“I’m almost sorry I asked. That’s Daisy Crimson,” he added, indicating a young woman who was walking past. “Nice girl and from a good family, if a little low-hued. Her father runs the village’s heat exchangers . Some say Daisy giggles too much and her nose is a little too pointy, but it’s never troubled me—or her, come to that.”

We had arrived at the flak tower, which was entirely typical in its construction. Square in plan but with a slight taper to the apex, where flat-lobed projections stuck out on all corners. The bronze doors had been removed long ago for scrap, and the unchecked Perpetulite had grown across the aperture, so all that remained was a vertical scar and a rough dimpling, like on unbaked bread. Another couple of hundred years and there wouldn’t even be that.

Tommo walked to the side where a series of bronze pitons was clear evidence of how the crackletrap builders had managed to get to the top. At chest height someone had left a length of steel piping no thicker than a man’s fist in what had once been a window. Tommo placed sandwiches in the pipe, followed by an apple, while I stared at him, confused.

“Sandwiches,” he explained, “for Ulrika of the Flak. I think she’s Riffraff.”

“You mean there’s—”

“Shh!” he said. “You don’t want to frighten her.”

When he wasdone, he beckoned me away, and inanswer to my doubtless quizzical expression, said, “What’s your problem?”

“How did she get in there?”

He shrugged.

“Then how do you know she’s Ulrika? Or a woman? Or even Riffraff, for that matter?”

“Eddie,” he said, pulling me closer, “if I want to have a pet Riffraff called Ulrika who lives in the flak tower and gets fed through a pipe, then I will, and no low-end, slow-end rabbit watcher is going to tell me otherwise. Do you understand?”

I said that I totally understood—now—but didn’t mention that I too had an imaginary friend who needed feeding. I called him Perkins Muffleberry, and he lived in a hollow beech at the edge of the village. I know it sounds childish, but the food was always gone by morning.

Pickled Onions and Custard

We were supposed to have dinner at seven. Dad hadn’t appeared by the time the meal was ready, so Jane threatened to throw the supper out the window if he wasn’t at the table in five minutes flat.

“Really?” he said when I dashed over to the Colorium to inform him of this, and I assured him she probably meant it, too.

His work could just as easily be done at home, so he locked the swatch safe and we walked back across the square together.

“I’ll need to fill out the order to National Color,” he said. “You can help me.”

This wasn’t good news. I had been hoping Dad would fill out the requisition on his own so I’d have a very good reason not to double-order the Lincoln for Tommo and Courtland.

“Right,” I replied uneasily, “love to.”

I had earlier received an assurance from Jane that nothing unpleasant had been added to the food. In fact, although a bit sharp, this evening she seemed vaguely pleasant. I asked her why, and she replied with a shrug that my father had “shown compassion,” which I took to mean his stance on bed rest for the sniffles and Mr. G-67’s early retirement. To somehow ingratiate myself into her confidence, I almost asked her out for tea at the Fallen Man, but my nerve failed me, and the moment passed.

“Why don’t you join us?” Dad asked Jane as soon as she had laid the dinner out on the sideboard.

She looked around to see whom he was talking to, then realized it was her. I don’t think she’d supped at a Chromatic table before. “Thank you, sir, but there’s not enough.”

“Not enough?” he exclaimed, pointing to the steaming pot of broth. “There’s enough here for four people!”

Before Jane could answer, the door swung open, and the Apocryphal man walked in. He was wearing nothing but a grubby string vest.

“I could have been a contender,” he mumbled to himself, “and before this decade is out, we aim to land a man and open the box or take the money.”

He then picked up the tureen and was out again before we could blink. We wouldn’t have minded so much, except that we hadn’t helped ourselves yet.

“No one just ate our dinner,” said Dad with a sigh. “Is there anything else in the house?”

Jane bobbed and went to have a look while I answered the doorbell. It was Red Prefect Yewberry.

“We were just sitting down to dinner,” I explained, and Yewberry, mistaking my comment for an invitation to a free meal, gratefully accepted.

“Smells excellent,” he said, for the aroma of the broth had lingered, even if the broth itself hadn’t.

I laid him a place, and he looked around expectantly. “Broth, is it?” he asked.

“It was,” replied my father. “How are we honored by your presence?”

“Two things. First, the Caravaggio.” Yewberry explained that it had been brought to the Council’s attention that Frowny Girl Removing Beardy’s Head was still at Rusty Hill. It was unusual that the village had a Caravaggio; Red Sector residents generally looked after the Turners and Kandinskys.

“No one’s seen it for over four years,” continued Yewberry, “and it should really be taken into protective custody before it falls prey to poor weather, or the Riffraff. You know how they like old paintings.”

Dad told the prefect he didn’t have time to search for Baroque master-pieces, but Yewberry had other ideas.

“The Council has decided to extend the movement order to include your son.”

Tommo had come up with the goods after all. Dad asked me if I was willing to go, and I said that I was.

I looked up to find Jane staring at me.

“I can make pickled onions and custard,” she announced, still staring at me. “It’s all we have left in the house.”

“Perhaps I won’t stay,” said Yewberry, getting up to leave.

“You said there were two things?” said Dad.

Yewberry snapped his fingers and looked at me.

“The Colorman arrives on Saturday, and he’s showing the spots on Sunday at noon. The Council wants to know if you’d like to take your Ishihara here, or wait until you get home?”

I felt a flush of excitement run through me. Having my Ishihara results three weeks before Roger Maroon had a serious advantage: If I scored well, it might push Constance to agreement before Roger’s results were known. Even if she initially deferred me, I could probably force her hand by feigning interest in Charlotte de Burgundy, whom she loathed. If I scored badly, then it wouldn’t matter much knowing now or later. I nodded enthusiastically.

“I’ll put your name on the list,” replied Yewberry. “Good luck tomorrow, and if you see a pencil sharpener at Rusty Hill, would you do the decent thing? Cheerio.”

And he was gone.

“You got your own way after all,” said Dad, handing me the order form for the replacement swatches.

“Looks like Roger Maroon will be searching elsewhere for his wife.”

“I almost feel sorry for him,” I said with a smile. “Almost.”

Jane, meanwhile, had vanished into the kitchen, where we heard some crockery being dropped.

For the next twenty minutes Dad dictated the order while I jotted his instructions down. I am glad to say that when it came to ordering the Lincoln, I resisted the pressure of Courtland and Tommo, and wrote in a “1” as instructed. I would have to find another way of paying Tommo back for the Rusty Hill gig. Like some shoes.

“I’ll also need some 293-66-49 for general inflammation usage,” Dad continued as he consulted his handbook, “and a 206-66-45 for controlling overproduction of earwax.”