‘I know.’ I didn’t need her to tell me that.
I finished my breakfast and slipped through the front door before she had a chance to say anything else. When I saw Toby and Anna’s house, I felt instantly better.
Toby was busy washing up and Anna was running around, ironing a white shirt and trying to find a pair of earrings.
‘Mum’s got her interview today. She’s going for restaurant manager – the permanent position. It’s D-Day. If she gets this, then we can stay here for sure.’
‘Don’t say it like that,’ Anna wailed. ‘I feel unprepared and I don’t think I’ll get it.’
I noticed that her usual spiky hair was smoothed over her ears and she was wearing more make-up than usual.
‘Why not? You’re amazing. You’ll definitely get it.’
‘These earrings or these?’ Anna asked me.
‘The pearl drops,’ I told her. They made her look more professional.
She winked at me, ruffled Toby’s hair and left the house in a hurry.
I got myself a glass of water and sat at the table, waiting for Toby to finish.
‘Hey, I never showed you the house!’ he said, pulling me into the living room, his hands still dripping with water.
‘What do you mean? You’ve shown me round before.’
‘No. No. I don’t mean this house. I mean Spike’s house.’ With everything that had happened, I’d forgotten about it entirely.
I gasped out loud when I saw it. I couldn’t believe what an amazing job he’d done. The house had its own little roof complete with tin tiles to keep the rain out. It had three walls made of carefully sanded wood and even a veranda with two egg cups stuck to its floor at one end.
‘One for grain and the other for water,’ Toby explained, but of course I’d guessed that already.
‘It just needs varnishing so that it doesn’t rot and then I’ll nail it to those two logs you so expertly tested,’ he said. ‘Then we can go and wedge it in the bush and it should be ready.’
We spent ages varnishing every bit of exposed wood, before Toby decided that the tin roof looked too dull and boring for Spike, and he would paint it red so that he would always be able to see his home from a distance.
‘Look. That will be perfect! Mum used it to paint our front door,’ he said, waving a tin at me.
His eyes narrowed. There was some element that he still wasn’t happy with.
‘You think something’s missing?’ I guessed, looking at the house from all angles. I wondered if he’d lost the plot and would want to build tiny bird furniture for Spike next.
I was surprised when he said: ‘Could you give me a hand?’
It was an ordinary enough thing to ask, and he’d said it smiling at me in his usual, mysterious way. But at the same time, it was hugely important, because it was the first time he’d properly asked me to help. I remembered the moments when he’d sped away from me in his wheelchair before I managed to grab the handles, or when he’d dragged himself out of the water or up the stairs, just to prove he could.
‘Would you be able to bring me a box from upstairs? It’s a big blue one on top of the cupboard in Mum’s room. It’s the first door on the right.’
I had to stand on a chair to get it down. It was heavier than I expected. I looked curiously at the contents, a mishmash of treasures – football trophies, swimming medals, coins from different countries, computer games and envelopes of various shapes and sizes.
‘What’s all this stuff?’
‘It’s the Before Box.’
‘The what?’
‘The box of everything I had before the accident.’
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I put it in his lap and went to the kitchen to get us a drink. I wasn’t sure whether he would want me looking.
‘I just wanted these.’ He held up a plastic bag with something inside. It was only when he emptied the contents that I saw that they were feathers of all colours and sizes.
‘I collected these with Mum on Winston Beach in Norfolk. My nan used to live there and we’d visit her every summer. We had this tradition that we would always go on a really long run the first day we were there and collect lucky feathers on the way back. I saved the three most interesting ones each year.’
‘They’re great,’ I said, picking up a few and arranging them into a fan. There was a long one in the middle that was white tinged with dark blue spots. I imagined how incredible the bird that it had come from would have been. An idea popped into my mind. Spike sometimes shed some of his feathers. They’d be grey but just as lucky. And there was someone I knew they could bring a bit of luck to. They’d be just right.
