by Jenny Nimmo
Before the tears could fall again, the three cats pounced into the white circle, drawing the boy's attention to four words chalked on the floor. A message? If only James could read. Henry had been patiently trying to teach him for weeks, but, so far, James hadn't managed a single word.
Perhaps he hadn't really tried. Now, when it was a serious matter . . .
"S . . . s . . . s . . . ," murmured James as the cats paced along the row of letters.
Next came an "o" and then two " r"s , and further on his own name. And all at once James found he could understand the words his brother had left for him.
"SORRY, JAMES," he read, "THE MARBLES . . ." There the message ended.
Obviously Henry wanted his brother to keep the marbles safe for him. James picked up the leather bag but before he could reach the blue taw the orange cat tapped it playfully and it sped across the hall. The yellow cat raced after it while the copper cat swept another three marbles out of the ring.
Now the great hall was alive with the sound of clinking glass and joyful purring. James was surrounded by dancing, glistening spheres of color. The cats were playing a game and, as he watched them, a big smile broke over the boy's face.
"Stay with me," James begged the cats.
The cats would stay. For as long as he was in that cold, dreary building, they would keep James Yewbeam as warm and safe as any small boy had a right to expect.
GRANDMA SLAMS A DOOR
Winter held the city in an iron fist. Roofs, trees, chimneys, and even things that moved were covered in a thick crust of frozen snow.
Charlie Bone had been looking forward to an extra day of Christmas vacation. The new term surely couldn't start in this weather. But Grandma Bone had dashed his hopes.
"No shirking for you," she said in her usual sneering way "Bloor's Academy opens come rain, wind, or snow. The snowplows have cleared the main road, and the school bus will stop at the top of Filbert Street on Monday morning at eight o'clock sharp." Her lips made a nasty backfiring noise as she said the last word.
Charlie was a weekly boarder at Bloor's Academy and on Sunday nights he had to pack a bag for five days away from home. On this particular Sunday Charlie was paying more attention to the snowflakes brushing his window than to his packing.
"Pajamas, toothbrush, pants," Charlie muttered to himself I 'socks , clean shirts. . . ." He scratched his head. He was supposed to wear a blue cape to school but he hated putting it on before he got to the academy The other children on Filbert Street snickered at him. Bloor's was a rather unusual school. Only children who were talented in music, art, or drama could get in. Charlie had none of these talents. He was one of the twelve endowed children who were there because of unique other gifts. In his case it was a gift he often thought he would rather be without. He could hear photographs, or rather the people in them. As soon as Grandma Bone and her three nasty sisters found out, they had packed him off to Bloor's. Theirs was a family of clairvoyants, hypnotizers, werewolves, witches, and worse. They were descended from a mysterious Red King, a magician of amazing powers and, like all endowed children, Charlie must be watched, his talent nurtured.
The doorbell rang and Charlie ran downstairs, eager to escape the dreary packing. As soon as he opened the door his friend Benjamin's dog, Runner Bean, pushed past Charlie and began to shake wet snow off his back. His feathery tail sent sprays of water flying across the hall, straight into the path of Charlie's other grandma, Maisie Jones.
"You'd better dry that dog in here," said Maisie cheerfully as she stepped back into the kitchen. "I'll fetch his towel." She kept a special towel for Runner Bean, who was a frequent visitor.
The big yellow dog bounded after her while Charlie took Benjamin's coat and hung it on the hall stand.
"Are you on for building a snowman tomorrow?" Benjamin asked Charlie. "Our school definitely won't open."
"Mine will," said Charlie gloomily "Sorry Ben."
“Aw!" Benjamin's face fell. He was a small straw-haired boy with a permanently anxious expression. "Couldn't you pretend to be sick or something?"
"No chance," said Charlie. "You know what Grandma and the aunts are like."
