Viridian (3 page)

But he didn't dare tell Dad the real reason. Viridian had
said he and Jay shared a bond, blood to blood. And he'd said that Jay was worthy of being a Cultivar. Jay was flattered – and curious.

It's the biggest adventure ever.

He hadn't been able to block Viridian's words out. They'd replayed constantly in his head, giving him a peculiar tingle of excitement.

‘Well, I'm sure it's him,' Dad was insisting. ‘The kid needs a good kick up his green backside. Anyway, who's he calling Polluters? I recycle, don't I, if I remember?'

Jay shook his head. ‘Verdans think humans are polluting the planet just by existing, just by
breathing
.'

‘Well, what are they going to do about it? They can't wipe us out.'

Jay kept quiet. He was thinking about Viridian's alien eyes and the deep green fires inside them. Viridian's absolute certainty that being Verdan was the only choice.

‘Anyway, I thought Verdans never cause trouble?' said Dad, as if he was reading Jay's mind. ‘Why's this Viridian kid so different?'

Jay's mobile rang before he could answer. It was inside the Diner and he ran to answer it. Dad called after him, ‘If that's the school, you can tell them to shove it!'

The new term had started, but Dad had told the school Jay was sick. They kept phoning up, demanding doctor's notes. But Jay had wild dreams of never going back. He saw his future differently now, as a young entrepreneur. He and Dad
would build up a business together. They'd have Diners all along the motorway. Rainbirds Diners would go national, global! And he and Dad would be millionaires.

But it wasn't the school on the phone. It was Gran.

Jay answered, and immediately started apologizing. Gran only lived a mile away in Franklin, and she had brought Jay up, looking after him when Dad was away. But since Dad had come back, and they started up the Diner, Jay hadn't been to see her.

‘Sorry, Gran,' he gabbled into the phone. ‘We've been really busy here at the Diner.'

Jay was lying. The truth was that, in the last few weeks, business had gone scarily slack. Because of Dad's sign no Verdans had stopped. That wouldn't have mattered if the human truckers had kept coming. But the big delivery lorries they drove were disappearing fast from the motorway. And many of the remaining truckers were Verdans.

‘Gran, I've been meaning to come and see you,' Jay went on. ‘I'll come as soon as I can, I promise.'

Jay steeled himself for a telling off. But Gran wasn't mad at him. In fact she sounded really cheery. She said, ‘Jay, I've got some good news. I've got the virus.'

‘
What
?'

‘I've got the virus,' repeated Gran. ‘I'm a Verdan now.'

‘How'd that happen, Gran?' squawked Jay, his voice cracked with shock and disbelief. ‘Were you gardening? I
told
you to be careful!'

‘It wasn't an accident,' said Gran. ‘I had the injection. And it's the best thing I ever did. My arthritis has disappeared, no pain or stiffness at all…'

Jay wasn't listening. He raced out to Dad, the phone clutched in his hand. ‘Gran's got the virus,' he panted. She got herself injected with it.'

Dad grabbed the phone and barked into it, ‘Have you lost your mind?'

But Gran had ended the call.

‘Right,' said Dad. ‘We're going round there, see what this nonsense is all about.'

Jay said, ‘Do you think that's a good idea, Dad? We'll have to close the Diner.'

Dad was already in a bad mood, because of the damage to his precious Silver Bullet. And he didn't get on with Gran anyway. Gran was Jay's mum's mum. Mum had died after a crash when she was riding pillion on Dad's motorbike, and Gran blamed Dad.

Dad was already on the way to the van, and Jay had to sprint to keep up with him. Dad leapt into the driving seat, Jay scrambled in beside him and with a screech of tyres they roared off, towards Franklin.

They had to pass Jay's school. Jay got ready to duck down in his seat. But then he saw he didn't need to. There were a few cars in the car park but no school buses, no kids pouring up the drive.

Jay thought,
Where is everybody?

They passed the Agricultural Research Station on the right, its three huge glass eco-domes set back from the road behind trees. As usual, a Security Guard sat in a little hut just inside the entrance and lifted barriers to let vehicles in and out. Jay was surprised to see that he was a Verdan.

But he didn't have time to think about that because Dad was pulling onto Gran's estate. They skidded to a stop in front of her house.

