Mindscape

by M. M. Vaughan

  Ms. Lamb approached one of the two police officers stationed outside the front and, with the same angry tone of voice that Chris had thought was reserved just for them, demanded to be allowed in.

  “The gallery is closed,” said the first police officer, a young woman in pristine uniform.

  “Yes, I can see that,” said Ms. Lamb, looking at the large sign on the door. “I am capable of reading. Now let us in—we are expected.”

  “I’m sorry, my job is to make sure nobody comes in or out without authorization.”

  “You won’t have a job if you don’t let us in right now.”

  Chris cringed, and they all looked away in embarrassment at the way Ms. Lamb was acting.

  “If you don’t leave immediately, we will be forced to take action,” said the second officer, scowling.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said Ms. Lamb, clearly not in the slightest bit intimidated. “Go and get Sir Neville Loosier right now—I know he’s inside.”

  Both police officers suddenly looked very nervous at the sound of the commissioner’s name.

  Without another word, the first officer disappeared into the gallery, and a few minutes later, he emerged behind a tall man who had slicked-black hair and wore a gray suit.

  “Commissioner,” said Ms. Lamb, “these officers of yours should be dismissed for their incompetence.”

  If the commissioner was surprised by Ms. Lamb’s request, he didn’t show it. “Just doing their job,” he said calmly as he waved them through the glass doors.

  “It’s good to meet you all,” he said once they had stopped in the large white reception area. He shook each of their hands in turn. “I’ve been looking forward to seeing your work.”

  “Where will they be working?” snapped Ms. Lamb.

  The commissioner gave Ms. Lamb a disapproving glance before leading them down a long corridor, through a set of double doors, and into another white room.

  “This,” he said, turning to the pupils, “is where the incident occurred. The three pieces you can see are by the other finalists. I’ll give you a quick tour and explain where everything happened, in case it helps.”

  Chris followed the commissioner as he walked over to a large ball of green yarn sitting on a white plinth.

  “This,” explained the commissioner, “is The Sheep’s Lament by Emily Buckworth. She was in the restaurant at the time of the robbery, along with Kingston Khan—whose piece as you know, was stolen—and the other finalist, Ann Abernathy. This is her piece.”

  Chris approached the large photograph hanging on the wall and looked up at it, confused. It was, as far as he could tell, completely black.

  “It’s called A Portrait of Death as a Young Man,” explained the commissioner.

  “I don’t get modern art,” said Chris to Rex, who was standing next to him.

  “I think it’s brilliant,” said Rex, though Chris wasn’t sure if he was being sarcastic.

  “Finally,” said the commissioner as he pointed at a large white canvas with a single black dot in the middle, “this is Valentino Brick’s entry. It’s called This Is the Center of the Universe. As I said, he was the only person in the room when the robbery occurred, and he was standing right . . . here.”

  Chris looked down at the splatter of blood on the floor, cordoned off by a square of police tape.

  “That, I’m afraid, is all we can tell you. The attack occurred at midnight. I hope that you’ll be able to tell me more after the interviews.”

  “Utter rubbish!” said Ms. Lamb.

  Everybody turned to look at her and only then realized that she was not talking to the commissioner, but looking at the ball of green yarn.

  “That, madam, is not a very pleasant thing to say.”

  Chris turned to see a man in a blue velvet suit with a wild mass of white hair standing at the room’s entrance.

  “I am entitled to my opinion,” said Ms. Lamb curtly.

  “Excellent suit,” said the man, looking at Sebastian’s pink suit.

  Sebastian grinned. “I am much obliged. Yours is most tremendous also.”

  “At least someone here has good taste,” said the man. He narrowed his eyes in the direction of Ms. Lamb.

  “This, children, is Kingston Khan,” said the commissioner.

  “Sorry about your bread getting stolen,” said Lexi.

  “Well, not your fault, but thank you,” said Kingston as he shook Lexi’s hand. “My goodness—what spectacular green eyes!”

