Things are quiet in the town that used to be PERFECT until Violet receives a strange note and she catches Tom sneaking about. When Violet and Boy follow Tom they uncover a lot more trouble brewing.
Town is about to be taken over by a huge zombie army. Can Violet and Boy save themselves and their friends?
It’s a matter of life or death!
A highly charged finale to the series that began with A Place Called Perfect.
“A creepy, magical tale of bravery and self-belief.” Sunday Express
“Full of the adventure, mystery and sinister goings on…” Rachael, Waterstones bookseller
“This is one of those books that you think about when you’re not reading it and can’t wait to find out what happens next.” Tom Fletcher
“Brimming with humour, intrigue, danger and thrilling adventures…” Lancashire Evening Post
“Helena Duggan builds an intriguing world and tells a gripping story…” The Scotsman
“A quirky, intriguing novel…” Through the Looking Glass (blogger review)
“A creepy adventure story full of twists and turns…” Scoop magazine
For Robbie, my Boy
CONTENTS
THE STORY SO FAR
CHAPTER 1. BOY’S BIRTHDAY
CHAPTER 2. THE DARE
CHAPTER 3. ABOUT TOM
CHAPTER 4. PROMISES
CHAPTER 5. MISSING SCIENTISTS
CHAPTER 6. THE NOTE
CHAPTER 7. BACK TO THE OUTSKIRTS
CHAPTER 8. THE FOREST
CHAPTER 9. NURSE POWICK
CHAPTER 10. THE MAZE
CHAPTER 11. SEEING THINGS
CHAPTER 12. A ZOMBIE ARMY
CHAPTER 13. THE NEXT GENERATION
CHAPTER 14. DR A. ARCHER
CHAPTER 15. ARNOLD
CHAPTER 16. CHANGE OF PLAN
CHAPTER 17. WARNING TOWN
CHAPTER 18. THE AMBUSH
CHAPTER 19. THE DEATHDEFIER
CHAPTER 20. THE WATCHERS RETURN
CHAPTER 21. FAMILY TIES
CHAPTER 22. WHY BOY?
CHAPTER 23. REVELATIONS
CHAPTER 24. IRIS’S SECRET
CHAPTER 25. A TOWN UNITED
CHAPTER 26. OLD FRIENDS
CHAPTER 27. THE MAKEOVER
CHAPTER 28. DR JOSEPH BOHR
CHAPTER 29. THE ULTIMATE REVENGE
CHAPTER 30. THE SELFLESS SCIENTIST
CHAPTER 31. DESPERATE FOR BOY
CHAPTER 32. SECRET MEETINGS
CHAPTER 33. TOM’S DESTINY
CHAPTER 34. THE DIVIDED SOUL
CHAPTER 35. POWICK’S POISON
CHAPTER 36. THE SACRIFICE
CHAPTER 37. BROTHERS
CHAPTER 38. UNITEA
A LETTER FROM THE AUTHOR
Violet stared at the miniature eye plant blinking inside a small glass box. She shivered as the creature turned and looked straight at her, its translucent skin-like petals flapping slowly as its thin red stem pulsed with the blood that fed it.
Eugene Brown, Violet’s dad, clad in his white lab coat, was busy scribbling some sort of complicated maths equations on a blackboard across the room to her left, a cloud of chalk dust surrounding him. Her best friend, Boy, was scratching his head, sitting at the large steel table in the middle of the room as he tried to tackle the homework Mrs Moody had set them. The summer holidays had only just finished and Boy was finding it hard to get back into the swing of school. His struggles hadn’t been helped by Mrs Moody’s workload.
They were in the cellar of Archer and Brown, the town optician’s. It was a much nicer place now than when it had been owned by Boy’s evil uncles, Edward and George, and known as the Archer Brothers’ Spectacle Makers’ Emporium. The cellar used to be where the Watchers, Edward and George’s vicious army of thugs, had hung out and it had been a cold, unwelcoming room. Rough hammocks had hung from the bare stone ceiling on large metal hooks and old wooden crates were used as tables and storage around the space. It had smelled too, of large, sweaty, hairy men. Now, since Eugene had started using it as his new lab, coloured rugs dotted the flagstone floor, paintings hung from the walls and a large old fireplace, which had been uncovered behind some of the Watchers’ stinking mess, blazed heat from its hearth, warming the grey walls. And there were eye plants everywhere, encased in glass boxes on steel lab benches.
