I don’t recognize any of them.
The smallest, the one with dark blond hair who is rocking backwards and forwards, opens his mouth and screams.
Pale blue with violet-tinged vertical lines.
He vomits on the sofa.
Dad’s silent. He doesn’t flick on Radio 2 or tap his fingers on the steering wheel. I guess it’s not surprising, considering the whole embarrassing vomit thing. He’s still angry with me even though Rusty Chrome Orange said not to worry. Lots of kids throw up in that room; the police service employs someone to scrape up their sick. Dad says that’s the deadbeat career I’ll end up with if I don’t work harder to control myself.
The sofa had definitely seen a lot of sick action. What does Rusty Chrome Orange expect when he hangs a trippy mirror on the wall? One minute you think you’re alone and the next you’re surrounded by strangers.
He showed me behind the mirror after I’d calmed down; it was a normal wall.
No hidden window into another room.
No hidden recording devices.
I attempt to block out the dark colours and harsh shapes of the lorries and cars rumbling past. Dad hasn’t said a word since he turned on the engine, marmalade orange with pithy yellow spikes. Maybe he’s not angry with me. Maybe he’s thinking about Bee Larkham.
He knows we both need time to think about what’s happened – me without distractions of unnecessary colours and shapes, him without me banging on about my colours and shapes.
I should try to make him feel better, considering everything he’s done for me. He hasn’t forced me to come out of my den over the last three days except to visit the police station. He rang my school yesterday and said I had a bad tummy ache. At least that wasn’t a lie.
‘Don’t worry, Dad,’ I say finally. ‘I think we did it.’
‘We did what?’ he asks, without glancing back.
‘We got away with murder. Richard Chamberlain – like the actor – knows nothing.’
Dad spits out a yellowish cat-puke word.
I hate swearing. He knows I hate swearing.
He’s getting back at me for throwing up over Rusty Chrome Orange’s sofa.
‘I’m sorry, Jasper. I shouldn’t have used that word. Have you understood anything I’ve told you? Is that what you think’s happened?’
I screw my eyes tightly shut and curl into a ball beneath the seat belt.
Yes, I do. Think. That’s What Happened Back There.
Despite his repeated warnings to keep quiet, I tried to confess. Honestly I did, because I’m very, very sorry about what happened in the kitchen at 20 Vincent Gardens. I deserve to be punished.
Rusty Chrome Orange wouldn’t listen. I doubt he’s going to start looking for Bee Larkham’s body.
Which gives me time.
Time to protect the surviving parakeets. I need longer, around four days until the young begin to abandon the nests in Bee Larkham’s oak tree and eaves and fly far, far away from the dangers lurking on our street.
But I can’t leave.
I can’t ignore the colours any more.
I have to face the truth. I have to remember what happened the night I murdered Bee Larkham.
LYING IN BED THAT night, I trace my index finger over the ring-necked parakeet photographs in my Encyclopaedia of Birds. The adult male parakeet is easily identifiable because of the pink-and-black ring around its neck. Females also have these rings, but they’re similar shades of green to their bodies and harder to pick out.
Twelve deaths in total.
Bee Larkham didn’t tell me how many males versus females were slaughtered before she died. I must start a new census before it’s too late. Before the nests are abandoned.
After we got home from the police station, Dad didn’t ask if I felt up to afternoon lessons. While he made cheese toasties and looked for painkillers for my tummy, I grabbed my half-empty bag of seed. I managed to get to the hallway before he stopped me.
Don’t go over to Bee Larkham’s house to feed the parakeets.
Promise?
Don’t put pieces of apple on the ground in our front garden for the birds. It’ll attract rats.
Promise?
No more 999 calls.
Promise?
It’s a pinkish grey word with curly edges, which always gives me a strange, achy feeling inside my tummy – not on the outside where it currently burns like dry ice and looks like a half-open mouth.
I agreed, but had my fingers crossed behind my back, which means it didn’t count. Someone has to feed the parakeets because Bee Larkham can’t do it any more.
Dad doesn’t realize it yet, but Bee Larkham’s house is already attempting to grab attention. The six bird feeders in her front garden have been empty since Friday night. She hasn’t strung up any monkey nuts or put out plates of sliced apple and suet. Bee Larkham didn’t turn on her music to full blast as usual. The parakeets weren’t serenaded and the neighbours didn’t complain about the noise. Earlier today, she didn’t open her front door to the piano and guitar pupils who are allocated forty-five-minute slots after school from 4 p.m. onwards. The house has remained dark and silent since Friday – the Indigo Blue day Bee Larkham died.
I know these Important Facts because I barricaded myself in my bedroom after Dad stopped me leaving the house to feed the parakeets. At first, I concentrated on painting Mum’s voice, but the shades were off. The colours were uncooperative and churlish. That’s the way Dad describes me.
Difficult.
He said he was working from home for the rest of the day, but I could see the colour of the television downstairs while I painted. Half an hour later, when Mum’s true cobalt blue refused to reveal itself and the black-and-silver stripes of the TV became too distracting, I had abandoned my tubes of blue paints and stood at the window with my binoculars.
As usual, I had kept a record of all the relevant activity and used a fresh cornflower blue notebook. I started it especially because it seemed like the right thing to do – to keep my ‘after’ notes separate and uncontaminated from the ‘before’ notes.
3.35 p.m. – Male parakeet flies into branches, berries in beak.
4.02 p.m. – Bee’s piano lesson. Kingfisher Blue Coat Boy two minutes late. Runs up path. Looks at empty bird feeders. Bangs cardboard box colour on door. Door doesn’t open. Kingfisher Blue Coat Boy walks down street.
4.11 p.m. – Five young parakeets together on branch.
4.45 p.m.