Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde Read Free Book Online Page A

Standard Variable,” explained Travis, “and all the Council can say is no.”
    “Which they will.”
    “Sure, but at least you’re covered.”
    I finished making the tea, and then looked for some biscuits, without success.
    “Hey,” said Travis, as he had an idea, “what’s this East Carmine place like?”
    “I don’t know. It’s Outer Fringes—so pretty wild, I should imagine.”
    “Sounds perfect. Who knows? A fellow Yellow may take pity on me and negotiate a pardon. Do you have five merits on you?”
    “Yes, thank you.”
    “I’ll buy them off you for ten.”
    “What’s the point in that?”
    “You’re going to have to trust me.”
    Intrigued, I handed over a five-merit note.
    “Thanks. Now snitch on me to the Duty Yellow when we arrive at East Carmine.”
    I agreed to this, then thought for a moment. “Can I have another peek of your lime?”
    “Okay.”
    So I did, and I felt all peculiar again, and told Travis rather gushingly that I was going to marry an Oxblood.
    “Which one?”
    “Constance.”
    “Never heard of her.”
     
    “About time!” scolded the Green woman when I finally returned, tea in hand. “What were you doing? Gossiping like the worst sort of Grey?”
    “No, ma’am.”
    “And my biscuit? Where is my biscuit?”
    “There were no biscuits, ma’am—not even nasty ones.”
    “Humph,” she said, in the manner of someone horribly aggrieved. “Then another tea, boy, for my husband.”
    I looked at the Green man, who until his wife had mentioned it had not considered that he wanted a cup.
    “Oh!” he said, “What a good idea. Milk with one—”
    “He’s not going,” said my father without looking up from his copy of Spectrum .
    “It’s all right,” I said, thinking about Travis and his lime, “I’ll go.”
    “No,” said Dad more firmly, “you won’t .”
    The Green couple stared at us, incredulous.
    “I’m sorry,” said the Green man with a nervous laugh. “For a moment there I thought you said he wasn’t going.”
    “That’s precisely what I said,” repeated Dad in an even tone, still not looking up.
    “And why would that be?” demanded the Green woman in a voice shrill with self-righteous indignation.
    “Because you didn’t use the magic word.”
    “We don’t have to use the magic word.”
    Living in a Green sector as a Red had never endeared the hue to my father. Although the Spectrum was well represented in Jade-under-Lime, there was a predominance of Greens, which tended to push a pro-Green agenda, and Dad was only a holiday relief swatchman because he’d been pushed from a permanent position by a Green swatchman. In any event, Dad had seen enough not to be pushed around. I’d never traveled with him before, but it was rather exciting to see him defy those further up in the Spectrum.
    “If your son is unwilling or unable to do a simple chore, I’m sure we can ask the Yellow to conciliate on the matter,” continued the Green man in a threatening manner, nodding his head in the direction of the Yellow passenger. “Unless,” he added, suddenly thinking that he might have made a terrible mistake, “I have the honor of addressing a prefect?”
    But Dad wasn’t a prefect. Indeed, his senior monitor status was mostly honorary and carried little authority. But he had something they’d never have: letters. He fixed the Greens with a glare and said, “Allow me to more fully introduce myself: Holden Russett, GoC (Hons).”
    Only members of the Guild of Chromaticologists or the National Color Guild and Emerald City University graduates had letters after their names. They were the only permitted acronyms. The Greens looked at each other nervously. It wasn’t what Dad’s letters stood for , but the inferred threat of mischief that went with them. There was a fear—enthusiastically stoked by other Chromaticologists, I believe—that if you annoy a swatchman, he’d flash you a peek of 332-26-85, which dropped an instantaneous hemorrhoid.