It was because of the eye plants that Violet’s family had first come to the town formerly known as Perfect, when Edward and George had read about Eugene’s research in Eye Spy magazine and sought him out. First the Archer brothers had tried to use the plants to do terrible things, then William Archer had installed them as a security system around Town, but now Eugene had decided he wanted to use his eye plants the way he’d originally intended. He’d recently been given money from a university to do so, and was working diligently on developing the eye plants to help the blind see.
Violet’s mam, Rose, had been a successful accountant before Perfect but after her imagination was stolen by the Archer Brothers she’d given all of that up. When Eugene got his funding she stepped in to run the optician’s shop above with Boy’s dad, William. Violet hadn’t seen her mother as happy in a long time.
“I still think they’re creepy,” Violet whispered, looking through the glass box at a distorted Boy, who was busy biting the end of his pencil. She’d finished her homework ages ago and was getting bored as she waited for her friend to finish his.
“They’re not creepy, Violet,” her dad corrected, looking round at her through a veil of chalk dust. “These little beauties are going to help so many people! Won’t that be amazing?”
Violet knew he was right – the plants would help people. After all her dad was a great scientist, everyone told her that. But it didn’t mean the things weren’t disgusting. Even after everything, the sight of them still gave her shivers.
“I know,” she said, looking across at Eugene, “but why can’t you experiment with something less disgusting, like hair transplants or ears or anything else?”
“Oh yeah, that sounds lovely, Violet – imagine a field of ear plants!” Boy smirked, distracted.
Boy was talking about the field on the far side of the river just over the footbridge. Eugene Brown needed space to sow and mature his eye plants and so, with agreement from the Town Committee, he’d begun growing them in the wasteland separating Town and the Ghost Estate.
“Why are you two talking?” Rose Brown rounded the bottom of the spiral stone staircase reaching down to the cellar from the shop above, and marched into the room. “Aren’t you meant to be doing your homework and not disturbing your father, Violet?”
“I’m finished!” she announced as her mam dropped a copy of the Town Tribune on the table where Boy was working.
“That’s great, pet,” Rose said as she pulled Violet’s opened copybook over to her and peered down at the text. “Maybe you’ll get a smile from Mrs Moody this time!”
Mrs Moody was their teacher and she never smiled.
“That’d be a miracle, Mam,” Violet snorted, plonking down into a yellow armchair beside the fire.
Violet and Boy had been coming to Archer and Brown to do their homework ever since classes started back. The building was just at the bottom of the road from school, it was an easy place to get their work done quickly and meant Violet and Boy didn’t have to go home alone. Violet had never liked being on her own – she’d always imagine all sorts of wild scenarios for every sound – but Boy normally didn’t mind his own company. Ever since his mam had died though, Violet noticed her friend didn’t want to return to Wickham Terrace unless William was there, and William was working so much lately that Boy had practically spent the whole summer at the Browns’. Violet had overheard her mam whisper that Boy’s dad was burying himself in his work.
The pair normally stayed in the basement, using the large steel desk to finish their school stuff. Then, if they got everything done, sometimes Eugene gave them money and they’d race to Sweet Patisserie on George’s Road for buns before the baker’s shop closed for the evening.
“Seems Marjory Blot has the same nose for a story as Robert. It must run in the family,” Eugene said, staring at the Tribune now opened on the table.
Robert Blot, Marjory’s brother, had once run the local paper but had given up his position when he was offered a place on the Town Committee. His sister now wrote the news and Violet had often seen her sneaking through the streets wearing sunglasses as if she were some sort of undercover detective. It was kind of funny since the woman’s mass of white frizzy hair meant she could never be mistaken for anyone else.
“What’s the story?” Rose asked, looking up from Violet’s copybook.
