The Extraordinary Colors of Auden Dare

by Zillah Bethell

  “Vivi tells me that you cannot see color. Is that right?”

  I nodded, spilling a few scone crumbs over the table.

  “Achromatopsia,” Vivi said.

  “Hmm?”

  “Achromatopsia. I looked it up. An inability to see color. Achromatopsia.”

  I nodded again. “That’s it. That’s the word. I always forget. Too many letters.”

  Immaculata continued. “Can the doctors do anything about it? Can they operate or put you on medication? Something that will help you see color?”

  “No. There’s nothing they can do. I am going to see everything in black and white for the rest of my life.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  “Is it?” I gratefully accepted one of the muffins as Immaculata held out the plate to me. “It is what it is, I suppose. It’s not important.”

  Immaculata’s eyes seemed to question my last statement and I quickly tucked into the muffin to avoid having to look at them again.

  “Actually,” I said eventually, “my uncle once promised that he would try to help me to see. He was a scientist.” I stole another quick look at Immaculata. “He said he would try to work on something.”

  “Is he still trying?”

  I put the remains of the muffin back onto my small plate. It was quite dry and was making me thirsty and I didn’t want to drink more of their milk than I had to.

  “No. He died.”

  “Oh, I am sorry.”

  I shrugged. “It’s okay. Just one of those things.”

  After tea, we went back into the main room and Vivi introduced me to Migishoo.

  “He loves to fly out over the quad at night. His favorite food is sunflower seeds.” She smiled at the bird. “He’ll repeat anything you say. ‘Pretty parrot. I … am … a … pretty … parrot.’”

  Migishoo tilted his head as if he was wondering what the girl in front of him was on about. Then, after a few seconds, he squawked.

  “Priddy parod. I yamma priddy parod.”

  We laughed.

  “Go on. You try,” said Vivi.

  “Okay. Erm … ‘Auden Dare is clever and handsome.’”

  It looked at me as if I was mad. And then …

  “Or town tare is clerer ant ansum.”

  “Ha!”

  I sort of fell backward, laughing, and as I did so my eye jumped onto something tucked away on a shelf. I suddenly stopped laughing.

  “Auden?” Vivi asked. “What is it?”

  I walked across to the shelf and reached up. I grabbed hold of the thing I’d seen and pulled it down. It was cold and hard, smooth along its curved surface but jagged in the middle. And about a hundred different things slotted into place in my mind.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked again.

  I turned it over in my hands, not able to believe my eyes.

  “Snowflake,” I said mostly to myself. “Snowflake 843B.”

  Vivi jumped up off the chair. “How do you know…”

  Before she could finish, I went over to where my coat was lying over the back of an armchair and reached into the right-hand pocket. I pulled out the small half of meteorite that Uncle Jonah had left me in his will and slotted it onto this new discovery.

  They were a perfect fit.

  Vivi stopped where she was.

  “Vivi?” I said, amazed. “Six Six? You are Six Six?”

  She looked stunned. “And you must be the Golden Boy.”

  *   *   *

  Of course, it made perfect sense.

  Vivi. Six Six. Break up her name into the roman numerals VI VI. Six six. It was exactly the sort of cryptic crosswordy-type thing that Uncle Jonah loved doing. Stripping words back to their basic elements and toying with them, piecing them back together—back to front; down, then up.

  “It’s what Dr. Bloom always called me. Six Six. I used to like Dr. Bloom. He was really nice to me. Always used to give me lollipops whenever I had to run errands to his rooms. Always asked me how school was going. Things like that.”

  “And what was that you called me?” I asked. “The Golden Boy?”

  Vivi nodded and got up from her chair. “I suppose it must come from Auden. The chemical symbol for gold is Au. Au Den. Gold Den. Golden. That must be it.” She dragged a folded sheet of paper down from the same shelf on which had been sitting Snowflake 843B. “He mentions you in the letter that went with the meteorite.” She opened the paper and handed it to me.

