Free Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde

if he were there—which he isn’t.”
    I understood Stafford’s reticence. Admitting that Apocrypha actually existed was a grave impiety punishable by a five-hundred-merit fine. A whole range of euphemistic language had developed to refer to them, but generally no one did—a slip of tense could leave your hard-won merit score in tatters.
    “I’ve never actually seen an Apocryphal man,” I noted, unable to stop staring, “and, um, still haven’t. Do you think they might all look the same— if they existed?”
    “I’ve only not seen one,” said Stafford, following my gaze to where the unseeable man was now pouring cooling water over himself from a water butt, “so I’ve no idea what one shouldn’t look like. Would you excuse me? I promised to go and search for Mr. Yewberry’s second-best hat. It’ll be on his head as usual, but he tips well.”
    He gave another short bow, and I quietly closed the door before rejoining my father in the kitchen. “That was very strange.”
    “I know,” he agreed, looking up from where he had been searching the cupboards out of curiosity. “You can’t misdiagnose the Mildew. Especially on yourself. It’s just too obvious.”
    “No,” I said, “there was an Apocryphal man peeing on his foot in the alleyway opposite.”
    “ As I was going down the stair, I saw a man who wasn’t there, ” replied Dad with a smile. “That’s the Outer Fringes for you. I pity the poor clucks he’s not lodging with.”

The House
    9.3.88.32.025: The cucumber and the tomato are both fruit; the avocado is a nut. To assist with the dietary requirements of vegetarians, on the first Tuesday of the month a chicken is officially a vegetable.
    W e began by exploring the house. It was a timber-framed affair that looked as though it dated from the first century after the Something That Happened and, while in good order, was showing its age. The floor was tiled to keep the house cool in summer, and I noted that the mullioned windows were doubled up with shutters and drapes. The walls were rough-plastered and whitewashed to maximize natural light, and the faint smell of borax told me the cavities had been recently rewooled.
    There were three floors. The well-appointed kitchen had a gas range, along with a stained ceramic sink, a table, a clock and a glass-fronted dresser full of Linotableware. A goodly quantity of pots and pans hung from the beams, all as clean as new pins, and in the cutlery drawer were knives and forks but, predictably enough, no spoons.
    I put the kettle on in case the prefects arrived without warning, found the tea caddy and the least-chipped bone china and swiftly set a tray.
    “Better not put out saucers with the cups,” said Dad. “We don’t want to be seen to be putting on airs.”
    “Unless they drink from them,” I pointed out.
    “Good point. Better lay them out as usual.”
    The kitchen door opened into a corridor that gave access to a small wood-paneled study, with a walnut desk, a chair and a highly polished Bakelite telephone—presumably linked to the village’s internal network and not like Old Man Magenta’s instrument back home, which was connected only to itself. Farther on, the corridor led to a tiled main entrance hall, with the front door directly ahead. To the left and right were two reception rooms. In each was a large bay window facing the town square, the top third of each paneled with Luxfer prisms to increase the natural light. The rooms were delightfully paneled in various shades of wood-effect linoleum, the furniture was worn but usable, and in the drawing room hung a pair of Vettrianos. Below this was a sealed glass case that held a few Articles of Interest that would have been dispersed out here as part of the Localization. Among the assorted bric-a-brac were three chess pieces crudely carved from ivory, an ornate ceremonial sword, a finely decorated egg and several unusual medals marked “XCIV Olympiad.” It was an impressive collection,