“The missing scientist, the one I was telling you about, Dr Joseph Bohr. Marjory has written an article on him. The whole thing is very strange really – it says he was taken in the middle of the night, straight from his home.”
“Oh! Iris knew him!” Boy said excitedly, clearly looking for more distraction. “She told Dad about it the other day. I think she worked with him or something, like a million years ago.”
“Your granny’s not that old, Boy!” Rose laughed.
“Iris must have had important friends. Dr Bohr is one of the world’s greatest minds, though he’s long retired now. I must pick your granny’s brain – it’d be interesting to hear all about him. Fascinating man, fascinating mind!” Eugene shook his head.
“You’ve skipped a few questions, Violet.” Rose gestured to the page in front of her.
“No I haven’t,” Violet said, walking over to the table. Her cheeks flushed as her mother silently pointed to the book. “It’s this place, Mam, the eyes creep me out. I can’t concentrate with them watching me the whole time!” she snapped defensively.
“That’s a silly excuse, pet,” Rose said. “You’d better do them or Mrs Moody will be writing more notes in your diary.”
Violet huffed and sat back down at the table beside Boy, pulling over her book to read the first missing question.
“The eyes made me do it!” Boy teased quietly as Rose disappeared back up the stairwell.
“Very funny.” Violet swiped a look at her friend.
“I thought you weren’t scared of anything?” he continued.
“What do you mean? I’m not!” she replied, trying to write her answer.
“What about the eye plants then?” he smirked.
“I’m not scared of them, Boy, they just freak me out. They’re disgusting!”
“You seem pretty scared to me!”
“I’m not!” she snapped, flustered, as she picked up an eraser to rub out a mistake.
“Well, if you’re not scared then prove it! I dare you to stay in the eye-plant field tonight!” Boy whispered.
Violet stopped what she was doing, looking up to make sure her dad hadn’t heard. “The whole night?”
“No, just maybe…fifteen minutes. I dare you to spend fifteen minutes alone in the eye-plant field tonight.” Boy grinned. “You can call it an early birthday present to me! You keep asking me what I want!”
“So for your birthday you’d like me to stay in a field? That’s not a present!” Violet said, her cheeks glowing red.
“It’s not any field, Violet.” He put on a scary voice and stared straight at her as his dark eyes grew large. “It’s an EYE-PLANT FIELD. Anyway,” his voice changed back to normal, “the look on your face will be the best birthday present ever!”
Boy’s thirteenth birthday was approaching in a few days and Violet had racked her brains for something to get him. It was the first since his mam had died and she wanted to make it nice so he wouldn’t be sad. She’d thought of baking a cake but the last time she’d tried that she almost burned down the kitchen. Then she’d considered a football or boots or even a skateboard, but nothing felt right, nothing seemed special enough.
“That’s a stupid present – it’s just a dare, and anyway I won’t be scared!”
“Then it’ll be easy.” Boy laughed, turning back to his book. “And it’s my birthday – you’re meant to do whatever I want!”
Violet fumed into her book. Saying no to a dare, especially one from Boy, was almost impossible.
“Okay,” she sighed, rubbing a frustrated fluff-filled hole in her page.
Spending fifteen minutes in the field wasn’t that long – surely she could manage that. And it would wipe the smirk from Boy’s face – something she couldn’t wait to do, even if it was his birthday soon.
Violet stayed deadly still as hundreds of eye plants slept around her. Their see-through petals cocooned rapidly moving pupils. She sat stiff on the damp soil, hugging her knees, afraid to breathe too deeply in case she woke the creatures. The shrill cries they let out when they were disturbed still haunted many of her dreams.
She was meant to be at a Committee meeting but had told her dad she was going to Boy’s house to finish a school project. Boy had told William the same thing and the pair had met on the footbridge just as night was closing in.
Her friend had handed her a walkie-talkie and pointed across the river.
“I’ll be watching.” He looked serious. “You’ve to stay fifteen minutes otherwise I win!”
“Win? This isn’t a competition, Boy, it’s a dare!”
“Exactly, if you break the dare I win!”
