‘Eh?’
‘What’s happened to your eye?’
He blinked at her but couldn’t really focus on answering because of what he was seeing. Hilda was enveloped in light. No, she was producing it! Ralf shook his head as he tried to make sense of it. All around his sister, extending a good six inches out from her body was, a shimmering halo of colour, which ranged from palest blue to an extraordinary shade of violet. She rushed to him and pulled him towards the mirror.
‘Look!’
The mirror showed Ralf what she meant. The left hand side of his face was a particularly vivid shade of purple. His eyelid, up to the brow bone, was swollen like a ripe plum.
‘Oh, yeah,’ he said experimentally frowning then raising his eyebrows and wincing. ‘I had a bit of a close encounter with a tree yesterday.’ His eyes moved to her shocked face reflected in the mirror. ‘Don’t worry, Hild. It’s only a bruise. It’ll go down.’
Hilda’s lips went thin and she grasped his shoulders. ‘Not the face, you mooncalf! The eye! Your eye’s changed colour!’
It was true. His left eye was no longer deep blue. Over night, the colour had been leeched out of it. It was now a pale, almost silver, grey. He rubbed at the eye but it made no difference. He blinked at Hilda but that made no difference either. If he made his vision slide out of focus, he could still see the light around her with his changed eye. She looked devastated by the change in him and, hand to her face, the colours around her wavered and dimmed. He rushed to hug her.
‘It’s fine,’ he smiled. ‘I’m not bothered at all. It makes me look quite tough.’
After much protestation, and after he’d eaten a gargantuan breakfast to reassure her, Hilda was eventually convinced that Ralf was, despite his odd new appearance, all right. Hilda spent the rest of the day clucking over him, bathing his eye in salt water, tending his cuts and bruises and polishing the trophy, whilst Ralf marvelled at the glow surrounding her and wondered, half seriously, whether the pressure was finally getting to him.
Though Hilda’s ministrations eased his soreness and cured his headache, they didn’t (as Ralf knew they wouldn’t) have any effect on his new eye colour. And, when he opened the door to Leo on Monday morning, his friend did a double take and gave a low whistle. Ralf felt like doing the same. Leo had a colour round him too. Like Hilda’s it pulsed with light but whilst hers was the colour of summer evening, Leo’s was autumn leaves.
‘Do you think it’s permanent?’ Leo asked.
Ralf could hardly talk for staring at his friend. His colours were so vivid! ‘I don’t know,’ he breathed, eventually. ‘But I’m not worried about how it looks. I’m too freaked out by what I can see!’
As they walked up to the station, Ralf told him of the Time Stop, his meeting with Ambrose and the change in his vision.
‘It’s all bouncing round my head in a jumble at the moment, though,’ he said. ‘I need to get it straight before I tell everyone, okay?’
‘No worries,’ said Leo. ‘No point having to go through it more than once, anyway. You sure you’re alright, though? You look pretty bashed up.’
Ralf nodded and, as they walked to the station, gave him a running commentary on the spectrum of colours that now bombarded him.
‘See Alice Cheeseman over there?’ He pointed to a plaited girl, one of Alfie’s Crew, who was hurrying down the High Street and unfocussed his gaze. ‘She’s got loads of different shades, all swirling around her like it hasn’t made up its mind what colour it’s going to be!’ He gestured towards Hettie Timmins who was unlocking the Post Office door. ‘Very thin colour round her. Pale green.’
‘Weird,’ said Leo.
‘I suppose,’ said Ralf. ‘But it kinda feels right, you know? It’s like when you sometimes just get a feeling about someone. You either like them or hate them but you can’t really say why. Well, I can see that now! Actually see people’s characters!’
‘What about him?’ Leo asked when they reached the station, but Ralf just shook his head. However much he toyed with his focus, the stationmaster had no colour at all. Neither, he noticed, did many people on the train.
Of the ones who did, there seemed no end to the shades that surrounded them and Ralf could see immediately what they were like. There were sour old women of puce and acid yellow, short tempered men who scowled from within auras of flaming red, more small children who, like Alice Cheeseman, had yet to develop their true personalities and whose colours had not crystallised. What unnerved Ralf most, though, were the number of fearful people whose colours were thin and dimming.