  I recognized the spidery, slanting scrawl. It was just like the letter Uncle Jonah had left me. In fact, it said lots of the same things. A description of Snowflake 843B and of where it had come from. A small paragraph explaining just how tiny the chances of it hitting Earth actually were. A mention of the fact that the meteorite looked just like a rock that could be found in the garden of Unicorn Cottage.

  And then another paragraph.

  By the way, it said, its sister—Snowflake 843A—I have left to an extraordinary young man that I know. I like to think of him as the Golden Boy. The Golden Boy is one of the strongest and bravest people that I have ever met—he has had an awful lot to contend with in his life. I also have a feeling that after my death, he might well move to Cambridge. If you should ever come across him then, do, please, make him feel at home. He will need a good friend, and I know for a fact you are one of the best.

  Anyway, Six Six … take very good care of yourself and your dear mother, and remember that your mind is bigger and sharper than any number of universes squared.

  Dig deep, my girl. Dig deep.

  Always remember to dig deep.

  Yours,

  Jonah (Dr. Bloom)

  I didn’t know how to feel. Uncle Jonah was referring to me as the Golden Boy—which I think I kind of liked.

  But then again …

  Uncle Jonah—my uncle—had written a letter, just like the one he’d written me, to someone else. Someone he wasn’t even related to. Vivi was just somebody who happened to live in the same college as him. That’s all. What right did she have to the other part of the meteorite?

  “That’s weird,” Vivi said, taking the letter from me. “Don’t you think?”

  “What?”

  “Well, the fact that you were put next to me in school and then weeks later we find out that—without either of us knowing—we both have a connection. Dr. Bloom.”

  “Uncle Jonah,” I churlishly added. “I didn’t know him as Dr. Bloom. I knew him as Uncle Jonah.”

  Vivi fell quiet and I suddenly felt guilty. She was my friend. A good friend. The best friend—as Jonah said in his letter. And as my best friend, I had a duty to take care of her. Not upset her.

  “He must have thought very highly of you,” I said. “To leave you the other half of Snowflake.”

  Vivi smiled. “He was nice. A very clever man. I liked him a lot.”

  Suddenly, the bead curtain between the sitting room and the kitchen flew open and Immaculata marched in, pointing her finger straight at me.

  “It just came to me! You are the boy who ransacked poor Dr. Bloom’s rooms! You!”

  *   *   *

  Don’t worry. It was all okay. Vivi quickly explained everything to her mother, who calmed down almost immediately.

  “Oh, goodness.” Immaculata fell back into a chair, her hand clasping her chest. “Dr. Bloom was your uncle? Dr. Bloom was a gentleman. A real gentleman. The number of times I patched up his subfusc … Goodness! To think you’re his nephew. Well, well.” Her eyebrows suddenly got closer together. “It was a terrible thing—him dying like that. Out of the blue. There he was, perfectly fit, and then … Terrible. Nobody saw that coming, I can tell you.”

  “Yes.” I thought I’d better explain. “You see, I went to his rooms to see if I could find something.”

  “Well, did you? Find it, I mean?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

  “Only you seemed to make an awful mess in his office, throwing all the books and files down on the f
loor like that.”

  “No. That wasn’t me.”

  Immaculata squinted closely at me. “Wasn’t it?”

  “No. I think somebody else had been in his rooms before me. I think they might have been looking for something, too.”

  We all sat in silence for a few seconds, weighing this information.

  “Well, perhaps we’d better inform someone about it.” Immaculata shifted in the chair. “The police or the Water Allocation Board or somebody. Let them know—”

  “No!” I realized I had spoken too loudly. “No,” I said, calmer now. “I don’t think we should.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because if somebody’s taken something, then chances are it will be gone for good. The police won’t be able to help now. They’re far too busy as it is. Anyway, Uncle Jonah died months ago. Who knows how long his rooms have been like that.”

  Immaculata nodded, realizing that what I’d said was all true.