She willed herself not to respond. Her mam said she was the easiest person on earth to wind up. Violet knew it was true because, if it wasn’t, she wouldn’t be sitting in an eye-plant field right now, her best friend’s birthday or not.
“Boy…Boy!” she hissed into the walkie-talkie. “Time has to be up now? I’ve definitely been here fifteen minutes!”
The handset crackled, breaking the quiet. Violet jumped and shunted it under her jumper to dampen the sound.
“No, not yet!” her friend’s voice filtered out through the wool.
“How long’s left then?”
“You’ve only been there, erm…” He hesitated. “Six minutes.”
“No way, I’ve been here loads longer than that!” she whispered angrily.
“Are you chickening out already?”
She was sure Boy sniggered before the line went dead.
“No I’m not!” she snapped, stabbing the call button.
The plant beside her jerked. Violet froze. The creature fussed a little then settled back to sleep. She shifted uncomfortably, frustrated over Boy’s timekeeping. She was sure he was cheating.
A sudden noise startled her. She turned towards it and spotted someone sneaking along the potholed road that cut through the middle of the plants. She craned her head to look.
The hooded figure wore black and moved quickly through the field. She was sure it was Boy, obviously trying to play a trick on her. She shifted carefully onto all fours and crawled across the soil, between rows of sleeping plants, towards the road, determined to catch him in the act.
She’d just reached the road when a large raven swooped down from the dark sky above and landed on what she had thought to be her friend’s shoulder.
“Tom?” Violet gasped, her whisper loud in the quiet night.
Boy’s identical twin brother turned and spotted her, his ice-blue eyes startling, their cold colour the only physical difference between him and his dark-eyed brother. Tom tripped as he scrambled forward and sprinted for the Ghost Estate. Violet climbed onto her feet and raced after him.
She hadn’t seen Tom since just after Edward and George Archer were caught, having tried to take over Town for the second time. Edward, with the aid of Tom, plus a strange zombie creature called the Child Snatcher and a crazy nurse named Priscilla Powick, had captured two of Town’s children and pointed the blame towards Boy and William. Then, staging the children’s rescue, Edward had returned to Town a hero and released his brother George. The pair worked on setting the Townsfolk against each other in order to win back control, until Violet, Boy and the others stopped them, tragically losing Boy and Tom’s mam, Macula Archer, in the process as she tried to save her sons.
Violet had last seen Tom secretly visiting his mother’s grave. He’d run away and she’d felt guilty since. Before Macula died she’d asked Violet to help bring her twins together so they could be a proper family, but so far Violet hadn’t done anything about that promise.
Boy and Tom didn’t grow up together. Way back at the beginning of Perfect, after William Archer had disappeared, Macula stumbled across Edward and George’s terrifying plans for their town. They aimed to control everyone, using their rose-tinted glasses to steal people’s imaginations. Anyone who didn’t conform would be thrown into No-Man’s-Land, a place cut off from the rest of the town by a huge wall. Petrified, Macula gave birth to her twin sons in secret and, to protect them from their uncles, left her babies outside the orphanage in No-Man’s-Land to be brought up there without anyone knowing who they were.
Tom had been taken from the orphanage as a child by Nurse Powick, who’d worked there. She’d reared him and forced him to do terrible things, so people thought Tom was bad. But, just like Boy’s mother, Macula, Violet believed Tom was a good person who’d never been given the chance to show it. Firstly, Tom had a pet raven that he really seemed to love and Violet didn’t think a bad person could be nice to animals. And secondly, when Edward and George had tried to take back Town, Tom had saved Violet – once from the Child Snatcher as it attacked her outside her home, and then from the same monster in the graveyard, with Nurse Powick standing just metres away.
On the night Macula died, Tom had saved Boy too, ordering the Child Snatcher to give his brother over to their friend Jack. Violet was sure he must have gotten into huge trouble when Nurse Powick found out. Tom had said something strange as he handed Boy over, he told Jack to “tell Mam I do feel it sometimes”. Jack was confused by the message but Violet understood it.