  Lexi stood awkwardly, blushing, while Kingston stared at her intently, as if he were taking notes in his head.

  “And this,” said the commissioner, interrupting, “is Valentino Brick.”

  Chris turned to see a man dressed head to toe in black, his black hair plastered down across his head with what Chris imagined must have been an entire tub of hair wax. Just below his hairline, a large bandage was taped to his forehead, some dried blood visible on it.

  “Yes, yes. You must all be very thrilled,” said Valentino without looking at any of them. “I am a busy man, commissioner. How long do you intend to keep me here?”

  “Just a little while longer, Mr. Brick. Thank you so much for your patience. I’ll go and see how everything is getting on and see what we can do. In the meantime, Mr. Brick, we’ve arranged lunch for you in the restaurant. Now, children, would you follow me?”

  • • •

  “I’m afraid this is the best we could do,” said the commissioner, leading Chris and the others into a small room crammed full of cleaning equipment. A large table had been placed in the center. Chris pushed his way past a line of mops and wedged himself into his seat.

  “I believe you have the report forms?” asked the commissioner.

  Ms. Lamb rolled her eyes, as if the question were absurd. “Of course.”

  “Very well, I’ll leave you to it. The interviews will start immediately. I have a list here of all the names—Sir Bentley has already assigned which of you will be, erm, how do you say it?”

  “Mind Accessing?” asked Philip.

  “That’s it. Sir Bentley has drawn up a schedule to make sure that nobody is too overworked. I believe using this Ability of yours can be quite tiring. So . . . ,” said the commissioner, reading from a piece of paper, “Chris and Daisy, you will go first.”

  Chris looked over at Ms. Lamb and saw that she was glowering at him. He looked away quickly but couldn’t help a small smile. He was fairly certain that she wouldn’t have used him at all, but now she was left with no choice.

  “Yes, sir,” he said as Ms. Lamb slammed a pencil and report form in front of him.

  • • •

  The first interviewee, one of the two guards, was clearly nervous as he took his seat in the next room, completely unaware that not only was he about to be interviewed by police but he was also about to have his mind accessed by a pair of children sitting only a few feet away.

  It was, however, obvious to Chris within only a few minutes of searching through the man’s mind that he had nothing to do with the robbery and that the real reason for his nerves was that he had fallen asleep at the job, peacefully dreaming about fishing for salmon when he should have been keeping guard over one of modern art’s most expensive pieces of work.

  Chris wrote down the little that he had found and handed his form in to Ms. Lamb, who took it silently and waited for Daisy to finish hers.

  “Next,” said Ms. Lamb, pointing at Sebastian and Lexi.

  And so the time passed in silence as each pair took turns accessing the minds of the guards and then the gallery owners. Their efforts proved fruitless.

  “This is ridiculous,” said Ms. Lamb, reading through all the reports. “Somebody must know something. You need to try harder.”

  Chris felt himself tense. Without actually making anything up, they couldn’t change what they found.

  The commissioner, who had been popping his head in at the end of every interview to find out about their progress, appeared once agai
n.

  “Nothing?”

  Ms. Lamb shook her head. “No. Nothing at all.”

  “Well, the only people left are the four artists. We’ll start with Valentino Brick—he’s getting restless.”

  “Getting restless” was something of an understatement. Chris watched, in his mind, as Valentino entered the room next to them, shouting and waving his arms about in frustration.

  “Are you doing this to wind me up?” he snarled at the commissioner. “I am an artist—I need freedom, and you are caging me in like a wild animal.”

  Chris looked over at Daisy, who smiled back at him. Fortunately, as Ms. Lamb couldn’t see into the adjoining room, or into their minds, she just had to sit in silence and wait for them to do their work in their own time.

  “Ready?” asked Daisy. Chris nodded and turned his head toward the far wall. He let his mind wander until all he could see was Valentino Brick, seated and silently mouthing abuse at the policemen in front of him. Chris let his eyes glaze over.