As Jay got out, he suddenly felt the back of his neck prickle. His head whisked round and, in the house opposite, he saw a green hand let a curtain fall.

Dad had gone striding up the garden path. Now he was hammering on Gran's front door. More curtains twitched in the houses across the road.

‘I've got a key,' Jay said quickly. He let them both inside.

The house was very silent and still. The air smelled stale.

Gran wasn't downstairs. Jay clattered up the stairs yelling ‘Gran!' He flung open bedroom doors and noticed, with a sudden pang, that Gran had kept his bedroom just as he left it, weeks ago, when he'd gone to live with Dad. As if she thought Jay might soon be coming back.

‘She's probably out in the garden,' Jay told himself.

Gran was a mad-keen gardener and spent ages outside, weeding and lopping off straggly bits of plants.

‘
Whoa!
' said Jay as he pushed open the back door. Over the summer, since he'd been away, Gran's garden had gone berserk. It was more like the wilderness around the Silver
Bullet than Gran's neat and tidy plot. Big tough weeds had taken over, suffocating smaller plants. Yellow slimy toadstools had killed the grass on her lawn. Spiny brambles crept over the ground, hooking themselves into her hedges, strangling her tender flowers.

It just wasn't like Gran to let her garden get out of control like this.

‘Gran?' shouted Jay as he pushed his way through the weeds. Dad was behind him, but he had gone quiet, as if he was nervous about what they would find.

‘You out here?' called Jay. A bramble looped round his leg. Jay swore. Had it scratched him? Then a green hand slid out of some tall purple thistles, and Jay yelled out in alarm.

‘It's only me,' said Gran, and as Jay stood, frozen, she squatted down, disentangled the bramble and freed it. Jay saw how quickly and easily she moved now, how supple she was, like a cat.

‘Hi, sweetheart,' she said to Jay. Then her eyes slid away again, as if she wasn't that interested.

Jay stared at her Verdan face, her green skin, clammy with water drops, her hair fluffed out around her head like green candyfloss. She wasn't Gran any more. She was one of
them
.

He couldn't find a single thing to say.

Gran had moved away to find some sunlight. She was soaking up the rays, her eyes closed as if she was in a trance.

Dad wasn't speechless. He stuck his fierce face into Gran's. ‘What did you do this for?' he demanded.

Gran said serenely, ‘Do you mind moving back a bit, you're shading my light.' Then, ignoring Dad, she added, ‘Join us, Jay. Get the injection.'

‘I can't believe I'm hearing this,' said Dad.

‘It's the right thing to do,' she continued, calmly. ‘I feel so at peace. It's such a pure and beautiful way to live.'

‘Stop preaching all that Verdan crap,' said Dad. ‘He doesn't want to know.'

Jay knew this was heading for a storm. Every time Dad and Gran met, it started off politely enough, for Jay's sake. But sooner or later, they'd forget about Jay and end up screaming at each other.

Dad would shout, ‘You never give me a chance, do you?' Gran would call him a loser, Dad would call her an old witch. Then, always, it would end with that terrible accusation: ‘If my daughter hadn't met you, she'd be alive now.' And Dad would yell, ‘You
know
it wasn't my fault!' Then he'd go slamming furiously out the door.

Jay loved Gran. She'd always been there when Dad hadn't. She was reliable, solid as a rock. But he loved his wayward dad too.

‘How could you do this?' Dad was fuming at Gran. ‘Become one of those green freaks, spouting their crazy propaganda!'

Gran's response was worse than any row. She just moved off to find a sunnier spot, as though she'd forgotten them. As if Jay didn't matter any more.

But there was something Gran did care about. As she was sliding off into the greenery, she pounced, with horrible catlike quickness, on an upturned plastic bucket.

Gran lifted it up. Underneath was a sick-looking pot plant. Instead of being bristling and bright green, it was pale yellow with a long floppy stem and two droopy yellow leaves.

‘Oh, no!' Gran seemed really upset.

‘What's the matter, Gran?' said Jay. But Gran didn't even glance in his direction.

‘Poor little etiolated plant,' she crooned. ‘Growing in the dark like that! No wonder you're poorly. Never mind, we'll find you a nice patch of sunlight.'

And she went off, cradling the plant and talking to it tenderly.