Standing in the Market Yard that same night Macula had pleaded with Tom to come back to her, telling him she loved him. She’d said that a mother’s love was strong and that she knew he felt it too, even though they had lived apart for so many years. Violet had been excited to pass Tom’s message to his mother, but Macula had died before she could.
“Tom, please stop,” she called now as he raced ahead through the pillars of the Ghost Estate.
Violet hesitated.
The Ghost Estate had once been a place full of fear. Every bad thought imaginable had crowded the mind of anyone who stepped inside its crumbling entrance. Then Violet discovered the mind-altering mist that Edward Archer had concocted in his cloud-making room and released to create this terror. After the Archers had been arrested and locked in the Town Hall, the Committee had destroyed the white room, stopping the gas. Now, she reminded herself, though the Ghost Estate was still derelict and looked eerie, it at least felt normal.
“Tom, please,” Violet called as she walked up the cracked path surrounded by half-built houses. “I need to talk to you. I think you’ve been told awful things about your family. I know you’re not bad, not really…”
Wind rustled black plastic sheeting in a cavity window, startling her.
“Please, Tom.” A quiver rattled her voice. “I saw you visit Macula’s grave. I know you think about your mam…”
Silence hung heavy in the night air. A door creaked and Tom stepped out onto an overgrown lawn to her left. He stared straight at her.
The walkie-talkie crackled to life.
“Violet, Violet, where are you?”
She fumbled in her pocket, trying to switch the device off. When she looked back up, Tom was disappearing over the hill at the back of the estate, heading towards the graveyard. She wouldn’t chase after him up there, not alone.
“Violet, stop messing! Where are you?” Boy shouted. This time the sound came from the eye-plant field.
“I’m here,” she called, turning to walk back out between the pillars.
The beam of a small headlight bounced along the road as Boy hurtled forward on his bike, skidding to a halt just in front of her.
“What are you doing up here?” he panted, a balancing foot touching the ground.
“I was definitely in that field longer than fifteen minutes!” she snapped, annoyed at her friend for making Tom run off.
“Someone was scared!” Boy laughed.
“I wasn’t scared! It was a stupid dare!” she replied, walking back towards Town. She wasn’t sure she should tell him about his brother.
“You’ll have to get me another present now,” he joked, pedalling slowly behind her.
Another present? An idea suddenly popped right into her head. She wanted to get Boy a present that was special, something that’d mean a lot. What if she got Tom back, reuniting Boy’s family for his birthday? It was so perfect, and she was sure William would be really happy too.
“Did one of the eye plants bite you or something, so you ran away?” her friend teased again.
She ignored him, lost in thought. Macula would have wanted it – Violet would be fulfilling her promise to Boy’s mam. She’d also be getting her best friend a gift money couldn’t buy, and that was how adults described all the best presents. She’d have to do it carefully though. Ever since Macula died, the slightest mention of Tom made her friend clam up.
The last time there was any talk of Boy’s twin brother was back in spring. A search party, led by Violet’s dad, had combed the Outskirts, looking for signs of Tom or Nurse Powick. They found nothing. Powick’s small thatched cottage was empty. So were the attached caravan and the stables across the field where she’d kept Hugo the zombie, who they’d nicknamed the Child Snatcher, and two other similar creatures named Denis and Denise.
After she’d heard the outcome of the search, Violet had begged Boy to come looking with her again. She was sure the adults had missed something – they usually did. When he refused, she told him about her promise to Macula to bring him and Tom together, to make them a proper family. Her friend got really angry, angrier than she’d ever seen him – in fact he’d told her never to mention it again.
But a few months had passed since then, so maybe Boy would be okay now? And even if he was a little angry at first, he’d get used to it and surely he’d be so happy to have a brother in the end. Violet had always wanted a sister or brother herself. It was lonely sometimes being the only kid stuck between two adults. Parents were usually boring – all they ever wanted to do was sit around and drink tea. What if she could find Tom and bring him back to his family? A brother. What a birthday present that’d be – Boy would never be bored again! And Macula would definitely be smiling down if she saw all her family together for the first time ever.