  The first thing Chris saw, on entering Valentino’s Reception, was an explosion of color. Unlike any other Reception he had visited, Valentino Brick did not appear to view his surroundings as a photograph. Instead, the policemen in front of him were blocks of dark colors, their faces red and melting, and their voices, which Chris knew were level and calm, sounded in here like screeching cats.

  “This is so strange,” said Daisy, walking up to Chris.

  “If this is his Reception,” said Chris, walking over to the spinning glass doors at the other end of the room, where thoughts of bold colors were pouring in, one after the other in a never-ending stream, “imagine what the other side of this is going to look like.”

  “Wait! Don’t go without me!” said Daisy, running through the blocks of color to catch up.

  “Ready?” asked Chris, eager to get inside.

  Daisy nodded.

  “Okay, one . . . two . . . three . . . go!”

  Chris jumped in first as a gap appeared between the revolving doors. He had intended to run round to the other side, but the doors were moving faster than he had expected and he found himself slammed up against the glass and spinning around, colors swirling about him, until, suddenly, he saw his opportunity and pushed himself forward.

  For a moment, Chris wasn’t sure if he’d made it through. He didn’t know where else he could be, but this was like no mind he had ever seen. Or not seen. There were no buildings, no streets. Just white. A pure and brilliant white that surrounded him so completely, he wasn’t sure if he was looking at a wall or a distant sky. He put his hand up in front of himself and saw that it was perfectly in focus. So he wasn’t in a cloud of fog, he thought. He looked around, squinting to try to make out anything at all, but there was nothing. He was still sitting on the white floor looking confused when Daisy came flying out from behind him and landed by his side.

  “Where are we?” she asked, shielding her eyes with her hands and looking around.

  He turned and saw the door behind him, as if hovering in midair, a whirlwind of colors swirling violently against the spinning glass panes.

  “I don’t know,” he said at last. “Do you think his mind is empty?”

  Daisy considered this and then shook her head. “It can’t be. We heard him talk to the commissioner—it would have been obvious if his mind were empty.”

  Chris nodded in agreement.

  “So, what shall we do—turn around and go back?”

  “No way,” said Chris immediately, “Ms. Lamb doesn’t need any more reason to have a go at me. Let’s just walk around a bit. There’s got to be something here.”

  Chris stood up.

  “It looks like you’re floating,” said Daisy, giggling.

  Chris smiled. “Come on, let’s go. I reckon we try to follow the map in our own minds. If we go straight,” he said, pointing into the white, “we should walk onto People Street—the Family building should be in front of us. If we don’t see anything, we’ll turn right and see if we find anything—there’s got to be something on Arts Avenue.”

  “Okay,” said Daisy.

  “Oh, and don’t forget to keep an eye on the doors to Reception,” continued Chris. “We don’t want to get lost in here forever.”

  Daisy’s eyes widened in horror.

  “It’s all right. It’s not going to happen.”

  “Okay,” said Daisy, walking over and taking Chris’s hand. “Just don’t leave me alone.”

  “I won’t,” he said, blushing, glad that Rex wasn’t with them—Chris would never have heard the end of it. “Ready?”

  Daisy nodded.

  Chris took a deep breath and stepped forward. He was acting braver than he felt for Daisy’s sake but, really, he had no idea what to expect, and he just hoped that he wasn’t leading them into trouble. He looked down at his feet as he took one step onto the white floor, and then another and then . . .

  Daisy pulled on Chris’s arm suddenly, yanking him backward.

  “What was that?” she asked.

  “What was what?” asked Chris, confused. He looked around but could see nothing.

  “Something just fell on your head.”

  “What? I didn’t feel anything,” he said, brushing his hand over his hair. Then he looked at Daisy, who was staring at his hand in horror.

  “You’re bleeding,” she whispered.

  Chris looked down at his hand, which was covered in dark red, and his heart jumped. He ran his hand again through his hair, but he couldn’t feel anything. Even more confusing was that he hadn’t thought it was possible to get hurt in somebody’s mind.

