Read The Colors of Madeleine 01: Corner of White Online
Authors: Jaclyn Moriarty
The Colors of Madeleine 01: Corner of White (31 page)
The Twicklehams thanked him, at the same time as exclaiming that he should do no such thing, then they smiled their gentle smiles, and the door to the station closed behind them.
Jimmy and Hector watched them through the window for a moment.
“Sad,” murmured Hector.
Jimmy shrugged. “The fair
might
save them,” he said. “But in the meantime they want to take Cody’s sculpture to pieces? That’ll
sure
improve the situation.”
Hector laughed, and they both returned to their desks.
In the empty schoolyard, Elliot had found another letter from the Girl-in-the-World. He sat on a bench to read it in the sun.
Dear Elliot Baranski,
Your last letter was crazy and I liked it, and then I remembered you warning me that a “Red” might mess with your mind — and that made me like it even more.
Cause that was kind of clever.
I know your letter wasn’t supposed to make sense — the lava and chestnuts and that — but you know what? One thing you said, you actually got right. “
You’re the one with your eyes closed!”
you said.
You put it in capital letters actually, which, you’d think would’ve been enough of a message from the universe that I should take notice. But no. I just kept on closing my eyes, and now it’s too late.
I guess there are things a person doesn’t see, even with their eyes open. Like, did you realise there are more colours than we realise? We’ve got that handful from the rainbow, but just outside that range, there are more. Just past violet, there’s ultraviolet, and in the other direction, past red, infrared, and they are THERE but our eyes can’t see them.
Rattlesnakes can see infrared, and birds can see ultraviolet. Some birds even have patterns in their wings that only other birds can see cause they’re in ultraviolet.
Makes you think, doesn’t it?
Specifically, it makes me think that you can walk around with another person for weeks and months, never seeing the beautiful patterns on his feathers, and just when you finally do see, you realise you’ve torn them to pieces.
So he flies away with shredded feathers.
Anyhow, that’s kind of morbid, and my metaphor got slightly shredded too, so let’s leave that.
Although, the whole colour thing makes me wonder — do you have invisible “Colours” in your Kingdom too? Colours off the edges of your vision so they attack you but you can’t see them coming? Like tear someone to pieces in the middle of the night! You should totally think about introducing those.
Bye.
M.T.
P.S. The UV thing makes me wonder if bird-watchers have UV vision? (Very confused about how ultraviolet can be a colour and burn your skin.) (So do the UV patterns on a bird’s wing burn the sky?)
P.P.S. I’m asking you this because I feel like you might know the answer to bird-watching questions.
P.P.P.S. Okay, I’ve got an idea. Do you want to meet up? I know you might be a crazy old guy so, you know, don’t meet up if you are. And just in case you ARE, maybe somewhere in the open and in public. But I THINK you’re young and normal, right?
Elliot replied later that day.
Dear M.T.,
See, the thing is, I can’t meet up with you, ’cause I can’t get through to your World, ’cause here I am in the Kingdom of Cello.
Like I might’ve mentioned once or twice before.
And it’s true there’s a crack that lets our letters get through, but it definitely wouldn’t be big enough for people. Hasn’t been one that big in over three hundred years.
I wish I could help because you sound sad, what with your troubles with tearing up your friend’s feathers, and wanting to see colors that aren’t there, and reading messages “from the universe” into my fourth-level Red letter.
Sorry about that letter, and I can guarantee, there wasn’t any “message” there, just madness.
I’m sure your eyes are open at all the right times.
What else?
Okay, seems to me, if I’m reading you right, there’s a boy you like, and you didn’t realize how much you liked him until
now, but it’s too late ’cause you’ve done something to hurt him? And now he’s run off?
Ah, just tell him you’re sorry, and he’ll come around. He’s probably even forgotten by now — girls are always imagining things into boy’s heads that have long gone. We’re tougher than you think — and more forgetful.
Speaking for myself, if you’re looking pretty and your hair’s all shiny, and there’s a glint in your eye, and you say sorry like you mean it, and then kiss me on the mouth and let your hand kind of slip under my shirt so it’s on my back, well, I’d sure forgive and forget.
(And if I’ve misread your letter about what’s actually happened, and I’m way off the mark on all this, that’s your fault. You’re too cryptic.)
Anyhow, like I said, there’s no way through, and to be honest, I’m not all that keen on risking the plague.
One more thing.
M.T.: It’s good corresponding with you, but maybe you could give the talk about Colors a rest.
Take it easy,
Elliot
P.S. Can’t help with your bird-watching question either, mainly on account of I have not the faintest stirrings of a clue what you are on about. No offense.
Clover Mackie, town seamstress, was sitting on her porch doing a crossword puzzle. Every now and then, she straightened up to think about an answer, her eyes running over the square.