Instantly Jay's mind flashed back to when he was about three years old. He'd had tonsillitis, it hurt to swallow. His throat felt like it was full of barbed wire. Gran had gone specially to the supermarket to get him chocolate ice cream. She'd said, ‘We'll soon make you better.' Then she'd fed him the ice cream, spoon by spoon.

‘Gran,' whispered Jay forlornly, gazing after her.

Now he felt really scared. In his heart, he simply didn't trust Dad to look after him. Dad never had before. But, until now, there had always been Gran.

Dad grabbed him. ‘Come on,' he said. ‘We're not staying here. She might try to give you the virus.'

Jay took a last look back. But, in all that green, he couldn't
tell which was the garden and which was Gran.

In the van, Jay found himself thinking forbidden thoughts again. Would it really be so bad to be a Verdan? He'd never seen Gran looking so calm and healthy and happy.

If we were all Verdans
, thought Jay,
there'd be no more rows. We'd all get on really well. And we'd be saving the planet at the same time.

But there was no way Jay could confess his thoughts to Dad. Dad was saying, ‘It's like she's a robot, brainwashed or something. One thing's for sure. You can't live with her any more.'

‘But I don't need to, do I?' Jay said, with sudden panic. ‘I'm living with
you
, aren't I? That's the plan, isn't it?'

Dad looked a bit flustered. ‘Er, yes, of course. That's the plan.'

‘You aren't going to go away again?'

‘No, I'm not,' said Dad, defensively. ‘I told you, I'm here to stay.'

Jay had heard that before. But this time, he almost believed it. Something seemed to have changed in Dad's mind. As though he had to take his responsibilities seriously now. Because he suddenly said, ‘You'd better go back to school.'

‘Why?' said Jay, astonished.

‘Because if you don't, they might put me in jail for not sending you. I heard they do that nowadays. And then what would you do?'

‘I could keep the Diner going,' said Jay desperately. ‘I'd be all right there on my own.'

‘No,' said Dad. ‘I'm taking you back to school. Right now.'

They drove, in tense silence, back to Franklin High School by way of Franklin High Street.

Jay gazed out at the shops. Franklin's two takeaways had closed down. A new place called The Mineral Café had opened up. It was crowded with Verdans, sitting at outside tables, with tall glasses of blue and milky white drinks.

Jay read the board outside the café. ‘Get your Nutrients Here,' it said. ‘Today's Special: Phosphorus Pick Me Up.'

Dad frowned. ‘What's that all about?'

‘Verdans don't need human food,' said Jay patiently. ‘Only light, water and minerals.'

‘But what about humans?' said Dad. ‘Don't they come down here any more?'

‘There's some, Dad,' said Jay. ‘And, look, there's some more over there.' But mostly, the High Street seemed like a green sea of Verdans.

Dad drove on, grim-faced.

Jay said, ‘Maybe we should change Rainbirds American Diner to Rainbirds Mineral Drinks.'

‘If that's supposed to be a joke, it isn't funny.'

Jay didn't dare tell Dad that he'd never felt more serious in his life.

Then Dad suddenly braked, shouting, ‘Jay, look! That kid over there, isn't that Sage?'

Jay squinted at the Verdan girl, skipping along in a world of her own. ‘I think so. Yeah.'

‘Bet she knows where Viridian is,' said Dad. ‘Go on, get out and ask her.'

‘What, me?' said Jay.

‘Yes, you. I'm not going anywhere near that freaky kid. Go on.'

At first Sage didn't seem to notice Jay. She tried to skip around him as though he was a litter bin on the pavement.

Jay blocked her way. He wasn't sure what to say.

‘You on your own?' he started. ‘Where are your mum and dad?'

Sage shrugged. ‘They've gone away.' She didn't seem at all distressed.

Jay said, ‘Have they left you on your own?' Sage stared at him, as if she didn't understand the question.

How did you get through to this kid? Jay tried a different approach. ‘Remember me? From the Diner? I helped your brother get you down from the ivy.'

‘You're shading my light,' she said.

Jay decided to get to the point. ‘Where's Viridian?'

‘Who?' she said, lifting her face to the sun and smiling.

‘Your brother,' said Jay. ‘Remember him?'

Sage said, ‘Oh, he's gone away too.' She waved vaguely over the rooftops. ‘To the building with glass bubbles.'