  “I don’t think it’s my blood,” said Chris.

  “Let’s go back,” said Daisy, pulling at Chris’s sleeve.

  “You go,” he said. “I’m just going to have a bit more of a look.”

  “I’m not leaving you here!” said Daisy.

  “Just two minutes,” said Chris.

  Daisy closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Fine,” she said. “I’m coming with you.”

  She took Chris’s hand once more, and squeezing it tight, they both stepped forward.

  Plop.

  Chris’s head snapped round, and there, on the ground, was a small dark-blue puddle. He looked up but could see nothing.

  Daisy remained quiet as Chris knelt down to look at the puddle more closely. Then, as Daisy took a sharp breath, he reached out and touched it.

  “It’s paint,” he said, surprised.

  “Paint?”

  “I think so,” said Chris, rubbing the blue smear between his fingers.

  He stood up and took another step forward.

  Plop. Plop. Plop.

  Chris looked around, amazed, as drops started falling in front of them, creating splotches of red, green, and pink. He took another step forward, and as he did so, the drops started to fall more frequently.

  Chris watched, fascinated, as the rain of color began to fall, creating puddles on the ground that swirled as they landed on top of each other. He looked over at Daisy, who was staring down at a bright-green splatter on her dress.

  “Don’t worry,” said Chris, “I don’t think it will be there when we leave his mind.”

  “Okay,” said Daisy, reassured. “Let’s keep going.”

  The two of them took another step forward and then another and then, suddenly, the downpour started, as if a shower above them had been turned on to full power.

  Chris and Daisy looked at each other in amazement as the rain grew in intensity. The drops now blurred as they fell hard and fast, covering them in a rainbow of paint. He watched as Daisy’s blond hair quickly became a sodden mess of multicolored stripes that dripped down her face.

  Daisy looked down at her dress and arms and then back up at Chris. He wondered what to say, not sure if she was upset or frightened, when suddenly, her face broke into a huge grin and she started laughing.

  “This is amazing!” she shouted, spinning round in the rain.

  Rel
ieved, Chris laughed and jumped into a large puddle that was forming in front of him. The paint flew up and landed all over Daisy. She went to kick at the puddle to splash him, but she slipped and fell down, screaming with laughter.

  Chris rushed over, the rain still falling hard and heavy, to help her up. Daisy took his hand, and then, with an evil grin he hadn’t seen before, she pulled his arm and he felt himself tumble downward, face first, into a large puddle of swirling purple and turquoise.

  “You’re in trouble!” he said, reaching out to splash her, before realizing that she was no longer looking at him.

  “What?” he asked, turning his head to see what Daisy was looking at. “Ohhhh . . .”

  There, revealing itself as the rain fell, was a large building, its top half covered in colorful paint that was dripping down over the doors and windows of the bottom half.

  “The buildings appear as you walk through the mind,” said Chris to himself as he stood up and turned around to face where they had come from. He saw that the rain was falling only around where they stood and that, behind them, the trail of paint was quickly disappearing, leaving the floor crisp and white once again.

  “It’s the Family building, just like you said,” called Daisy through the falling rain as she inspected the now-red-and-orange sign on the front door.

  “Come on,” said Chris, with renewed enthusiasm for their mission now that he understood what was happening. “Let’s see if we can find the Crimes and Misdemeanors building.”

  Chris waited for Daisy to catch up with him, and they started walking in the direction of Crime Alley, the rain turning to follow them.

  “Wow,” said Daisy as they walked slowly forward, watching the paint fall in front of them to reveal the once-invisible buildings.

  Chris wiped the paint from his face with the back of his hand and continued onward, taking Daisy by the hand to hurry her up.

  They began to run, splashing through the colors, and the rain quickened also, leading the way.

  “Down here,” said Chris, turning right down a small alleyway that appeared only seconds earlier.

  Chris stopped and looked ahead of him at the plain white background. He took a step forward and another until the rain suddenly began to reveal a building not much larger than Chris’s own house.