Jenny Nimmo - Charlie Bone and the Castle of Mirrors

The three sisters were tempted to exclaim with rapture, but they knew that silence was essential at such a moment. The bones of Hamaran were beginning to move.

Ezekiel and the Yewbeams were watching the table so intently, they failed to notice Manfred pull out a handkerchief and press it to his nose. His face turned bright pink as he struggled to suppress a sneeze. It was no use.

‘ATISHOO!’

Ezekiel recoiled as if from a blow. He covered his ears and rasped, ‘No,’ as Manfred tried to hold back yet another sneeze. The sisters watched in horror as the young man screwed up his face, and,

‘ATISHOO!’

The bones stopped moving. Vile, black vapour rose from the fur and the chain mail writhed under the smouldering pouch.

‘ATISHOO!’

There was a thunderous bang and a reeking pall of smoke filled the room. As the onlookers choked and spluttered, a huge form lifted from the table and vanished into the billowing black clouds. Hidden under one of the tables at the far end of the room, a short, fat dog trembled and closed his eyes.

A second violent bang shook the whole room, and Lucretia cried, ‘What happened?’

‘That ruddy idiot sneezed,’ shrieked Ezekiel.

‘Sorry, sorry. Couldn’t help it,’ whined Manfred. ‘It was the dust.’

‘Not good enough,’ scolded Venetia. ‘You should have taken your wretched nose outside. The whole thing’s ruined. A waste of time.’

‘Maybe not,’ Eustacia broke in. ‘Look at the table. The bones have gone.’

The smoke was clearing rapidly due to a sudden rush of cold air, and they all saw that the bones of Hamaran had, indeed, vanished. But Borlath’s armour, his helmet, cloak and gold pin, still lay where they were, rather the worse for the spell they had been subjected to.

‘Damn!’ cried Ezekiel. He thumped the table with his fist and the scorched garments shuddered. ‘It didn’t work.’

‘My part did,’ said Manfred. ‘The horse is out there.’ He pointed to a gaping hole in the wall.

‘Dogs’ teeth!’ yelled Ezekiel. ‘My laboratory’s wrecked, and there’s a warhorse on the loose.’

‘A warhorse with a tyrant’s heart,’ said Venetia. ‘See, it’s gone!’

Where the heart had lain, there was now only a scorched black hole in the smouldering armour.

‘What does it mean?’ asked Manfred, in a hushed voice. Ezekiel stroked his long nose. ‘It means that all’s not lost. But I’ll need help. I think I’ll call on a friend of mine, someone with a score to settle.’

Everyone looked at him, waiting for a name, but the old man was not ready to enlighten them.

‘A warhorse could be very useful,’ said Venetia thoughtfully, ‘providing one could ride it.’

They all stared at the empty space left by the bones, as though willing it to speak, and then Manfred said, ‘Billy Raven’s good with animals.’

In a long dormitory, three floors beneath Ezekiel’s attic, Billy Raven woke up, suddenly afraid. He turned to the window for a reassuring glimpse of the moon and saw a white horse sail through ragged clouds – and disappear.

The phantom horse

On the first day of the autumn term, Charlie Bone dashed down to breakfast with a comb sticking out of his hair.

‘What do you think you look like?’ said Grandma Bone from her seat beside the stove.

‘A dinosaur?’ Charlie suggested. ‘I pulled and pulled but my comb wouldn’t come out.’

‘Hair like a hedge,’ grunted his bony grand mother. ‘Smarten yourself up, boy. They don’t like untidiness at Bloor’s Academy.’

‘Come here, pet.’ Charlie’s other, more tender-hearted, grandmother put down her cup of tea and tugged at the comb. Out it came with a clump of Charlie’s hair.

‘Maisie! Ouch!’ cried Charlie.

‘Sorry, pet,’ said Maisie. ‘But it had to be done.’

‘OK.’ Charlie rubbed his sore head. He sat at the kitchen table and poured himself a bowl of cereal.