Benjamin knew only too well. Charlie's aunt Eustacia had once been Benjamin's sitter. It was the worst two days of his life: disgusting food, early bedtimes, and no dogs in bedrooms. Benjamin shuddered at the memory. "OK," he said sadly "I guess I can make a snowman on my own."
A door opened on the landing above them and a voice called out, "Is that you, Benjamin Brown? I can smell dog."
"Yes, it's me, Mrs. Bone," said Benjamin with a sigh.
Grandma Bone appeared at the top of the stairs. Dressed all in black and with her white hair piled high on her head, she looked more like the wicked queen from a legend than someone's grandmother.
"I hope you don't intend to stay more than ten minutes," said Grandma Bone. "Charlie has to have an early night. It's school tomorrow"
"Mom says I can have another hour," Charlie shouted up to his grandmother.
"Oh? Oh, well, if that's the case, why should I bother to take an interest in your welfare. I'm clearly wasting my time." Grandma Bone swept back into her room, slamming the door behind her.
Whether it was this door-slamming or a minor earth tremor, Charlie would never know but something caused a small picture to fall from its hook in the hall.
Charlie had never studied the faded old photographs that adorned the walls of the dark hallway In fact, since he had discovered his unwelcome talent, he had positively avoided them; he didn't want to hear what a group of crusty-looking forebears had to say
"Well!" exclaimed Benjamin. "How did that happen?"
Charlie realized this was a photograph he wouldn't be able to avoid. As he picked it up and turned it over, he felt a strange fluttering in his stomach.
"Let's see!" said Benjamin.
Charlie held out the black-framed picture. It was one of those faded sepia-colored photographs. The glass was cracked but hadn't fallen out, and through the cracks the boys could make out a family of five, grouped together in a garden. Behind them, the yellowed wall of a cottage could be glimpsed, and on the other side of the photo, beyond a stone wall, a small sailing boat sat on a velvety sea.
“Are you OK?" Benjamin glanced at Charlie.
"No," muttered Charlie. "You know why Oops, here we go." Already a thin buzz of voices was coming through to him.
It was the mother who spoke first. Henry, stand still You'll spoil the picture. She was a pretty woman in a lacy dress with a high collar. A brooch, like a star, was pinned just beneath her chin. A boy of about four sat on her lap, and a girl of perhaps six or seven leaned against her knee.
Beside the woman stood a man in a soldier's uniform. He had such a merry face Charlie couldn't imagine him with the fierce and solemn look a soldier was supposed to have. But it was the boy standing in front of the soldier, who held Charlie's gaze.
I can't breathe, muttered the boy
"Hey Charlie, he looks a bit like you!" Benjamin pointed a grubby finger at the older boy
"Mm!" Charlie agreed. "Same age as me, too."
A stiff white collar seemed to be giving the boy called Henry some trouble. It was clamped around his neck above a tightly buttoned jacket, and almost brushed his chin. He wore knee-length pants, long, black socks, and shiny black boots.
Ouch! muttered Henry
His mother sighed. Is it too much to ask you to stand still?
I think there's a fly under my collar, said Henry
At this the soldier burst out laughing, and Henry's brother and sister dissolved into
helpless giggles.
Really, said the serious mother. I'm sure our poor photographer doesn't find it amusing. Are you all right, Mr. Caldicott ?
There was a mumbled, Yes , thank you, madam, and then something fell over. Charlie couldn't be sure if it was Mr. Caldicott or the camera. The figures in the photograph swung all over the place, making Charlie feel quite dizzy
“You look green," Benjamin remarked. He led the rather shaken Charlie into the kitchen, where Maisie was rubbing Runner Bean with a towel.
"Oh dear," said Maisie , taking in the situation at a glance. "Have you had one of your thingies, Charlie?"
"He has," said Benjamin.
There was a loud sizzle as Charlie's mother, Amy dropped an exotic-looking vegetable into a frying pan. "What was it this time, love?" she asked.