  “It is true. After I found you in his rooms I had them cleaned up. I couldn’t just leave them like that. It seemed disrespectful somehow. So even if there were fingerprints or anything like that, they’d all be swept away now. Oh dear.” She shook her head. “Why would anyone want to break into his rooms? What were they looking for? He wasn’t a spy, was he? Trinity has a great tradition of employing spies as lecturers.”

  “Mum!” Vivi protested. “Dr. Bloom wasn’t a spy.”

  “How do you know?” Immaculata snapped back. “You’ve never met a spy before, have you? How would you know what one looks like? That’s the point of spies, isn’t it, to be able to look normal? Fit in?”

  Vivi tutted and sighed.

  “I’m certain Uncle Jonah wasn’t a spy, Mrs. Rookmini,” I said. “But whatever they were looking for must have had something to do with his work. I’m sure.”

  *   *   *

  Vivi’s room was small but as busily packed as the main room just beyond her door. Her bed was stuffed against a wall, and above it a large, open umbrella dangled from the ceiling.

  “It holds all of my old toys,” she said. “All the ones I can’t bear to throw away.”

  Looking up I noticed a couple of teddy bears and dolls peering over the edge of the umbrella.

  “You can’t bear to throw them away, can you? Geddit? Bear. Yes?”

  Vivi shook her head and didn’t bother to give my joke the loud laugh it so clearly deserved.

  Next to the window, a huge telescope was pointing upward to the sky, and all over the room were posters and pictures of planets, moons, and constellations. Books on space and space exploration were stacked up neatly on the floor and a weird device looking like it was made of balls and wire seemed to have pride of place on top of a small table.

  “It’s an orrery.”

  “A what-ery?”

  “An orrery.” She went up to it and started winding up a key. “It’s a model of the universe. It shows how the planets rotate around the sun.” She let the key go and the thing started to whir. The smaller balls all turned about the larger ball at the center—the sun. Some of them revolved faster than others. After a few seconds it started to slow until it came to a complete stop.

  “This particular orrery dates from when Pluto was still considered to be a proper planet—before it was reclassified as a dwarf.” Vivi gave the key an extra turn and watched the what-ery with fascination. “Back then there were thought to be nine planets in our solar system. Nowadays there are only the eight.”

  “Right.” I pointed to the ceiling. “You’ve got a hole. In your roof.”

  “That’s not a hole, silly. That’s a skyspace.”

  “What’s a skyspace?”

  “A skyspace is a window that looks out onto the sky. One of the old professors had it built when these were his rooms.”

  “What’s it do?”

  Vivi stared at me like I was some sort of irritating kid who kept asking questions just to wind the teacher up. Either that or she thought I was just stupid.

  “You’re meant to stare up as the clouds roll by. The sky always changes. It never stops moving. People do it when they are thinking—it helps them concentrate. Focusing on the sky helps you relax and order your thoughts.”

  “Sounds like a load of rubbish.”

  She ignored me. “I sometimes watch the stars at night. As the world rotates, the stars do, too. Changing position. Within an hour you can have a completely different view. The whole sky changes.” She looked at me. “Come on. Give it a go.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll lie on my bed. You lie on the floor—you can have one of my pillows, if you like.” She picked one of her pillows off the bed and dropped it onto the floor next to the bed. “Try it. Just lie there and stare at the sky.” She hopped onto her bed and stretched out.

  I sighed and got down onto the floor, resting my head on the pillow.

  “I feel stupid.”

  “Now just watch. Relax and watch the sky.”

  I sighed again but did as I was told. I stared up through the strange, perfect square of window that had been cut out of Vivi’s ceiling. The clouds were thin and wispy and there was obviously a bit of a breeze outside, as they appeared to be moving quite fast.

  “They’re moving fast,” I said.

  “Scudding,” replied Vivi.

  “Eh?”

  “Shh.”

  We both lay there in silence as we gazed at the movement in the little pane of glass. After a few minutes, it started to feel like I wasn’t watching the sky at all. It was as though the square sheet of glass was a picture—a painting—pinned to the ceiling. And the picture was always evolving. Shut your eyes for a few seconds and, when you opened them again, you had a brand-new picture to look at. Your eyes honed in on the detail. The tiny bumps and ridges and puffs that made up the clouds. The way some clouds overrode others—barging past—or crept out from behind another, slower one. It was oddly … hypnotic. Soothing. Comforting.

