“I’ll do the arteries,” Dad said to the nurse, “if you tackle the tendons. Oh, Eddie, jot down 37-78-81 on my blotter—nerves always rejoin better when encouraged by a dull orange. Close the door on the way out, will you?”

I walked back into the waiting room, where a sense of daring suddenly gripped me. Not everyone would be seen by my father today, so rather than have everyone queue for hours tomorrow morning to be first in, I thought I’d help out.

I found some paper, made up thirty playing-card-sized squares, wrote a number on each and then went around the waiting room, handing them out to everyone and explaining how the system worked: A number would be displayed as soon as my father was seeing patients again, and when your number came up, you would be seen. “But be warned,” I added. “Miss your turn and you’ll have to take a new number.”

I had to run over the details several times as the concept was somewhat novel, but after a good deal of mumbling and consternation over this, the principle was at last imparted to the villagers. Pretty soon half the room filed off to do other things, or simply go home. I made a sign asking new patients to take a number from a small stainless-steel kidney bowl, and as an afterthought I set aside a box for the tickets that had been used.

Happy that the first practical test of my Russett Mk II Numbered Queuing System was under way, I walked out of the Colorium with a bounce in my step. I stopped at the suggestion box to apply for retrospective permission to use the system under the Standard Variable procedure that Travis had told me about. I was in no doubt that the council would reject it, but at least it covered my hoo-ha against infraction.

One Eyebrow

I took a deep breath, and sat on a nearby bench to gather my thoughts. I needed to get to Zane G-49’s old address in Rusty Hill if I was to have a chance of figuring out what he was doing in the Paint Shop, but Dad was right: I would have to have a very good reason to go with him. Rusty Hill was just close enough to walk in a day, and if I took the ten-merit fine for lunch nonattendance, it could be a possibility.

I just didn’t fancy walking twenty-eight miles, especially in this heat. I was just wondering if there was a Penny-Farthing in the village that I could borrow, when I heard a voice.

“Do you have any hobbies?”

I looked up. The Widow deMauve was sitting at the other end of the bench, and she was staring at me.

It was a rhetorical question, as a minimum of one hobby was mandatory, even for the many Greys who didn’t have the time. The theory was that a hobby “drove idle thoughts from the mind,” but the Rules weren’t specific over what that hobby might be. Trainspotting and collecting coins, stamps, bottles, buttons or pebbles were pretty much the default options, but needlework, painting, guinea-pig breeding and violin making had their adherents. Some collected artifacts from before the Something That Happened, such as super-rare bar codes, teeth, money cards or keyboard letters, all of which came in a bewildering variety of shapes and sizes. There were also those who made up silly hobbies to annoy the prefects, such as belly-button casting, hopping and extreme counting. For myself, I favored the abstract. I collected not just obsolete terms and words, but ideas.

“I’m currently devising improved methods for queuing,” I said in a grand manner, but she wasn’t the slightest bit interested.

“I like to put holes in things,” she announced, showing me a piece of paper with a hole in it.

“That must take a considerable amount of skill.”

“It does. I put holes in wood, cardboard, leaves—even string.”

“How do you put a hole in string?”

“I tie it in a loop,” she said, with dazzling simplicity, “and there you go: hole. I thought I was the only one.

But look what I found in the co-op this morning.”

She showed me a ring doughnut. “Well!” she exclaimed, much aggrieved. “It’s as though no one can think of an original hobby these days without some copycat jumping on the bandwagon.”

“It’s probably Mrs. Lapis Lazuli,” I whispered mischievously, and Widow deMauve’s eyes opened wide.

“I knew it!”

“Would you excuse me?” I said. “I’ve just seen someone I must talk to.”

I got up and trotted after a Green who had just walked past, carrying a trombone. It wasn’t an excuse to get away; I’d noticed that he had only one eyebrow.

“Pardon me?”

He stopped and stared at me for a moment, then a look of recognition came over his face. “You’re the new swatchman’s son, aren’t you?” he asked. “The one who’s seen the Last Rabbit?”

“Y-es.”

“What was it like?”

“Furry . . . mostly.” I introduced myself before he could quiz me too carefully over the rabbit, but it felt uncomfortable and a bit odd talking to him—I hadn’t really held a friendly conversation with a Green before. Back in Jade-under-Lime we kept ourselves verymuch to ourselves. Jabez was not far short of his quarter-century and, by his dress code, looked as though he were a farmer.

“Your eyebrow,” I said, pointing to where it wasn’t. “Tommo told me Jane pulled it off. Is that true?”

“Oh, yes,” he replied with a grin as he touched the scarred area with a fingertip, “but she did it quickly so it wouldn’t hurt too much. If she’d hated me, she could really have drawn it out.”

“She seems generous in that respect,” I said slowly.

“I was thinking of having a donor eyebrow sewn on,” said Jabez, “but if they attached it badly I’d look quizzical for the rest of my life. Are you thinking of asking her out on a date?”

“Not anymore.”

“I don’t know why I did,” said Jabez with a frown, “probably that nose of hers. It’s quite something, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” I admitted, “it certainly is.”

“Just don’t tell her. She . . . doesn’t like it.”

“Hullo!” said Tommo, who had just reappeared. “Eddie, this is Jabez Lemon-Skye. He’s first-generation Green, so hardly objectionable at all. What’s going on?”

“Eddie and I were just discussing how to get a date with the Nose.”

Tommo raised his eyebrows. “So you are interested in Jane?”

“Just making conversation.”

“Sure you are. I’d leave her well alone, if you want my advice.” He gave out a conspiratorial chuckle.

“And if we’re talking about guilty secrets, Jabez is a love child. His parents married because—get this— they couldn’t bear not to! Weird, huh?”

“I’ll not be made ashamed of it,” remarked Jabez with great dignity, “but muse on this: When you meet an Orange or a Green, you’re not looking at wasted primal hue, but the product of a couple motivated by something more noble than the headlong rush for Chromatic supremacy.”

Up until that point, I hadn’t really thought about it that way. The Russetts had been trying to make up our lost hue for over a century. Marrying into the Oxbloods would finally take us back to where we were before my great-grandfather married the Grey. Red was my destiny, if you like—the hue I was born to.

“If we’re being so open with one another,” declared Jabez with a smile, “perhaps you can tell Eddie how you like to stare at naked bathers.”

“That’s a scurrilous untruth!” declared Tommo. “I wasn’t staring—I was simply asleep with my eyes open, and they happened to walk past.”

There was a pause. I didn’t really know what to say to make conversation with a Green, so said the first thing that came into my head. “What’s it like seeing green?”

Jabez lowered his voice. “It’s quite simply . . . the best. The grass, the leaves, the shoots, the trees—all ours. And do you know, the subtle variations in shades are almost without number—in leaves, from the brightest, freshest hue when unfurling, to the dark green in late summer before they turn and we lose them. Thousands of shades, if not millions. Sometimes I just sit in the forest and stare.”