Leo left him at Dark Ferry and he had the rest of the journey to muse on his strange new skill. Why did some people have it but not others? What did it mean?
Unsure how he’d be received by the other boys and feeling oddly vulnerable, Ralf walked into school with his jaw set firm. He kept his head down and arrived early at History to find Winters chalking up the day’s lesson on the blackboard.
‘Come in, Ralf,’ the master said, without turning.
Whoa! Ralf froze in the doorway and adjusted his vision to get a better view. Winters had a shimmer and a half! The History Master’s colour was a silver cloak. It looked almost as though the man was standing in the centre of a star and Ralf had an urge to shade his eyes.
Suddenly realising how odd he must look staring with his mouth open, Ralf went to his desk and started to take out his books.
‘You’re leaving it then?’ Winters asked. He perched on the edge of his desk looking quizzical.
Ralf blinked into the brightness. ‘Sir?’
‘The white feather.’ He shrugged off Ralf’s astonishment with a mischievous smile. ‘I have a snoop in the desks every so often to check for knuckle dusters – and mint imperials if any one’s got ‘em.’
‘I didn’t want to carry it around,’ said Ralf.
‘It belongs in the waste basket.’
‘I – I wanted to keep it, sir. To remind me, I suppose.’
‘It was a shabby thing for someone to do, Osborne. And anyway, you won didn’t you? Showed them what you were made of. Jolly good finish, by the way.’
Ralf grinned. ‘Thanks.’
Winters held up a finger and wagged it in Ralf’s direction. ‘Bin it and forget it. That’s my advice. And put a cold fish on that. It’ll bring out the bruise.’
Ralf nodded as the first boys arrived and took their seats. Maybe he should do just that? Seth came in then and Ralf let out a breath at the deep royal blue that pulsed around him. He said something as he sat but Ralf was so wrapped up the brightness of his colour and the vivid shades surrounding some of his classmates that he could only mumble in reply. He was still staring round when he realised the mood in the room had abruptly changed.
‘Why aren’t you in France, sir?’
The question came mid-way through Winters’ introduction to the lesson and made the master start.
‘Did you think of that question all by yourself, Aston?’ Winters perched on the edge of his desk. The left-hand side of his face twitched involuntarily and there was a pulse of light from the colour that surrounded him.
‘A group of us were talking, sir, and we wondered. I mean, you’re younger than some of the fathers who’ve already gone.’ Aston’s colour had been a vibrant orange but it was tinged with darkness now. Swirls of shadow muddied the shade and Ralf watched, open mouthed, learning the colour vocabulary of the boy’s changing emotions.
‘Quite right. Only natural that you should wonder, I s-suppose,’ Winters replied. ‘I have not yet been called up. Teachers are low on the list because it is considered, by those in p-power, that we do a job of importance. Shall we move on?’ Winters reached for his chalk and Ralf saw that his fingers were trembling. His aura was thinning. Ralf frowned. Was it dimmer than before, too?
‘But you could join up, couldn’t you, if you wanted to?’ Ross Childs spoke this time, looking nervous yet exhilarated at his own daring but displaying no aura at all.
Seth threw Ralf a worried look and raised his eyebrows.
Winters sighed. Another twitch. ‘I could, as you say, do just that.’ The aura was definitely thinner. It was less silver now, more grey. Winters looked around the room letting his eye rest on each face in front of him. As he turned to the board he did a kind of shudder – the whole left side of his body seemed to convulse and then he was speaking again. ‘S-so...we were discussing the quarrel between Austria and S-Serbia, which had become increasingly more explosive since 1908.’ Ralf snatched up his pen and began to take rapid notes.
At the end of the lesson and, as the last boys were leaving, Ralf made his way to Winters’ desk to hand in his book. He was standing right there when Winters opened his drawer to reveal he had a white feather of his own. The entire left side of Winters’ body jerked. His left eye began to wink and his hands shook uncontrollably. Ralf took an involuntary step back as Winters’ aura flared white hot in anger then shrank to almost nothing, the barest trace of a line around his body.
‘Leave now, please Osborne.’
Ralf hesitated. Winters slammed the drawer shut and in one wild movement, swept everything on his desk to the floor. ‘LEAVE!’