‘What are you going to do with these?’ I asked Toby.
‘I’m going to line the house. Birds make nests out of twigs and feathers, and I thought we could help get him started. It’ll make it softer and more comfortable.’
‘Don’t you want to keep them? You know, as a memento?’
‘Nah,’ he said, shaking his head.
When the house was ready, we took it back to mine to show Aunty Lyn and Dad, who had just come back from his meeting with Dr Liz.
‘That swan had better be grateful,’ he said. ‘He’s pretty much got a castle there.’
After lunch, they chatted about Project Elephant, which Toby genuinely loved and asked hundreds of questions about. He wanted to know how many elephants lived at the sanctuary in Kenya that Dad and Simon had helped to set up – there were fifty-four, which was a lot more than the last time I had asked. There had even been a couple of babies born in the past month.
‘I would love to see them,’ said Toby dreamily.
‘I don’t see why you couldn’t,’ said Dad. ‘We aim to visit at least twice a year. We would just need to find a good time for you both to come.’
Toby was so distracted with everything Dad was showing him that by the time we actually made it to the river with an impatient Milo, it was late afternoon.
‘Right,’ he announced in the voice of an army general leading a battle, ‘I trust you on this one, but I’ve got my camera at the ready just in case you do a repeat of last time.’
‘Not if I do this!’ I shouted triumphantly. I pulled his glasses off and ran down the bank, his protests ringing in my ears. It only took a minute to wedge the house neatly in the mulberry bush, although the river was high and I had to wade some of the way in. When I was happy that it was perfectly positioned, I went back to Toby and returned his vision to him.
Instantly he inspected my handiwork.
‘Look! There!’
‘What?’
It couldn’t have been more perfectly timed. Spike appeared out of nowhere, swimming in our direction, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He seemed somehow more solid than before. He’d grown, and his feathers were less fluffy. He flexed his wings slightly, reminding me that one day, of course, he would be able to fly. He no longer seemed as if he would be blown away in a single gust.
‘I’m going to get the fishing rod,’ Toby said. ‘I left it in the van.’
I nodded, determined not to lose sight of Spike. Milo stood next to me, also staring at him, as if in admiration. But the dangers were not yet over for our little bird. The moment Toby came back, the rod awkwardly under his armpit, Spike’s siblings sensed that there might be dinner in the vicinity.
Milo barked at them, agitated.
‘Nothing here for you,’ I told them. ‘You can fight for your own food at any time. This is for someone who can’t yet.’
Toby took a potato from his pocket and broke a bit off, hooking it on to the rod. He swung the line over the water, but annoyingly it went right past Spike and caught on a clump of water grass.
He tugged at it, but the line wouldn’t give.
There was nothing else for it. The cold water lapped at my ankles as I hooked my toes into the slimy mud, careful not to slip. I moved towards the clump of grass, like a wary traveller exploring a swamp.
As
I disentangled the hook, I saw I was within touching distance of Spike who’d stayed in the same spot. He looked up at me.
Then, despite my certainty that he would scarper, I took the slightly damp potato off the hook and put it in the palm of my hand.
‘Here,’ I whispered, moving it towards him. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the other cygnets, but they were stopped by a low growl from the riverbank. Milo had once again acted in Spike’s defence and his siblings retreated as if they had come up against an invisible wall.
Spike twitched his head to the side. He hesitated. We faced each other, frozen in time. And then with a jerk of his beak, so sudden that I would have missed it if I hadn’t been concentrating hard, he snatched the morsel from my hand and swallowed it whole.
He shuddered and automatically moved backwards, as if scared about what he’d done. I remained perfectly still. Moments later, he tried again. Soon, all the potato had gone. Toby sent more on the end of the rod when I had an idea. I motioned in the direction of the house where we’d already put food into one of the egg cups.
At first, Spike didn’t figure out what was happening, but he edged closer and closer to the house, and I rewarded him each time he moved in the right direction.
