A robin hopped out of the hedge, chirping. ‘That one,’ I exclaimed. ‘That’s the colour. A short blue line with moving lemon bits.’
‘You see colours?’ Mum asked. ‘When you hear sounds?’
I said yes, of course I did. Didn’t everyone?
Mum kissed the top of my head over and over again.
‘Not everyone,’ she said, when we finally stopped laughing. ‘Not everyone understands the wonderful way we both see the colour of sounds, Jasper. Which is a shame. A shame for them, not for us, because we share an amazing gift.’
We ran through a list of things, starting with noises we could hear in the back garden like a lawnmower, a car revving, an aeroplane passing overhead and radio music blasting out of a neighbour’s window. I told Mum the colours I saw for every sound.
Lawnmower: shiny silver
Car revving: orange
Aeroplane: light, almost see-through green
Radio: pink
We moved on to other things. The sound of the fan Mum had put in my bedroom to help keep me cool at night (grey and white with flashes of dark ink blue).
Dogs barking: yellow or red
Cats meowing: soft violet blue
Dad laughing: a muddy, yellowish brown
Kettle boiling: silver and yellow bubbles
We talked and talked about my colours and I’d never looked happier, Mum said. My smile stretched from ear to ear.
We could have chatted and played forever, but Mum said it was late and time to have a bath and get changed into my dinosaur pyjamas.
‘Roar!’ I shouted. ‘What colour are dinosaurs’ roars?’
We both decided they were probably shades of purple because that’s the coloured sound my T-Rex made whenever you squeezed his tummy.
Mum swung me up and I settled into my favourite position on her hip.
‘Thank you for letting me into your secret, Jasper,’ she said. ‘Now can I tell you something?’
‘Yes!’ I shouted. ‘T-Rex wants to hear too!’
‘For me, the starlings are bluish green, the robin is bright yellow and the kettle boiling is dark grey with orange bubbles.’ She kissed me quickly on my cheek. ‘Daddy doesn’t like me talking about the colours, so when he gets home you don’t need to tell him about yours either. He’ll be sad he can’t see the world like us, Jasper. Not everyone’s built the same. We’re the lucky ones.’
She was right, but my luck eventually ran out. When Mum died, I lost the one person in my life who could see the world like me.
She loved hearing about my different hues and discovering how they compared to hers.
My colours miss her. They long to be shared with someone who appreciates them as much as I do. But I still have to talk about the shades I see – even to Dad – because a part of Mum lives on through them.
That’s my straight story.
I hate the ending but I can’t change it.
‘IT’S THIS WAY TO the science lab, thicko.’ A hand grabs my collar and hauls me back as I dash out of the dining hall. ‘Lucas said you might make a run for it after lunch. He needs a word.’
I’ll call this boy X.
His evil twin, Y, hovers in the background in case I’m a secret ninja who can kick-box his way out of any situation.
I’m not and I can’t.
They don’t touch me – that would be assault. I’m silently escorted down the corridor. X walks in front and Y behind. No one notices I’m being taken against my will because I’m not screaming. That would be pointless. I doubt anyone would help. Not even the girls who walk past. Especially them. They’d probably laugh buttercup yellow.
When we reach the science lab, Y opens the door and pushes me inside. A boy’s perched on the bench. His lip is cut and there’s a pale green bruise on his cheek and a long, red mark on his hand.
It could be Lucas Drury. Lucas Drury after a fight with a tornado, which has messed up his hair, split his lip and scratched his hand. I didn’t look at his face when we spoke in the corridor earlier, so I can’t know for sure this is the same boy. I don’t say anything. It’s safer that way.
‘Did anyone follow you here?’ His voice is quiet and low. A dark greenish blue colour. Lucas Drury’s colour.
‘Dunno,’ Y says. ‘Don’t think so.’
‘Then what the hell are you looking at? Get out!’ Blue teal.
It’s definitely him.
X and Y’s shoulders go up and down. They slam the door behind them.
I shudder, not only at the unpleasant squashed beetle colour of ‘hell’, but also at the worrying development. I had no idea spies were here at school and on our street – people like David Gilbert who could search for damaging evidence about Bee Larkham and me.
Now I’m certain of one thing: there are spies everywhere.
I gaze at Lucas Drury. He’s trembling with rage at what I’ve done, all the mistakes I’ve made. I rub Mum’s button in my pocket harder as he strides towards me. He’s going to pin me against the wall, like last time. Instinctively, I move backwards. My head is slap bang in the middle of the periodic table poster again. Thulium is on my left, rubidium on my right.
He stops in front of me. ‘Tell me everything.’
I can’t. I don’t want to think about that. I turn my head to look at the poster.
Mendelevium, Nobelium, Ytterbium, Thulium.
‘Hurry up, Jasper. Before someone finds us in here. We need to agree what we tell the police before they question us both again.’
‘Rusty Chrome Orange,’ I say, before I can stop myself.
‘What?’
‘He’s a detective like the famous actor, Richard Chamberlain,’ I blurt out.
‘Wait. You’re confusing me. Who have you spoken to?’
‘Richard Chamberlain wanted a First Account about Bee Larkham, whatever that means. He didn’t explain.’
‘What did he ask you? Did he mention me?’
I reel off the weird questions about Year Eleven boys and Bee Larkham and condoms.
‘What did you tell him?’
‘I told him about the death of my parakeets and my neighbour, David Gilbert, who’s a bird killer, but he wasn’t interested.’
‘Fuck the parakeets, Jasper.’
My scalp prickles at the sharp, ugly-coloured word.
‘Jasper!