‘Will said you’d hurt your eye but that’s’ a doozy,’ Seth said when Ralf caught up with him on his way to Physics.
‘Too complicated to go into now,’ said Ralf in a low voice. ‘Tell you later.’
‘Alright,’ Seth agreed easily. ‘Listen, I have to get to OTC after school, you wouldn’t go back and check on Winters, would you?’
Ralf nodded. He wasn’t sure what he was going to say but when he got there at the end of the day, he knew Seth was right to have been worried. Winters sat hunched over a newspaper, hands shaking uncontrollably. The silver light that had pulsed from him earlier was now only a sparkling thread. He caught sight of Ralf just as he’d started to back out of the door.
‘O–Osborne?’
‘Sorry to disturb you, sir. I forgot a book.’
The strain of talking seemed too much for the teacher because he just waved him into the room. Ralf fumbled at his desk for a minute or two but straightened up when he heard a shout from Winters, who’d thrown his fountain pen across the room. Ralf hurried to retrieve it.
‘Eighteen a-across,’ smiled Winters. ‘Sure it’s wrong. T– too easy.’
Ralf placed the pen and his books on top of the huge pile of paper on the front desk.
‘You came back to see how I was, didn’t you?’ Winters said.
Ralf wasn’t sure what to say.
‘You needn’t have, you know,’ Winters continued. ‘I’ll be p-perfectly all right. The st-stuttering I can cope with but,’ he held up his hands, ‘it’s the damned shakes that are annoying.’
‘Sir, I –’
Winters went on as if he'd not spoken. ‘Ypres 1917. Joined up as s-soon as I was old enough. I was quite keen the first time around, but since then I’ve rather lost my enthusiasm for killing p-people.’ He took in Ralf’s shocked expression and laughed wryly. ‘And, of course, there’s the fact that I don’t suppose I’d be much good at it anymore. Wasn’t that good at it before come to think of it, but I’m thirty-eight now. That’s pretty much over the hill, I’d say.’
‘Not really sir.’
‘You saw what happened at the church last summer, Osborne. I’m a bloody mess!’
Ralf was appalled at this outburst. ‘Sir –’
‘A grown man hallucinating, Osborne? It was bad enough when I got back from France, then I only s-saw friends who’d died. Now I’m seeing s-strangers from a variety of p-professions.’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘I saw a Nun the other day, Osborne! What does that tell you about my state of mind? Add that to the shakes – they come back in times of stress – and I’m a bit of a recipe for disaster.’ He laughed again but as he spoke Ralf saw the shadows building in his faint aura. ‘I’d think being shot at by Germans qualifies as a ‘time of s-stress’ wouldn’t you?’
Ralf found his voice. ‘I’m sorry, sir.’
‘No reason why you should be. But, other than Seth, the boys don’t know.’ He met Ralf’s eye. ‘I’d like to keep it that way, if it’s all the same to you.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Off you t-toddle then.’
Ralf scooped up his things and left but paused outside the classroom door. It was difficult to tell over the noise of the Third Form leaving one of Asinus’ detentions but he could have sworn he heard something from the room he’d just left. Ralf’s innards seemed to freeze. Winters was crying.
Something inside him burst. The internal dam that had, until now, held back all his fear, confusion and the sheer, appalling weight of his worry gave way. Ralf turned and ran. Scattering Third Formers, he barrelled along the corridor, down the stairs to the main doors and burst through them with the force of a bolting horse. He didn’t care that boys were staring, that he was moving too fast to seem possible. He had to be alone.
Ralf was out of the school grounds in a matter of seconds. The temptation to Shift was so strong that he had to grit his teeth and dig his nails into his palms to stop himself from giving in to it.
An hour later he came to his senses on the Village Green with no real memory of how he’d got there. The War Memorial caught his eye and he walked over to stare at the names. There were forty-seven of them. Forty-seven village men that Winters had known had died in ‘the war to end all wars’ and now it was happening again. Was it so surprising the man was falling apart? Ralf felt sick.