  So much so that I nearly fell asleep.

  Thankfully, Vivi spoke before I found myself snoring.

  “Do you know the names for the different types of clouds?”

  “Er, no.”

  “Well, there’s stratus—those are the low-looking patchy ones you sometimes see. Like cotton wool that’s been pulled apart. The big fluffy ones are called cumulus. The ones that look really high up and wispy are called cirrus.”

  “Which sort are they?” I asked, pointing upward.

  “Probably cirrus,” she said. “Yes. Definitely cirrus.”

  We fell silent again and watched the sky above.

  “You know,” Vivi whispered eventually—the silence had clearly lasted long enough for her to feel like it would be wrong to begin to speak with anything other than a whisper. “You know, it was your uncle who originally got me interested in the stars. He gave me a star map for my birthday a few years ago, and showed me all the different constellations. Kept testing me on my knowledge of them. He was the person who said I should get a telescope. Mum saved for ages to get it.”

  I watched as a slightly thicker, bleaker cloud forced its way onto the canvas. It appeared to be shoving the other, lighter clouds out of the frame. I thought back to the poster in Uncle Jonah’s office. I thought back to the ashes. I thought back to the piece of paper with PROJECT RAINBOW printed on it.

  “When I was in Uncle Jonah’s office,” I said quietly, “I found a piece of burned paper in the grate.”

  “Oh?”

  My eyes relaxed watching the clouds.

  “Yes. There were only two words on it. ‘Project Rainbow.’”

  “Project Rainbow?” Vivi asked, her head peering over the side of her bed.

  “Hmm.”

  “What is Project Rainbow?”

  “I don’t know. But…” I turned my head to look at Vivi. “Well, what’s the first thing you think of when you think of a rainbow?”

  “Atmospheric moisture content. Diffraction.”

  �
��Okay,” I corrected myself, “what do normal people think of when they think of a rainbow?”

  She thought. “Colors?”

  “Yes, colors.”

  “Ah…”

  “I think Uncle Jonah had finally started working on a way to help me see color.”

  “Project Rainbow.”

  “Yes. Only…”

  “What?” She rested her chin on her elbows.

  “Why did he burn all the papers? Why did he destroy all the work he’d put into helping me?”

  Vivi didn’t say anything.

  “Perhaps…,” I started. “He’d given up. Couldn’t do it. Found it wasn’t possible.”

  Vivi still didn’t say anything.

  “Perhaps…,” I continued. “Perhaps that was what the people in his office were searching for. Yes. I think that’s what they were after. I think they were trying to find his work on curing achromatopsia.”

  PART TWO

  BLUE

  CHAPTER 9

  TRAMPOLINE

  Pretty soon, the summer came along and school wound itself up, stumbling to its inevitable end. I’ve always loved summer vacation. Six weeks of doing not very much whenever you didn’t want to do it. Bliss! The only problem was that Mum’s work didn’t stop, and for most of the time off I was going to be alone in the house. So it was agreed that Mum would drop me off outside Trinity most mornings and I would spend the day with Vivi.

  One of the best things about visiting Vivi was her parrot, Migishoo. Once or twice I tried to get him to say something rude, but Immaculata caught me and gave me one of her looks. So I apologized nicely and promised not to do it again.

  Vivi and I spent most of the days exploring the town and the area of countryside that hovered just outside Cambridge. It was quite a flat land with not many hills but lots of lanes that twisted around on themselves through villages and small woods.

  One of our favorite places to visit was the Sunny Vale Caravan Park.

  The Sunny Vale Caravan Park had been badly named. For a start, it was hardly ever sunny in this part of the world. Second, it wasn’t positioned in any sort of vale or valley—it stood perfectly on display in the middle of a couple of fields two miles outside the city center.