Viridian (2 page)

Dad was behind the Silver Bullet.

There was a small brick building here, which held the generator and a deep freeze, and a rusty old metal shipping container, big enough to walk inside, that they used to store soft drinks and catering packs of margarine, tomato sauce, mustard and cooking oil. Beside the generator building was a water butt.

Wonder if they mind green scum and dead flies?
wondered Dad as he scooped out the first glassful of rain water.

Suddenly the Verdan girl skipped into view.

‘Hi,' said Dad awkwardly. He had no idea how to talk to a Verdan kid.

But the kid ignored him anyway. She came skipping over to the water butt, leaned over and stuck her head, right up to the neck, in the water.

Her green hair floated on the surface like river weed. Millions of tiny oxygen bubbles clung onto her green skin and fizzed to the water surface like champagne bubbles.

Dad stared, astonished. She still didn't come up. Then he
started to worry:
Can she breathe down there?
She didn't seem to be in any distress. But what if she was drowning?

He couldn't take the chance. He grabbed the back of her T-shirt, hauled her out, and dumped her on the ground.

She twisted round. ‘I was thirsty,' she said. ‘I didn't drink enough yet. What did you pull me up for?'

She stared at him accusingly through her river weed hair.

Oh no
, thought Dad, panicking. What if she started howling and her parents came running?

‘Look, don't cry, I'll give you a drink,' he said. ‘Just don't cry, OK?'

* * *

Over by the barbecue, as Viridian and Jay glared at each other, a terrible high-pitched scream rose above the growl of motorway traffic. Viridian's green neck slowly twisted round.

‘It's Sage,' he said.

He went strolling towards the Silver Bullet in long, loping strides, with Jay running to keep up.

Viridian's mum and dad watched, their faces showing no particular concern, as their daughter raced in a shrieking frenzy through the tall grass. Her eyes were staring and wild, her skinny limbs jerking, her head wobbling. She had a giant, empty pop bottle clasped in her hand.

‘Who gave her the fizzy drink?' said Viridian. ‘She's got a CO
₂
rush.'

Sage flung down the bottle, went streaking across the tarmac and sprang at the wall on one side of the wasteland. It was high, built of crumbling brick and almost swamped by a creeping mass of dark green, dusty ivy. With manic energy, Sage began scrambling up.

Her mum called out, ‘Excuse me, where's my rain water?'

Jay and Viridian arrived at the bottom of the wall together.

‘Come down!' yelled Jay. But Sage climbed higher with shocking speed, her skinny body swallowed by the ivy.

‘She's nearly at the top,' said Jay. Motorway traffic roared by on the other side of the wall. What if she climbed over and fell? Or ran out into the road?

Jay's heart was thumping wildly. But Viridian's green face looked smooth and unworried.

‘What's wrong with you?' Jay yelled. ‘It's your sister up there!'

Desperately, Jay plunged into the tumbling jungle of ivy, hauling himself clumsily up, grabbing at leaves. His feet scrabbled for the twisted ivy creepers that suckered themselves to the brick. Whippy stems tugged at his clothes. It was like climbing through a strangling maze.

Viridian appeared beside him, climbing easily. His dark green skin merged with the leaves as if he and the plant were one. Only his pale denim jeans and white T-shirt showed up.

Dust and bits of ivy showered on Jay's head as Viridian
overtook him. Jay clung to the ivy, coughing.
How far am I from the top?
he thought. He looked up to check and through shaking leaves he saw Sage. She was balanced on top of the wall, standing with her eyes closed, her arms outspread, as if she was going to fly.

Just below her, six lanes of motorway traffic thundered by.

An ivy creeper ripped off the brick and lashed his bare arm. Jay swore at the stinging pain, praying he hadn't been scratched. He reached blindly upwards, one hand groping through the creepers for a more secure handhold. The ivy seemed to be fighting him all the way.

Viridian was already at the top.

He grabbed his sister's ankle. Sage swayed, bent forward as if she was going to dive head first into the traffic. Then Jay suddenly burst free of the ivy and grasped her other ankle. Together they dragged Sage down off the wall.

Sage clung to the ivy with amazing strength, her green fingers curling round its creepers.

‘Let go,' Viridian ordered his sister.