Now Violet knew that Tom was around again, it might not even be too hard to find him. He’d run towards the graveyard and that was the way into the Outskirts. Maybe she was right, maybe the adults had missed something when they searched there?
“Have you calmed down yet?” Boy interrupted her thoughts.
“I wasn’t not calm!” she snapped, walking across the footbridge back into Town, the black waters resting still beneath her.
“Yeah, right!” he laughed, his bike rattling over the wooden planks behind her.
Violet turned up Wickham Terrace, stopping at number 135, Boy’s home.
“Dad wants me to meet him at the Town Hall after the Committee meeting, so I’d better go,” she said.
“You still haven’t told me what you were doing in the estate!” Boy sounded a little frustrated now as he dismounted his bike.
“I did – I told you I wasn’t doing anything!” she replied.
“Girls never make sense,” he sighed, bewildered, as he pulled his keys from his jeans pocket.
“And boys do?” Violet mocked. “Now hurry up – I need to get my bag so Dad believes I was doing a project!”
Boy pushed open his front door, which led straight into the kitchen. The small space was still the colourful place Macula had left but somehow it felt less cosy without her. There were dirty dishes on the table from the morning’s breakfast; some even looked to be from the previous night’s dinner, though an opened Town Tribune had half hidden them and Violet didn’t want to stare. Mounds of clothes hung off the back of a chair and piles of paper tumbled from the worktop onto the tiled floor. William wasn’t the neatest person. Boy said his dad’s head was so full of ideas he didn’t have space for stupid things like dishes or washing.
Violet grabbed her khaki-green school bag from the beaten wood table as Boy pulled out a chair and sat down, studying the Town Tribune.
“Do you ever think about Tom?” she asked, stopping at the doorway.
Boy looked up, his dark eyes unblinking.
“Why’d you say that?”
“I just…” She struggled for a reason. “I don’t know, I just wondered!”
Boy stared back down at the paper, pretending to be engrossed in an article. Silence filled the space between them. Violet shifted awkwardly.
“So…do you?” she asked again, still hovering by the door.
“No, Violet, I don’t!” His reply was sharp.
She reddened and was about to step outside when her frustration caught hold. “Don’t you at least want—?”
Boy glared at her, cutting the sentence short.
Her face more than a little rosy, Violet stepped silently out onto Wickham Terrace, closing the door behind her.
She picked up her bike from round the side of the house and cycled back through the Market Yard and onto Forgotten Road, heading for Edward Street.
At least Boy hadn’t gotten really angry. That was progress. If she could just prove to him that Macula was right and Tom was good, then Boy’s thirteenth birthday could be the best one ever.
The Committee were already filing out of the Town Hall when she pulled her brakes. Her dad sat patiently on the steps.
“Get your project done, pet?” He smiled, standing up and dusting down his trousers.
“Almost, Dad,” she lied, slowly pedalling off ahead. She hated lying to him, but Violet knew he wouldn’t approve of her upsetting the eye plants.
The pair continued down Edward Street towards Splendid Road in silence. It was an easy quiet.
“Dad?” she asked, slowing down as they passed Archer and Brown.
“Yes, pet?”
“What would you do if you had the best idea for a birthday present ever and you knew that the person you were…ahem…buying it for would really, really love it, even though they think right now that they don’t want that present at all. Would you still buy it?”
Eugene Brown ruffled his hair, something he did whenever he was confused.
“Are you buying me a present?” he asked, furrowing his brow.
“No, Dad, it’s just a hypotechnical question…”
“So you’re not buying me a present? Because you know I do like presents!”
“No, Dad! Pleeeeaase, just answer!”
Eugene laughed. “Okay, pet, but your hypothetical question is a little hard to follow…”
“So you wouldn’t…buy it…the present?” she urged.
“Violet, I didn’t say that. You do whatever you think is right. You’re a good judge, pet. My advice is to trust yourself. If this friend is a good friend then they’ll know you got them something for the right reasons, no matter what it is. It’s the thought that counts, pet… Anyway, everybody loves presents!”
“Thanks, Dad.” Violet smiled, pedalling ahead again.