Here came Elliot Baranski in the Thursday afternoon sunshine, stopping at the doorway to Le Petit Restaurant and handing over a big cardboard box. He ran back across the square to where his truck was parked, and emerged with a second box, this time handing it over
at the grocery store. For a third time, he ran across the square toward his truck, calling “Hey” to a friend in the Bakery, and jumping to touch the eaves of the Toadstool Pub with his fingertips as he passed.
Now he was back in the square again, a smaller box under his left arm, and he was running his right hand along Clover’s own paling fence, opening her gate, and leaping up the stairs to her porch.
“You seem happy,” Clover said. “Tell me first, what’s a seven-letter word that means shy? And after that, tell me if you’ve got time to sit and have a coffee and a fresh-baked croissant, and share some of that good cheer with me?”
“Word that means shy? No idea,” said Elliot. “Hang on, seven letters?
Bashful.
And I’d kill for one of your croissants, Clover, but I’m meeting Kala any minute.”
“Ah, that explains the good mood,” said Clover. “She’s a sweet girl, your Kala, isn’t she?”
“She is,” agreed Elliot, “and a whole lot more. Just been dropping off some raspberry deliveries, and we’ve got some extra for you.” He placed the cardboard box on the table.
“Here she is now,” said Clover, pointing across the square with one hand, and holding up a raspberry with the other. “These look delicious! How’s things with you, Kala?” she called.
They both watched as Kala approached the gate, grinning up at them.
“Actually, things are sort of great, Clover. I just got news.” Kala turned her grin on Elliot, her hands brushing over the fence posts. “Guess what happened?”
“Can’t.”
“I got a scholarship to Demshield College.”
Elliot’s hand reached across to the box of raspberries.
“The boarding school in Olde Quainte?”
“It’s the best one there.”
“Didn’t know you’d applied.” Elliot was studying a handful of raspberries.
“Sure you did.” Kala smiled back. “Well, you knew it was my plan anyhow.”
“I guess,” he agreed. “When’s it start?”
“In a couple of weeks! It’s a third-round offer, that’s why it’s so last-minute. I wasn’t smart enough to get in with the first two rounds. But it’s good anyway, it’s a full scholarship.”
“Well, how about that,” said Elliot, his voice low and easy, dropping the raspberries back into the box. He nodded at Clover, jumped down the steps, put an arm around Kala’s neck, and kissed the top of her head.
“Not smart enough,” he murmured. “Smartest girl in all the Kingdoms is what you are.”
A few days later the Girl-in-the-World wrote again.
Hey Elliot,
You know the poet Byron? He went horse riding in the rain when he already had a chill, and ended up dead.
So anyhow, there was this other poet, Tennyson his name was, and he was only fifteen at the time. He was a big fan of Byron — I guess poets were the rock stars of the day — and the day he heard that Byron had died, he went to pieces.
He talked about it later. “Byron was dead!” he said. “I thought the whole world was at an end. I thought everything was over and finished for everyone — that nothing else mattered. I remember I walked out alone, and carved ‘Byron is dead’ into the sandstone.”
I’ll tell you what I saw in my friend Jack’s eyes when he walked out the door of my flat after I hurt him.
That something was dead.
His recklessness, his hope, the poetry inside him.
Byron is dead
, I thought,
and everything is over and finished
.
I guess what I’m saying here is, I don’t think brushing my hair is gonna fix it.
Why don’t you write me into your story? Give me a role to play in the Kingdom of Cello, cause turns out I’m useless right here.
M.T.
Hey M.T.,
You guys die from riding horses with a chill?
You need to get yourselves some better doctors.
Sad story, but I still think it’s not so bad as it seems, kid. Betcha one of our quince trees it’ll turn out okay if you say sorry.
Elliot
Dear Elliot Baranski,
You remember once I was talking about how to solve problems?
And I said it’s really easy, and gave you, like, suggestions?
Ha-ha.
Today I was reading about Isaac Newton (again) and turns out I was totally wrong.
Okay, so Isaac had this obsession with light and colours — how they work, how our eyes see them, that kind of thing — and he wanted to figure them out. (I know you asked me to stop talking about colours, but why? I like them.)
So, yeah, he did all the simple problem-solving things — he thought about it, wrote it down, probably even told his dreams to sort it out for him.
But do you know what else he did?
He stared at the sun.
He looked directly into it.
He stared for so long he nearly went blind. He had to sit in a dark room for three days to cure his vision. That’s a true story.
Also:
He stuck a NEEDLE into the side of his eye. A huge needle — it was called a bodkin — and he actually stuck it into the edge of his eye and moved it around, to see what effect that would have on his vision.
Do you see what I’m trying to say here?
Turns out, if you really want to figure things out, you have to look straight at the sun and stick a needle in your eye.
It might send you blind, and it’ll hurt like hell, but at least it’ll be the truth.
Like maybe if you can’t get in touch with your family or friends, it’s because they don’t WANT to hear from you; and maybe if you’ve lost the people you love, it’s your own fault.
M.T.