The Colors of Madeleine 01: Corner of White by Jaclyn Moriarty

Author:Jaclyn Moriarty [Moriarty, Jaclyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Scholastic
Published: 2013-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

9.

It was autumn dusk in Bonfire, shadows closing in on themselves in the empty high-school grounds.

Elliot stood by Cody’s sculpture, reading the latest letter from the Girl-in-the-World:

Dear Elliot,

Strange day.

My mother fainted this morning. I was at my Science teacher’s house and there was a noise like pebbles falling, which turned out, actually, to be exactly that.

Still haven’t figured out why Mum walked into the house with a handful of pebbles.

Anyhow, it was bad. There’s my mother on the floor, and the teacher’s little girls thinking she’s playing a joke, so they’re both HYSTERICAL, falling flat on their backs, jumping over her, squealing. The TV was counting blue hippos behind me. Darshana’s face seemed to snag on its own surprise so she just stood there with her eyes wide open (which really scared me — she’s usually a human iron lung), and my friend Jack started saying my mother’s name over and over, in this scary, questioning voice that gets louder and louder — “Holly? Holly? HOLLY?” like a dad about to bust a kid.

I just stood there, counting blue hippos.

ANYHOW, she’s fine.

When Chakiki (the younger of the girls) realised Mum wasn’t getting up, she emptied a flower vase over her face. (She’s still got half-dead tulip petals stuck in her hair, actually.) Right away, Mum choked, opened her eyes, and said a word that practically choked the little girls with the shock. They were still shouting it at each other an hour later, and using it as the punch line of jokes and the chorus of songs. (Darshana kept telling us, “Ignore them and they’ll stop,” and saying to the girls, “I’m not impressed, you know! I’m not bothered! I’m ignoring you and you will stop!” But they didn’t.)

Mum explained that she’d forgotten to eat breakfast this morning, and then she remembered that she’d ALSO forgotten dinner last night (I’d been at Jack’s having pasta, so I didn’t realise this), and everyone was like: NO WONDER YOU FAINTED, YOU STUPID IDIOT.

So we all ate masala dosa and drank tea, and my mother started to look less like a corpse.

I am now at home, and I’ve just made tofu fritters, which were okay. And she’s back at her sewing machine.

Anyhow, so, listen, I’m thinking you should choose something else for your “villains” (or “monsters” or whatever they are) in your Kingdom of Cello. Something other than Colours, I mean. Because, seriously, “a wave of Reds is coming”? Do you realise how racist you sound? (I’m thinking of the history surrounding Native Americans.) Even the word “Colours” sounds too close to another word, also from American history, right?

Or are you doing it on purpose? Like an ironic cultural reference?

Anyway, I don’t like it.

I guess, though, if you do keep them, it’s kind of funny that the colour Red travels in “waves.” Cause, well, all colours do that, right? Travel in waves, I mean.

I know this cause I’ve been reading about colours. My guy, Isaac Newton, was into them.

Have you done the research?

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