Charlie put the photograph on the kitchen table. "This fell off the wall when Grandma Bone slammed her door."
"It's a wonder there are any doors left hanging in this house, the way that woman slams them," said Maisie , emptying the cracked glass into a newspaper. "What with the slamming and your Uncle Paton's lightbulbs , and your mom's rotten vegetables, I sometimes think I'd be better off in a home for the elderly"
Everyone ignored this remark. They'd all heard it so often. Maisie wasn't old enough to be in a home, and she'd been told a hundred times that her family couldn't live without her.
"So do you know who these people are?" Charlie pointed to the family in the black frame. Without the cracked glass, the soldier and his family could be seen more clearly
Charlie's mother came and looked over his shoulder. "They must be Yewbeams ," she said, "Grandma Bone's relations. You'd better ask her."
"No way," said Charlie. "I'll ask Uncle Paton before I go to bed. Come on, Ben."
Tucking the black frame under his arm, Charlie led Benjamin and Runner Bean up to his room. An hour playing computer games passed very quickly and then Grandma Bone was hammering on Charlie's door and telling him, "Get that dog off your bed." How did she guess? But then a lot of the Yewbeams had powers.
The boys trailed downstairs with Runner Bean behind them, and Charlie let Benjamin and his dog out of the front door.
He stood in the hall a moment, staring at the rectangle of pale wallpaper where the framed photograph had hung. What had caused that photo to fall? Could it really have been a door being slammed? In this house the force at work was bound to be more mysterious.
"Perhaps Uncle Paton will know;" Charlie murmured. He ran upstairs.
Uncle Paton was Grandma Bone's brother, but he was twenty years younger, and had a good sense of humor. He also had a talent for exploding lightbulbs when he got near them, so he spent most of the day in his room and only went out after dark. Even in the daytime, lights were on in shop windows. At night he was not so easily seen.
Charlie retrieved the photograph from his room, and knocked on his uncle's door, ignoring the permanent@ DO NOT DISTURB sign.
There was no response to his first knock, but his second drew an irritated, "What is it?"
"It's about a photo, Uncle Paton."
"Are you hearing voices again?"
'" Fraid so."
"Come in, then." This was said in a weary tone.
An extremely tall man with a great amount of untidy black hair looked up from a desk by the window As he moved, his elbow sent a stack of books toppling to the floor.
"Bother," said the tall man, "and other more rude things."
Paton was writing a history of his family the Yewbeams , and he needed a great many books to help him do it.
"Where's the photo, then? Come on, show show !" Paton clicked his fingers impatiently
Charlie laid the photo in front of his uncle. "Who are they?"
Paton squinted at the family group. “Ah, that's my lather." He pointed to the small boy sitting on his mother's knee. "And that," putting an ink-stained linger beside the girl, "that's poor Daphne who died of diphtheria. The soldier is my grandfather, Colonel Manley Yewbeam — a very merry man. He was on leave from the army There was a war on, you know And that's my grandmother Grace. She was an artist — a very good one."
“And the other boy?"
"That's . . . good lord, Charlie, he looks rather like you. I never realized that before."
"His hair is different. But I suppose he could have had it squashed down with something." No amount of squashing would keep Charlie's thick, wiry hair flat.
"Hmm. Poor Henry" muttered Paton. "He disappeared."
"How?" Charlie was amazed.
"They were staying at Bloor's, Henry and James, while their sister, Daphne, was dying. It was the coldest winter for a century my father has never forgotten it. One day in the middle of a game of marbles, Henry just vanished." Paton stroked his chin. "My poor father. Suddenly he was an only child. He idolized his brother."
"Vanished," murmured Charlie. “And now he's talking to me."
"My father always suspected his cousin Ezekiel had something to do with it. He was jealous of Henry Ezekiel was a magician, but Henry was just naturally clever."
"Is that the Ezekiel who's . . . ?"