He walked, not caring where he was going, trying to get things straight in his head. Was Winters one of the Natus? How could he help him? What were the colours he was seeing? Was this what Ambrose had meant? He was supposed to be leader of this rag tag bunch of misfits, after all. That was what Ambrose had said, hadn’t he? But what must he do? How must he lead them and where? It was all too much to take in.
Evening came and he was still stomping moodily up across the fields, when his peace was interrupted by the sound of hooves. Startled, he looked up to see a beautiful black stallion cantering towards him. King guided the horse expertly to a halt directly in front of him.
King looked every bit the Lord of the Manor. He was, Ralf noticed, a swirling mass of changing colours. They weren’t the pastel shades he’d seen round Alice Cheeseman, though. King’s aura flashed from rich red to royal blue to deep purple, reflecting Ralf thought, the clash of several strong but conflicting emotions. Ralf wasn’t going to be intimidated, though, so spoke first. ‘Bad luck, on Saturday.’
King broke into loud guffaws. ‘Bad luck? You’re priceless. You really are!’
‘For goodness sake, King!’ Ralf cried. ‘I’m trying to be nice. Why are you making it so difficult?’
King’s laughter stopped abruptly and he spoke with such venom that the horse shied. ‘Are you really that stupid, Osborne?’ His aura flared a dark magenta.
Their eyes met. King’s were not those of a beaten man. ‘What do you mean?’ Ralf asked hesitantly.
‘I – threw – the – race!’ King smirked. ‘I could have thrashed you easily at the end, Osborne. Just knowing that is enough for me.’
Ralf’s face flushed with anger. There was no way he was going to give King the chance to crow. ‘It doesn’t count if you cheat, Julian.’
‘Cheat?’
‘The ambush in the woods? I’d’ve been miles ahead if your mindless lap dogs, hadn’t tried to pulverise me!’
‘That had nothing to do with me!’ King was almost shouting now. ‘It was all Tank’s idea – him and those other morons. I’d have stopped them if I’d known.’
‘And the white feather? That was sickening.’
‘That was Tank not me!’
‘I don’t believe you. Mine would have been bad enough, but to do it to Winters was really low.’
‘Winters? What do you mean? He didn’t get one too?’
Ralf stepped forward and grabbed the horse’s reigns. ‘Yes he did! And you know it!’
The stallion snorted and danced on the spot. Ralf reached up to calm the animal but found himself staring into a baleful, brown eye and let go.
‘I don’t know anything about that,’ said King. His aura pulsed a deep angry red. ‘But stop changing the subject. I beat you, fair and square. We both know I slacked off at the end.’
‘What is the matter with you?’ Ralf asked calmly, stepping back. ‘Why is it so important that you beat me the whole time?’
King’s face was inches from his own. ‘Because I’m not going to be the other side of your coin!’ he spat. ‘I’ve spent my whole life not living up to comparisons. It was bad enough when it was my dead brother. You can’t compete with a corpse – believe me, I’ve tried. But I’ll be damned if I’ll be beaten by you!’
‘Me?’
‘Oh, yes,’ King spat. ‘My father was at the bridge that day in the summer. He saw the whole thing. How you protected that little runt Tomkins and how you stood your ground against the rest of us.’ He straightened himself up and mimicked his father’s crisp tone. ‘Look at young Osborne and how noble he is – how honourable! Look at all the advantages you’ve had and still he’s the better man! He always does the right thing.’ Well I’m sick of it!’
Ralf took another step back. ‘I didn’t know.’
‘Why should you?’ King said bitterly. ‘But he was watching the race. He knows I could have beaten you and he knows I chose not to.’ King’s hand was shaking on the bridle and he had to pause to stroke the stallion and whisper in its ear. ‘I told him some guff about it you being low because Niall was away. Your sad, hard life. Said I didn’t want to kick you while you were down. He lapped it up! For thirty seconds, he looked at me with, what? Pride? Respect? I don’t know…something! And then you came along and trumped me again!’
‘Oh, pleeeeease, can you engrave the cup with both Village and School?’ King mocked in a sickly-sweet tone. ‘The oh, so perfect, Ralf Osborne does the right thing again. And, yet again, Father looks at me like I’m not fit to wipe your boots!’
‘But I didn’t –’
The Turnarounders and the Arbuckle Rescue Page 38