‘You’re late. You’ll miss the school bus,’ said Grandma Bone. ‘Dr Bloor’s a stickler for punctuality.’

Charlie put a spoonful of cereal into his mouth and said, ‘So what?’

‘Don’t speak with your mouth full,’ said Grandma Bone.

‘Leave him alone, Grizelda,’ said Maisie. ‘He’s got to have a good breakfast. He probably won’t have a decent meal for another five days.’

Grandma Bone snorted and bit into a banana. She hadn’t smiled for three months; not since her sister Venetia’s house had burned down.

Charlie gulped back a mug of tea, flung on his jacket and leapt upstairs to fetch his school bags.

‘Cape!’ he said to himself, remembering it was still hanging in the wardrobe. He pulled out the cape and a small photograph fluttered to the floor. ‘Benjamin,’ he smiled picking it up. ‘Where are you?’

The photograph showed a fair-haired boy kneeling beside a large yellow dog. Charlie had taken the photo himself, just before Benjamin’s tenth birthday. There was no point in Charlie using his endowment to visit the scene of the photo. It could tell him nothing that he didn’t already know.

In his eagerness to use his strange talent, Charlie often forgot that the people he visited could see him, too. Wherever they were, when Charlie looked at their photos, they would see his face floating somewhere nearby. So Benjamin, who was having a drink in Hong Kong, saw Charlie’s smiling face in his orange juice.

Benjamin took Charlie’s magical appearances in his stride, but Runner Bean, his dog, could never get used to them.

The big dog was about to have his breakfast in the Pets’ Café when Charlie’s face looked up from a bowl of Chappimix.

Runner Bean leapt in the air with a howl; this sent a blue snake slithering under a cupboard and caused a very tall woman called Onoria Onimous to drop a plate of freshly baked scones. But the three colourful cats lying on top of the fridge merely yawned and closed their eyes.

Charlie put the photo in his pocket, shoved the blue cape in his bag and ran downstairs.

‘Don’t forget . . .’ Maisie shouted, but Charlie dashed out of the front door and ran to the top of Filbert Street.

A blue school bus was about to drive off, when the door suddenly opened and a boy with a mop of curly chestnut hair popped his head out. ‘I saw you coming,’ said the boy. ‘The driver said he couldn’t wait but I made him.’

‘Thanks, Fido.’ Charlie handed one of his bags up to his friend, Fidelio, and climbed the steps into the bus.

‘Got your cape?’ asked Fidelio.

Charlie pulled the rumpled garment out of his bag. ‘I hate wearing it when I walk up Filbert Street. People laugh. There’s a boy at number twenty who always shouts, “Here he comes, Little Boy Blue, off to Bloor’s, like a posh cockatoo!” But I didn’t ask to go to Bloor’s, did I?’

‘You’re not a posh cockatoo,’ laughed Fidelio. ‘I bet you forgot to comb your hair again this morning.’

‘I tried.’

The bus had come to a halt and the two boys joined the crowd of children jumping down into a cobbled square. They walked past a fountain of stone swans and approached the steps leading to Bloor’s Academy.

As Charlie walked into the shadow of the music tower, he found himself looking up at the steep roof of the turret. It had become a habit of his and he scarcely knew why he did it. Once, his mother had told him she felt someone watching her from the small window under the eaves. Charlie gave an involuntary shiver and followed Fidelio through the wide arched entrance.

Surrounded by children in capes of blue, purple and green, Charlie looked for Emma Tolly and Olivia Vertigo. He saw Emma in her green cape, her long blonde hair in two neat plaits, but he was momentarily baffled by the girl beside her. He knew the face but . . . could it be Olivia? She was wearing a purple cape, like everyone else in Drama, but Olivia’s face was usually covered in make-up, and she always dyed her hair a vivid colour. This girl had a scrubbed look: rosy cheeks, grey eyes and short brown hair.