“He does, you know,” Tommo put in. “I’ve seen him. But I’d not swap my reds for his greens if you paid me a thousand merits—Tommo’s not going to be taken by the Rot fully conscious, no, sir.”

It was one of the downsides of being the Color of Nature: When the Mildew came for you, the Green Room had no effect—even with offset spectacles. If Green, you had to go the hard way. Fully conscious, and slowly asphyxiated as the spores inexorably clogged up your airways. Some Greens took the matter into their own hands to effect a quick way out, and others joined a self-help syndicate, much against the Rules.

“That’s the difference between you and me,” replied Jabez, staring at Tommo with a smile. “A lifetime of nature’s rich and bounteous color in exchange for five hours of suffering? The forest wins hands down every time.”

“Not for me,” Tommo replied cheerfully. “As soon as the spores start sprouting, I’m diving headfirst into the endorphin soup without so much as a ‘Thanks, guys, it’s been a heap of number twos.’ ” Jabez considered it time to go before Tommo became too insulting.

“Welcome to the village, Eddie—and listen to one word in eight from walking Reboot here. Friend?”

I paused for a millisecond. I’d never accepted a friendship from a Green before. In fact, aside from twelve Oranges, six Blues, Bertie Magenta and just recently Travis, all of my 436 friends were Red.

“Friend.”

He gave Tommo a friendly shove, and departed.

We walked along a cobbled street lined with shops of varying description and usefulness. I noticed a tailor, a hardware store, a mender, Dorian’s photographic studio, a combination wool shop and haberdasher’s and a Head Office-approved forksmith. Tommo pointed out people of interest, and introduced me if he thought it appropriate.

“That’s Bunty McMustard. The most poisonous woman in the village.”

“We’ve met already.”

“Then you’ll know. When she succeeds in prizing Courtland out of Melanie, the offspring will be so devious they’ll spontaneously combust—but you didn’t hear me say that.”

“Of course not.” But I was thinking about Rusty Hill. “You said you could fix things, Tommo.”

“Most things. Courtland was overplaying it when he said ‘anything.’ ”

“My dad’s going to Rusty Hill tomorrow, and I need a reason to go there with him.”

He bit his lip. “Do you know how many people died in the Mildew outbreak? Eighteen hundred. If I was truly without respect for the Rules—which I’m not, by the way—I’d be over there like a shot. There have to be at least a hundred spoons kicking around—and if I can find one with a postcode that is unregistered, it means we can add another worker to the Collective, and any village will pay handsomely to boost their population. Pots of cash, see—but I still wouldn’t go.”

“Why?”

He looked around and lowered his voice. “Pookas!”

“There’s no such thing as Pookas. It says so in the Rules.”

“That’s what everyone at Rusty Hill thought. But there were stories. So are you sure you want to go?”

“Are you sure you want the Lincoln?”

“Leave it with me,” he said, thinking hard. “I might be able to come up with something.”

We passed the janitor’s workshop, where a battered Ford Model T was being judiciously oiled by a man in coveralls.

“Hello, Spoonpacker,” he said, addressing Tommo. “Is that Master Russett you have with you?”

“That’s me,” I answered.

“Welcome to East Carmine,” he said with a mildly superior air. “I’m Carlos Fandango, the janitor. Is Tommo here giving you the grand tour?”

I nodded.

“Good show. Fine fellow, but don’t lend him any money.”

“Sell his own granny, would he?”

“You heard about that? Terrible business.”

“At least I can tell when a tomato is ripe,” retorted Tommo, who didn’t much care for having his besmirched family name besmirched even further. The tomato comment was a demeritable breach of protocol, not to mention downright rude. Fandango, however, simply ignored him, and told me that he would be taking my father to Rusty Hill tomorrow, and would be outside the house at eight o’clock sharp.

I said I’d relay the message. Tommo, hot with indignation that his insult had had no effect, tugged on my sleeve and said we had to move on.

“Fandango is only fourteen percent Purple,” said Tommo as we walked away. “He puts on all the airs and graces, but before his Ishihara he was a Grey. Four points lower and he’d be out in the fields or laying burlap in the factory. He has high hopes for cashing in on his daughter Imogen, though, who they think will turn out to be a fifty-percenter.”

“He married a strong Purple?”

“Quite the reverse.”

He pulled a faux-shocked face, indicating that the Chromatic disparity between parent and offspring might suggest a bit of fence leaping. And on this occasion, for profit.

“The Fandangos went to Vermillion to celebrate at the Green Dragon after being allocated an egg chit,” he explained. “The bridal suite there is known as the Rainbow Room—for a price, you can have whatever color child you want.”

“A Purple flogging their hard-won heredity?” I replied with an incredulous sniff. “Ridiculous. Besides, they’d never do anything to risk losing authority.”

“Do they really bring you up so naive in the hub?” he said. “There’s a whole world out there behind the Rules, if only you look. In any event, Carlos will bend your ear about any suitably rich Purples you might know. If you want to drive the Ford or be shown around the gyrobike, play along.”

It would take me a while to get used to how rude Tommo could be—not just his flippancy, but divulging other people’s perceptions. It was the height of bad manners.

“How did you know I sold my own granny?”

“I didn’t. I was trying to be funny.”

“Ah. Listen, when you get to Rusty Hill, will you bring me back a pair of Male Outdoor Casuals?” He showed me his shoes, which were actually not shoes at all, but scraps of well-shined leather tied to the top of his feet.

“Okay.”

“Size nines.”

“Size nines it is.”

“See that guy over there?” He was indicating a handsome man, probably in his early thirties. “Ben Azzuro. Nice guy and a fine all-arounder, but nearly caused a riot in the henhouse by declaring himself.

Personally, I’d like to see more like him in the village.”

“You’ll be declaring?”

“No. It would just tip the marriage market more in my favor. The way I figure it, if six more moved across, I might actually end up with someone quite pleasant. This might come as a huge surprise to you, but I’m not considered much of a catch.”

“Whyever not?”

“Careful of the sarcasm, sunshine. That’s the local salt lick over there. The woman behind the counter is Mrs. Crimson.”

He was pointing at the tearoom, always the busiest establishment in any village. It was called the Fallen Man, which was an unusual name, given that most tearooms were called Mrs. Cranston’s . I looked at the faded-to-monochrome painting on the board above the front door. It depicted a man sitting in a leather armchair while plummeting past some fluffy clouds, his tie flapping upward.

“Odd name,” I said, indicating the sign.

“Not for here,” he said cheerfully. “The other tearoom is called the Singing Coathanger. They both refer to local legends: the Fallen Man to someone who fell to earth quite near here, and the Singing Coathanger to a, well, a coathanger that started to sing.”

I’d heard about pieces of metal giving off a tinny noise that sounded like speech or song, but had never witnessed the phenomenon myself.

“Singing bits of wire and fallen men are all we’ve got in the legend department,” added Tommo. “What about you?”

“We have the Lapper Venus ,” I explained, “though it’s more unexplained artifacture than folklore, to be honest. But,” I added, “there was the Night of the Great Noise. The elderly still talk about how in the morning everything was covered with something resembling cobwebs, and all the ladders were missing.”