And then, just as I felt that my chest would burst with anticipation, he made a leap on to the veranda of the little house and grabbed the food in the cup.
I turned to Toby, grinning as he raised his camera to take a photo.
‘This is your home,’ I told Spike. ‘You’ll have to fight the others off yourself next time, but this place might help. We won’t be here.’
I sat down on the grass next to Toby, my bare feet freezing, but I felt happy. Milo was nestled in his favourite spot on his lap.
‘You did it,’ Toby whispered. ‘I don’t know how, but you did it.’
‘We both did. You did more than me.’
He looked at me then and asked unexpectedly, ‘Do you ever feel like doing a life swap with somebody, even if it’s just for a day or an hour – just to know for that snippet of time what it’s like to be them?’
I smiled, because although it had hardly been any time at all, he already knew me so well.
‘I used to do it a lot. I used to watch actresses on TV and want to jump into their skin, just for that one take of a film. And you?’
‘Oh, loads of people,’ he said, and he got that hazy look in his eyes when I really couldn’t tell what he was thinking. ‘Just now I was imagining what it would be like to be Spike.’
‘Scary, I reckon.’
‘Oh, yeah, the world must seem super-scary, but don’t you think it’s exciting too? He’s been through a lot of change, and now he has so many amazing possibilities before him. He can go anywhere he wants.’
‘Of course,’ I said. And thinking about it that way made me realise that a little bit of what Toby was saying was true of me too. It was almost as if Spike and I had been helping one another.
Just as we were leaving, I noticed the feathers clustered in the branches of Spike’s bush. I carefully pulled a few of the prettiest ones out and put them in my pocket. I was surprised to find that in my hand they seemed strong and sturdy, despite the small bits of fluff that still remained at the edges. His wings would soon be able to carry his weight and he would be ready to fly.
I kept one feather for myself and the other for somebody who I knew could use a bit of Spike’s strength.
Sixteen
Back at Toby’s house, he showed me the research he had put together after he’d found Spike.
‘It has all the facts in there. The ones I used to test you on.’
‘Of course. It’s how you became the swan geek.’
It seemed a lifetime ago that I’d first seen Spike’s tufty little head. He looked nothing like that old version of himself now. He was stronger and more graceful, and his fluff was beginning to disappear.
I sat at the kitchen table, reading through the rest of the booklet. Toby had kept everything – there were sketches of the wooden house and the fishing rod mechanism and plenty of photos: of Spike, of me and Milo at the water’s edge looking for Spike, and of Spike’s fantastic, newly painted house.
Toby looked at me from across the table and said, ‘It’s your turn to tell me – remember you said you would?’
We both knew exactly what he was talking about. The pit of my stomach turned cold, but then he smiled and something in me changed.
The words came spilling out. I started at the beginning. I told him about the nightmare, the shadow man and the colour thief and the daily disappearance of a new colour, visible only to me.
He listened, his forehead creased with concentration. And the more I spoke, the more rapid my story became. A river of words gushed from my mouth.
I was certain he wouldn’t believe me. He’d explode into laughter at any moment. But he didn’t, and I continued.
‘… and last night. Last night I dreamed that he’d finally won. I was fighting him but I had no energy left. He was just shouting for me to let go. And when I woke up and looked at my wall, I saw that Milo’s collar was no longer red, and I knew that it was true.’
‘And you haven’t told anyone? Why?’
‘I didn’t think anyone would believe me. My dad didn’t notice a thing when he came and looked at the mural. It’s in my head, Toby. It’s only in my own stupid head.’
I was surprised at how calm I sounded when inside I felt as if something was trying to break out of my chest.
‘But couldn’t you have told your dad? Your aunt?’
‘They have bigger things to worry about,’ I said.
‘Izzy, this is big,’ he told me. ‘It’s as big as you get. It’s huge.’