Jay was hanging on grimly too. The ivy felt loose, as if it was going to rip away from the crumbling bricks in one great green sheet and send them hurtling to the ground.

‘I can't hang on much longer,' Jay said through clenched teeth.

Viridian bent back Sage's fingers to try and break her grip. Sage howled at the pain but didn't let go.

Viridian shrugged. ‘Let's leave her.'

‘
What?
' gasped Jay, thinking he hadn't heard right.

‘Just leave her!'

Then, as if her energy surge had slumped to zero, Sage let go. It was so sudden, Jay wasn't expecting it. She simply went limp and dropped, crashing through the leaves. Horrified, Jay stared downwards, and saw his dad, at the bottom of the wall with Sage in his arms.

Dad called up, ‘I caught her, she's safe.'

Jay watched as Dad put Sage down beside her parents, who barely glanced at their daughter.

‘Where's my rain water, please?' demanded Sage's mother. ‘My skin is so dry.'

Dad stalked to the Diner. He came back with two glasses of rain water and slammed them down in front of Sage's parents. They poured the drink down their throats.

‘Ahh,' said the woman. ‘I feel so much better.'

Already her face seemed plumper, juicier. Water, in tiny glistening droplets, began to transpire from the pores in her green skin.

Dad, you kill me,
thought Jay.
All the times I need him, he doesn't show. Then he turns up and casually saves some kid from breaking her neck.

As his tension drained away, Jay felt tired and weak. Following Viridian down through the tangled creepers, he had to concentrate to make sure he didn't fall. When he reached the ground, his legs were wobbly.

Viridian said, ‘You cut your arm.'

Jay inspected the long gash. It was shallow but it was bleeding a lot. He felt a wave of panic. Had it been a scratch from a plant?

Viridian was bleeding too, from a cruel-looking cut on his wrist. Jay saw blood oozing out, green as plant sap. He stared at it, repelled and fascinated.

Jay was about to say, ‘I never knew your blood was green too.' But he gulped back the words, confused by the strange, intense glow in Viridian's eyes.

Viridian stepped closer. Jay felt suddenly light-headed as he breathed in the oxygen from Viridian's photosynthesizing skin.

‘You could be one of us,' Viridian hissed. ‘Right now. We can save the planet. You polluters, you're killing it, with all your poison gases and dirty waste.'

Viridian held up his bleeding wrist. Jay watched the green blood trickle down his arm. He looked down at the dark red blood still leaking out of his own wound.

‘You want us to mix blood?' said Jay. ‘So I get the virus?'

Viridian nodded.

‘No way.'

‘What are you scared of?' said Viridian. ‘Becoming a Cultivar is the biggest adventure ever.'

‘Becoming a what? I thought you were a Verdan. I've never heard of Cultivars.'

‘You will,' said Viridian. ‘We are the future.' He gave Jay
an odd smile, secretive and arrogant. ‘You'd make a worthy Cultivar. You did well, back there. But if you want to be a Cultivar, you must be a Verdan first.'

Viridian lunged forward, grabbed Jay's arm, and clamped it against his cut wrist.

Jay struggled and shouted, ‘Let me go!' But it was too late. He saw their blood mingle, run in red and green streaks down his arm.

Viridian watched it, fascinated. He whispered, ‘I made a new Verdan.'

Jay couldn't speak. His brain felt numb.

‘I made you,' Viridian was saying dreamily. ‘We're joined together blood to blood…'

Suddenly, Jay woke up to the horror of what had just happened. ‘You green freak!' he screamed, tearing his arm away. ‘You've given me the virus!'

He started running back towards the Silver Bullet, shouting ‘Dad, Dad!'

Dad came rushing out of the Diner. Jay held up his bloody arm. ‘Viridian gave me the virus! We both got cut climbing after Sage and he just grabbed my arm…'

‘What!' Dad exploded.

He hustled Jay inside the Diner. Shivering, Jay watched him unscrew a bottle of antiseptic. ‘It won't work, Dad. Nothing works, they said so on TV…'

Then he yelled out as Dad poured the contents of the bottle over his arm. Jay hopped around the trailer, cursing at
the burning pain, then threw himself down on the tiny sofa.

Dad leapt down the trailer steps. ‘I'm going to get that green freak,' he shouted back to Jay. ‘Teach him a lesson.'