She climbed the stairs to bed that night, her mind made up.
Her mam believed in signs like feathers and robins and, though her dad didn’t think that was at all scientific, part of Violet believed in them too. Seeing Tom tonight after all this time, and so close to the twins’ birthday, had to be a sign. Macula wanted Violet to bring her family back together.
And anyway, just like her dad said, everybody loves presents!
Violet raced excitedly down the stairs the next morning. It might have been because it was Friday – after today she wouldn’t see Mrs Moody for a whole weekend – but it might also have been because she’d made a decision and was going to act on it.
Boy’s birthday was on the twenty-third, only a few days away. It’d be tight but she would do her best to find Tom before then.
“You’re in a good mood, pet.” Rose smiled as she looked up from scraping char off her burned toast. “Happy it’s Friday?”
“Something like that, Mam.”
Violet wasn’t going to tell her parents anything, not yet anyway. Her dad always told her off for poking around in other people’s business and she was pretty sure he’d think Boy’s business wasn’t hers to interfere with.
She opened the fridge, looking for milk. Her dad was at the kitchen table engrossed in reading the paper again.
“He’s been like that since I got up. Your father is great company at times, pet! Something about that missing scientist again.” Her mam sighed, sitting down across from him.
“It’s not just one scientist, Rose,” Eugene announced, taking a bite from his toast. “More are missing now. These are some of the world’s greatest minds.”
“I thought you said they’re retired, Eugene? So they were some of the world’s greatest minds!”
“Once a great mind, always a great mind, Rose! It’s a very odd story really. There’s four of them now. And they’ve all been taken from their homes in the middle of the night.”
Eugene pointed to the blotted black and grey pictures in the paper. Two men and two women stared out from the page. They looked granny-old – one man’s nose hair almost touched his top lip.
“They’ve each contributed hugely to society and our understanding of the world!” her dad continued.
“A great mind,” Rose muttered. “I’m not sure I’d like to be remembered that way! Wouldn’t it be nicer to be remembered for your kindness or caring or something like that?”
“But why would anyone want to kidnap those scientists, Dad? They all look ancient!” Violet stabbed her finger at the pictures.
“Age is just a number, pet. The scientists were old friends – it says they met in Hegel University, where they all worked in their heyday. They were celebrities in their time. What I wouldn’t give to have studied under any of them!”
“Celebrity scientists! Well, I’ve heard it all now.” Rose laughed, buttering the toast she’d half scraped away. “Anyway, did you get your project done last night, pet?”
“Yes, I did it at Boy’s. It took a while – he hates maths!” Violet avoided her mother’s eyes and looked down at her bowl.
“Maths is everywhere, pet.” Eugene glanced up from the Tribune. “Tell Boy to look for it outside his books, he might find it interesting then. Maths is in nature. Take a sunflower or the way trees branch out – they use a type of numerical symmetry called the Fibonacci sequence. Each number in the sequence is determined…”
“I’m going to be late for school.” Violet jumped up before Eugene could properly launch into his lesson. “But I’ll tell him. It sounds…ahem…really interesting!”
She grabbed her bag from the floor and headed into the hall. The front door banged behind her as she crunched across the gravel and round the side of the house, pulling her bike from the pebble-dashed wall to pedal towards school.
Violet arrived earlier than normal, hoping to finish the project she was meant to have done last night. Boy was already perched on the bench that hugged the yard wall, crouching over his books in serious concentration. He clearly hadn’t done it either.
“I meant to do my project when I got home last night but completely forgot,” she fussed, pulling out her exercise book.
“Oh brilliant.” He smiled. “We can do it together!”
“No, Boy! You have to do it yourself! Mrs Moody will know if we helped each other.”
“Come on, Violet, you know I’m useless at maths.”
“Well you won’t get any better if you don’t do it yourself! Dad says you should look at nature and you might enjoy maths more. Something about sunflowers and a Fibber sequence—”
“The Fibonacci sequence.” Jack suddenly loomed above them. “Are you learning about that with Mrs Moody? I think it’s amazing. The world is so weird in a cool kind of way! I mean, it all follows patterns, you know, nature, everything. I bet humans do too – I must look into that, I’m sure there has to be a book on it somewhere.”