‘You’re not going to tell them, are you?’ I could imagine the look on Aunty Lyn’s face – a combination of impatience, confusion and worry. There would be nothing that she could do, of course. There was nothing anyone could do.
‘No, of course not. Not if you don’t want me to. But I’m going to think about how to help you. We can’t leave you like this.’
He held out his hand to pull me to my feet.
She came to me in a dream that night for the first time. There were no tubes and no beeping heart monitor. She stood in my room, her eyes narrowed in a look of concentration, sketching the outline of the next scene on the mural. I wanted to reach out and touch her, but somehow she was too far away.
She was wearing her favourite light-blue dungarees and her hair was swept up in a messy ponytail that was specked with paint. Milo ran round her feet, knocking over pots, spilling paint on to the sheet that had been carefully laid on the floor. She shooed him away, but only half-heartedly. She didn’t mind him there, not really.
‘Colour me in!’ I said. She picked up a paintbrush, dipped it in the pot of yellow, and brushed the tip of my nose.
‘You know I will. As soon as I’ve finished this.’
I was trying to hold still so that she could draw my profile, but my head kept drooping from tiredness. If only I could stay awake, if only I could fight the urge to sleep, then maybe she would…
‘Izzy! Izzy!’ The urgent call echoed through the silence of the night, followed by a rattle on glass. My dazed brain took a while to register that the sound was real. I didn’t want to leave the dream… I wasn’t ready.
But the shouting didn’t stop. I sat up in bed, rubbing my eyes, and realised that it was coming from the outside. I dragged myself from under the covers. The numbers on the alarm clock glowed – 4.26 a.m.
In the light of the street lamp Toby gazed up at me from the garden. He was holding a handful of pebbles. With his other hand, he beckoned me to come down.
I quickly put a jumper over my pyjama top. I padded downstairs careful not to wake Aunty Lyn, reassured by the steady snoring coming from Dad’s room. Milo didn’t stir from his usual spot. I thrust my bare feet into a pair of trainers. My fingers fumbled for a set of keys in the bowl by the front door and found th
em. I crept out into the night.
Toby put a finger to his lips and I followed him, his wheels creaking quietly, as we made our way to the gate.
It was like walking in a dream. The street around me blurred and swayed. Toby’s wheels gleamed in the dark, as his hands pushed in a steady rhythm.
It was only when we were safely in the alleyway that led to the river that he whispered: ‘I think I’ve figured it out, Izzy!’
‘What?’
‘I’ve been thinking all night. I couldn’t sleep. The colour thief was shouting at you to let go, wasn’t he?’
‘Yeah…’
‘Did he say what he wanted you to let go of?’
‘From whatever I was holding on to. I don’t know.’
‘That’s the thing,’ said Toby triumphantly. ‘You’ve been holding on to it, holding on to that terrible day.’
‘I don’t understand,’ I said. I was shivering now. Toby was partly obscured by the garage of the house next door, his face cut in half by a wedge of silvery light.
‘You have to release it. You’ve been holding it inside all this time. Now you must let it go.’
‘I can’t do it, Toby.’ I wanted to crawl back into the safe warmth of my bed, but my body was rigid, frozen.
‘You can,’ he insisted. ‘I know you can.’
It began to rain. The drizzle cooled my burning face.
‘Please.’ He squeezed my hand and pulled me gently in the direction of the river. ‘Please try. Let’s go inside the van.’
The blackness was all-consuming. It was impossible to make out where the mud ended and the river began.
‘I should have brought a torch,’ said Toby. ‘I left the house so quickly that I forgot.’
We moved slowly through the darkness, careful not to steer in the direction of the water. I held on to the handles of Toby’s wheelchair, more to steady myself than him. Through the regular smack of Toby’s palms on his wheels I heard the flutter of wings, which made me think of Spike’s feathers. I knew that somewhere in the depths of the night, his mum was protecting her offspring from any unexpected intruders. I felt reassured by her presence.
The Mystery of the Colour Thief Page 9