"Yes. Dr. Bloor's grandfather. He's still there, festering away somewhere in the academy surrounded by gas lamps and bad magic."
"Wow! So he's about a hundred years old."
“At least," said Paton. He leaned forward. "Tell me, Charlie, these voices you hear, do they ever say anything that isn't directly connected to that moment in time when they are being photographed?"
" Erm , no," said Charlie. "Not yet. I don't like looking at them for too long."
"Mm, pity," said Paton. "Could be interesting. Here you are, then." He held out the photograph.
"No, thanks," said Charlie. "You keep it."
Paton looked disappointed. "My father would be so happy to know a little more."
"Is he still alive, then?" Charlie was surprised. He'd never seen his great-grandfather. In fact, he'd never heard anyone speak of him.
"He's a grand old fellow" said Paton. "He's in his nineties now but he still lives in that very same cottage by the sea." He tapped the photograph. "1 visit him every month. If I start at midnight, I can be there before sunup."
"What about Grandma and the aunts? They're his daughters, aren't they?"
Uncle Paton made one of his here-comes-a-bit-of-scandal expressions. His thin lips compressed and his long black eyebrows arched up toward his hairline. "There was a rift, Charlie. A terrible quarrel. Long, long ago. I can hardly remember what caused it. For them our father doesn't exist."
"That's awful!" But somehow Charlie wasn't surprised. After all, Grandma Bone wouldn't even speak of Lyell, her only son and Charlie's father, when he disappeared. She had simply sliced him out of her heart.
Charlie said good night to his uncle and went to bed. But as he lay awake, trying to imagine his first day back at Bloor's, Henry Yewbeam's mischievous face kept breaking into his thoughts. How had he disappeared? And where did he go?
A TREE FALLS
The temperature dropped several degrees during the night. On Monday morning an icy wind sent clouds of sleet whipping down Filbert Street , blinding anyone brave enough to venture out.
"I can't believe I've got to go to school in this," Charlie muttered as he struggled through the wind.
"You'd better believe it, Charlie, there's the bus! Good luck!" Amy Bone blew Charlie a kiss then turned onto a side street and made her way toward the greengrocer's. Charlie ran up to the top of
Filbert Street where a blue bus was waiting to collect music students for Bloor's Academy
Charlie'd been put in the music department only because his father had been in it. His friend Fidelio, on the other hand, was brilliant. Fidelio had saved a seat for Charlie on the bus, and as soon as Charlie saw his friend's bright mop of hair and beaming face, he felt better.
"This semester's going to seem very boring," sighed Fidelio, "after all that excitement."
"I don't think I mind a bit of boringness," said Charlie. "I'm certainly not going in the ruined castle again."
The bus parked at one end of a cobbled square with a fountain of stone swans in the center. As the children left the bus, they noticed that icicles hung from the swans' beaks and their wings were laced with frost. They appeared to be swimming on a frozen pool.
"Look at that," Charlie exclaimed as he passed the fountain.
"The dormitory's going to be like a fridge," Fidelio said grimly
Charlie wished he'd packed a hot-water bottle.
Another bus had pulled up in the square. This one was purple and a crowd of children in purple capes came leaping down the steps.
"Here she comes!" said Fidelio as a girl with indigo-colored hair came flying toward them.
"Hi, Olivia!" called Charlie.
Olivia Vertigo clutched Charlie's arm. "Charlie, good to see you alive. You, too, Fido!"
"It's good to be alive," said Fidelio. "What's with the Fido?"
"I decided to change your name," said Olivia. "Fidelio's such a mouthful and Fido's really cool. Don't you like it?"
"It's a dog's name," said Fidelio. "But I'll think about it."
Children in green capes had now joined the crowd. The art pupils were not as noisy as the drama students, and not so flamboyant and yet when their green capes flew open, a glimpse of a sequined scarf, or gold threaded into a black sweater; made one suspect that more serious rules would be broken by these quiet children than by those wearing blue or purple.