Jack was an ex-orphan too and had been one of Boy’s best friends in No-Man’s-Land. When Perfect fell he’d been reunited with his family and since their adventures saving Town, he was now Violet’s friend too. Unlike Boy, Jack loved books and studying and school and seemed to know everything there was to know about everything.
“Jack, just the right person!” Boy smiled. “Can you do my project?”
“No!” Violet scolded. “Don’t, Jack – he needs to do it by himself!”
“Thanks!” Boy replied. “I’ll remember that next time you need help!”
“I like doing other people’s homework,” Jack said, taking the offered copybook as he sat down on the bench.
“See, I’m doing him a favour!” Boy smirked.
“Anyone want to do my homework?” Anna Nunn asked, joining the threesome. “I didn’t get time to do it last night ’cause I was—”
“Sneaking out again?” Boy smiled.
Anna was a few years younger than Violet and had been an orphan in No-Man’s-Land too, where Boy and Jack had protected her like older brothers. Violet often thought Anna didn’t need protection – the little girl was one of the most daring people she knew. Anna was always sneaking out of her house and exploring Town at night, a habit she’d picked up in No-Man’s-Land. After Perfect fell, Anna had been reunited with her family too. Her mam Madeleine was a Town Committee member.
“You can’t tease me, Boy,” Anna replied defensively. “I saw you sneaking up Forgotten Road last night!”
“No I wasn’t,” Boy replied, confused.
“Yes, you were. You ignored me when I called you!”
“That wasn’t me. Are you sure, Anna?”
“Yeah.” The blonde girl nodded.
“Maybe it was…ahem…maybe it was Tom?” Violet said, careful how she broached the subject.
If she’d seen Boy’s twin last night then it was possible Anna had too. Maybe he was visiting Macula’s grave again – she was buried in the Town cemetery up past the school and he’d have to go by Forgotten Road to get there.
“Don’t tell me he’s back?” Jack looked up from writing in Boy’s copybook.
“He’s not!” Boy stated, standing.
“But if it wasn’t you,” Anna replied, “then it had to be Tom. It was dark so I didn’t see his eyes. You— I mean, Tom went into one of the old, falling-down houses at the bottom of Forgotten Road. I knocked on the door and said it was me, but you— I mean, he didn’t answer. I was a bit annoyed at you but now I know it was him, I forgive you, Boy!”
“Which house? What time was this, Anna?” Violet questioned.
“Around seven I think, ’cause I sneak out when Mam goes to Committee meetings – she leaves early to prepare. She’d get cross if she caught me, so I only do it when she’s not home. It was the house we used to use to get onto the roof and over to the wall down into Perfect, I think, or maybe it was the one beside it – one of them ones anyway!”
“Why would he be back?” Jack looked concerned and had even stopped writing. “Maybe we should look into it a bit. What if he’s trying to help Edward and George escape? I don’t like the sound of this!”
Edward and George Archer had been held in the clock tower of the Town Hall ever since their last attempt to take over. In the basement cells of the same old stone building were their Watchers, a band of cruel and brawny criminals who’d helped the twins to control Perfect.
Violet didn’t share Jack’s concern. Edward and George were locked up. Nurse Powick was still free but nobody thought she could get up to much on her own. The eye-plant beds, used as a security system throughout Town, were still in operation and William Archer checked the small screens in their control centre, the Brain, daily. The Brain was a small black box about the size of a garden shed, situated just by the Town Hall on Edward Street. It was filled with tiny monitors connected to every single eye plant in the town, recording everything they saw. For the first time in ages Town felt truly safe and Violet’s old nightmares had all but disappeared.
“He couldn’t help them escape even if he tried. Dad says nobody can get in or out of the Town Hall without being caught,” Boy stated.
“Well Tom got through Town before. The eyes didn’t see him then,” Anna replied. “He messed with their signals, remember?”
“Dad’s fixed that glitch!” Boy snapped, taking his copybook from Jack.