‘Dad! Don't!' pleaded Jay. ‘Don't go after him! He's different from the others. He's dangerous!'

But Dad had disappeared. Jay sat shivering on the sofa, cradling his arm. He didn't have any faith at all in the antiseptic. The doctors on TV had said, over and over again, that nothing could stop the virus. Once you'd been infected, you saw the first signs really quickly. The skin around the wound bleached grey. Then it turned green. And then the virus would spread to the rest of your body and your brain.

Jay waited, his nerves shrieking. He felt like throwing up. His eyes stayed fixed on the wound. But it didn't change.

Then Dad came back into the trailer. ‘They've gone,' he said. ‘Just driven off.' He knelt down to look at Jay's arm.

‘Dad, I don't think I'm infected,' said Jay, his voice shaky, but with a hint of hope.

‘Told you that antiseptic would do the trick,' said Dad. ‘That stuff would kill anything.'

They waited some more. Still nothing happened.

‘Don't worry,' said Dad finally. ‘Panic over. You're not one of them green freaks.'

Jay took in his first, deep breath for what seemed like ages. He let it out in a long, shuddering sigh of relief. ‘I was really scared.'

‘No need to be scared now,' said Dad.

‘I'm not!' Jay protested. He stopped hugging his arm and stood up. He even managed a feeble grin.

‘Hey, Dad,' he said, ‘you were a hero out there, catching that girl. I bet her parents didn't even say thanks, did they?'

Dad said, ‘No, but then, it was my fault she went hyper in the first place. I gave her a bottle of fizzy pop.'

‘What? Her dad told us it was poison to Verdans! Why'd you give her that?'

Dad shrugged. ‘I didn't think, did I?'

Jay sat in silence for a minute. Then he said, ‘Dad, have you ever heard of Cultivars?'

‘Culti-whats?' said Dad.

‘Cultivars,' said Jay. ‘Viridian said he was one, that they're the future. Do you know what he meant?'

‘No idea,' said Dad. ‘He was some kind of psycho, if you ask me. I've never seen Verdans behave like that.'

‘I know,' said Jay, nodding.

‘Well, I'm not taking any more chances,' said Dad ‘I'm going to put up that sign – “No Green Freaks Served Here”.'

‘Dad,' protested Jay, wearily.

‘All right,' said Dad. ‘“Sorry, No Verdans Served Here”. That polite enough for you? But I
definitely
don't want any more of 'em stopping at my Diner.'

A few weeks later, Jay walked down the slip road carrying the ‘DINER OPEN' sign.

A lorry thundered past, making him stagger in its slipstream. But after that, there were big spaces between cars and lorries. There hadn't been much traffic yesterday, or the day before.

He was setting the sign up on the dusty verge when he noticed Dad's other sign, the one warning Verdans not to stop at the Diner. Someone had painted big red childish letters all over it:

Jay decided to take the sign back to the Diner. But as he was walking back across the wasteland with it, he heard Dad yelling, ‘Jay!'

Jay dumped the sign and started running. ‘Where are you?'

‘I'm out the back!' came Dad's voice, shaking with anger.

Jay skidded round the back and found Dad staring at the
trailer. The same person had painted graffiti there too, low down on its gleaming aluminium side. This time it said:

Dad was so choked with fury he could hardly speak. ‘Look what they've done. I'm never going to get that off.'

The rusty old shipping container had the same words scrawled all over it. But Dad didn't care about that. All he cared about was the Silver Bullet.

Dad spat out, ‘Wait until I get my hands on him!'

‘Who?'

‘That Viridian kid of course. He must have done it last night. I never heard a thing.'

‘Neither did I,' said Jay. He thought about how easily Viridian had snaked through that ivy. He could slither through the thistles and stinging nettles behind the trailer without making a sound.

Jay imagined Viridian, in the dead of night, peering through the windows of the trailer with those spooky green eyes, watching them sleeping.

‘There's no proof that it's Viridian,' said Jay, trying to calm himself and Dad down.

Dad was too angry to reason with. ‘Whose side are you on?' he snapped. ‘Why do you think it's not him?'

Jay said, lamely, ‘He'd do better graffiti than that. And he wouldn't spell “polluters” wrong.'