Jenny Nimmo - Charlie Bone and the Wilderness Wolf

‘No thank you.’ Grandma Bone plonked herself in the rocker by the stove.

Paton frowned. He had been meaning to get rid of the rocker. No one else ever used it. It had been a constant reminder of Grandma Bone’s gloomy presence. If only he’d thought ahead and chopped it up for firewood a day earlier.

Creak! Creak! Creak! There she went, with her eyes closed and her head nestled into her chin. Rock! Rock! Rock! The sound was enough to curdle the soup.

‘So,’ Paton found a voice at last. ‘I hear you’ve fallen out with your sisters, Grizelda.’

‘They’re your sisters too,’ she snorted. ‘Marriage indeed! I never heard of such rubbish. Venetia’s fifty-two. She should’ve given up that sort of thing years ago.’

‘What sort of thing?’ asked Charlie.

‘Don’t be insolent,’ his grandmother replied.

Charlie finished his soup and stood up. ‘I bet you’ll leave when my dad comes back,’ he said.

‘Oh, but you’re all going to live in that cosy little Diamond Corner.’ She gave Charlie one of her chilly stares. ‘But then whale-watching can be very dangerous. He may never –’

Charlie didn’t wait to hear what his grandmother might say next. ‘I’m going to see Ben,’ he cried, rushing into the hall and flinging on his jacket.

Maisie called, ‘Charlie, it’s dark, love. Don’t pay any attention to Grandma Bone. She didn’t mean anything by it.’

‘She did,’ muttered Charlie. He left the house, ran across the road to number twelve and rang the bell. Filbert Street was always quiet at this time on a Sunday. There were very few cars about and the pavements were deserted. And yet Charlie felt a prickling at the back of his neck that told him someone was watching him.

‘Come on, come on.’ Charlie pressed the bell a second time.

Benjamin Brown opened the door. He was a few months younger than Charlie and a lot smaller. His scruffy yellow hair was exactly the same colour as the large dog that stood beside him, wagging its tail.

‘Can I come in?’ asked Charlie. ‘Grandma Bone’s back.’

Benjamin understood immediately. ‘What a disaster! I’m just taking Runner Bean for a walk. Want to come?’

Anything was better than spending the evening in the same house as Grandma Bone. Charlie fell into step beside Benjamin as he headed towards the park. With joyful barks, Runner Bean ran circles round the boys then darted down the dark street. Benjamin didn’t like to lose sight of his dog. He knew he worried unnecessarily. His parents were always telling him to lighten up, but Benjamin couldn’t help being the way he was. Besides, a mist was beginning to creep into the street; an unusual, salty sort of mist.

Charlie hunched his shoulders. There it was again. That odd prickling feeling under his collar. He stopped and looked back.

‘What is it, Charlie?’ asked Benjamin.

Charlie told his friend about the not-quite-humans that he’d seen near Diamond Corner.

‘Nothing’s normal tonight,’ Benjamin said shakily. ‘I never tasted salt in the mist before.’

And then they heard the howl; it was very distant, but a howl nevertheless. A sound that was almost human, and yet not quite. For the first time since his parents had left, Charlie wished they hadn’t gone whale-watching.

Runner Bean came racing back to the boys. His coarse hair was standing up like a hedgehog’s.

‘It’s the howling,’ said Benjamin. ‘I’ve heard it before. It makes Runner nervous, though he’s never usually scared of anything.’

It wasn’t until much later that Charlie made the connection between the distant howling and the not-quite-humans that seemed to be following him.

As for the salty mist, that was another thing entirely.

Two strangers had entered the city on that chilly Sunday afternoon. They came on the river. Leaving their boat moored beneath a bridge, they climbed the steep bank up to the road. They moved with an odd, swaying motion as though they were balancing on the deck of a ship. A mist accompanied them: a cloying, salty mist that silenced the birds and gave passers-by unexpectedly chesty coughs.

The smaller of the two strangers was a boy of eleven with aquamarine eyes, like an iceberg underwater. His shoulder-length hair was a dull, greenish brown with a slight crinkle. He was tall for his age and very pale, his lips almost bloodless. He lurched across the cobbles with an expression of grim determination on his thin face.

The boy’s father had the same cold eyes, but his long hair was streaked with white. His name was Lord Grimwald.

When they reached the steps up to Bloor’s Academy, the boy stopped. His eyes took in the massive grey walls and travelled up the two towers on either side of the entrance. ‘It’s a long way from the sea,’ he said in a surprisingly tuneful voice.

‘You must learn to live without the sea for a while.’ The man’s voice had the echo of a damp cavern.

‘Yes.’ The boy put his hand in his pocket. A restful look came into his face at the comforting touch of sea-gold. In his pocket he carried a golden fish, a sea urchin and several golden crabs. They were gifts from his dead mother who had made them from gold found in wrecks beneath the sea. ‘These sea-gold creatures will help you to survive,’ she had whispered to Dagbert. ‘But never let your father know of them.’

As the boy began to mount the steps his father said, ‘Dagbert, remember what I said. Try to restrain yourself.’

Dagbert stopped and looked back at his father. ‘What if I can’t?’

‘You must. We are here to help.’

‘ You are to help. I am to learn.’ Dagbert turned and leapt up to the top step. His long legs carried him across the courtyard in a few swaying strides, and then he was pulling a chain that hung beside the tall oak doors. A bell chimed somewhere deep within the building. Dagbert peered at the bronze figures that studded the doors.

‘They are older than the house.’ Lord Grimwald ran his fingers over the figure of a man holding what appeared to be a bolt of lightning. ‘Our ancestor, Dagbert. Remember. We talked about Petrello, the Red King’s fifth child.’

One of the doors creaked open and a man appeared. He was a burly fellow, completely bald and with a square face and small, expressionless eyes. ‘Yes?’ he said.

‘We’re expected,’ Lord Grimwald announced imperiously.

‘Name of Grimwald?’ The man’s eyes narrowed.

‘Were you hoping it might be someone else?’

The man muttered, ‘Tch!’ and opened the door wider. ‘Come in, then.’

Father and son followed the burly figure down a long stone-flagged hall to a door set into one of the oak-panelled walls. ‘The music tower,’ announced their guide, turning a metal ring. The door swung open and he ushered the visitors into a dimly lit passage. At the end of the passage they passed through a circular room and then up a spiralling staircase. On reaching the top of the first flight they turned to their right and entered a thickly carpeted corridor.

‘The doctor’s study is second left,’ said the bald porter. ‘As you said, you’re expected. The Bloors are there. All three of them.’

‘Your name?’ Lord Grimwald demanded. ‘I like to know these details.’

‘Weedon: porter, chauffeur, handyman, gardener. Is that enough for you?’ He stomped back down the stairs.

‘Insolent fellow.’ Lord Grimwald’s greenish complexion turned a nasty shade of terracotta. When he got to the study door he gave it several hard bangs with his fist, instead of the polite knock he might otherwise have used.