrived, he was already shaking himself off and trotting in the direction of the bridge.

  Toby was waiting by the van as we’d agreed, holding something long and pointed in his hand. As I drew closer I could see that it was a fishing rod.

  ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘You came.’

  ‘Of course. Why do we need that?’

  ‘It’s for Spike. He always loses the fight over food with his brothers and sisters, so this will be a good way of getting it to him directly. I just have to figure out the mechanism. It belonged to my uncle. I’ve never used it before.’

  He pulled on a latch, there was a clicking sound and suddenly the wire began to wind itself round the spool. He nodded, satisfied.

  ‘I’ve been doing a bit of research on swans,’ he told me. ‘I thought the more we knew, the more we’d be able to help him.’

  ‘Great. What did you find out?’

  ‘Loads. Do you know how old swans are when their feathers turn white?’

  ‘Ummm… about a year?’ I actually had no idea.

  ‘That’s what I thought too, but it’s earlier – six months. That’s when their parents know that they’re ready to go out into the world alone. The undersides of their feathers turn white first. And guess what they like to eat?’

  ‘Bread?’

  ‘Weirdly, no. They eat lettuce, spinach (yuck) and potato.’

  ‘Gross. At least we’ll know what to bring him.’

  ‘Exactly. Right, I think we’re ready. Let’s go down to the water and try out the rod. Do you mind holding it? It’s a bit difficult to carry it and push my wheels at the same time.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘I could have got an electric one,’ he told me through deep breaths, ‘but I like the challenge, you know. My arms could do with the exercise too. The worst is when it rains, because then I get covered with mud and splashback from the ground.’

  I nodded, unsure of what to say. The truth was that I had no idea what it must be like for him.

  I followed Toby towards Spike’s mulberry bush. The water was choppier t
oday, some serious-looking ripples on its surface. Mr Joshi, the shopkeeper at the bottom of the street, told me that once a grown man was swept away on the current and dragged more than ten kilometres downstream before he was rescued. Judging by the speed of the water this afternoon, it definitely would have been possible.

  The mother swan was in a pocket of still water among the reeds, sleeping with her head tucked under her wing. Three of her babies were snoozing on either side of her and another was in the long river grass. Spike was nowhere in sight.

  ‘Where are you?’ I asked aloud. I trod through the undergrowth on the riverbank, pulling the grass apart. Nothing. Panic rose in my chest. Had he fallen prey to the treacherous current?

  ‘Look, there’s another swan,’ whispered Toby. ‘It could be the dad. You can see that his neck is thicker, and he has a bigger black bit at the base of the bill.’

  I looked in the direction Toby was pointing, as the mother swan went to join the other swan. They were beautiful, but even they seemed slower today, stalled by the rippling water. I could make out a couple of bobbing grey heads near them, but no sign of Spike. Why weren’t they doing anything to find him?

  Suddenly, there was a splash and before I knew what was happening, Milo was in the water swimming to the centre of the river. I froze.

  ‘Milo! Come back here…’

  Already the current was carrying him away. He struggled against it, but it was no use.

  ‘Milo!’ I screamed. ‘Milo!’

  There was a scramble on the riverbank followed by a second splash. I thought it might have been the mother swan but then, with horror, I saw the empty wheelchair with Toby’s glasses and hoodie lying on the seat, I turned back to the river and watched helplessly as he made his way swiftly towards Milo. I could see the strong movement of his arms and his muscular back as he pulled himself through the water. He seemed to reach Milo in less than ten strokes and held firmly on to him as he began to swim to shore again.

  I unclenched my fists and allowed my muscles to relax. Then they disappeared behind a clump of bushes and the river became silent.