Children of the Red King Book 06 Charlie Bone and The Beast

by Jenny Nimmo

  "What was that?" Olivia climbed up on the headboard to get a better view. "I think someone's started

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  a fire. I wish I could see more. Look, there's another flash." Olivia jumped down onto the pillow. "Shall we go and have a look?"

  Emma shook her head. "It's too late. We can't go snooping around in the dark. Anyway, it's probably someone's log fire. It's not against the law to burn logs in a fireplace."

  "At this time of night? What if there is a fire? These old houses would burn like firewood. We ought to find out what's going on."

  "I could find out," said Emma.

  Olivia could only just make out her friend's face. Emma looked deadly serious.

  "You mean... fly?" whispered Olivia.

  "Yes. You must hold the window open as wide as you can." Emma took Olivia's place on the headboard. Her head and shoulders were now above the windowsill. She took a deep breath and imagined herself soaring up toward the stars. She imagined black wings beating in the blue velvet sky - and now she could feel them, strong and pliant, lifting her up, up, up!

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  Standing with her arms extended against the wide-open window, Olivia heard the soft crackle of newly formed feathers. She felt a rush of air sweep past her face, and then saw two black wings beating in the midnight sky. "Good luck, Em," she called.

  Emma flew above the alley, until she came to a yard illuminated by intermittent bursts of brilliant light. She perched on a wall, gazing at a small window, bright with sparks and flashes. If she were to find the source of these pyrotechnics, Emma would have to fly closer.

  Taking another breath, this time for courage as much as anything, Emma swooped across the yard and alighted on a narrow sill outside the fiery window. The glass pane glistened with drops of condensation. Beyond the shining droplets, an extraordinary scene appeared to Emma. In the center of the room stood a tall figure, its head covered by a metal helmet with a glass visor. It wore dusty blue coveralls and long leather gauntlets, but it was quite definitely female.

  A blazing furnace belched smoke and flames as

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  the woman thrust a pair of giant tongs into its heart. She withdrew a long, flat object, every inch glowing a brilliant red. Clamped in the tongs, the object was held by the woman on an iron block with concave sides - an anvil, Emma presumed.

  Reaching up to a shelf, the woman found a large hammer and began to beat the glowing metal. Clang, clang, clang! The sound reverberated around the walls, while shadows grew and vanished with the leaping and dying of the flames.

  Metal on metal wasn't the only sound that Emma heard. Beneath the clanging, a voice had begun to chant, not tunefully, but somehow in rhythm with the beats, a low, humming, indecipherable chant, like a spell.

  And now Emma could see clearly what lay on the anvil. Taking shape beneath the hammer was a gleaming sword; its sides were razor thin, its tip so sharp it seemed to melt into the shadows.

  "A sword," breathed Emma.

  Who, in this day and age, would want a sword?

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  Who would need a sword? This blacksmith clearly wasn't Feromel, so who was she?

  Emma lifted off the windowsill and flew onto a wall. Happily, there was no imminent danger to the surrounding houses. The fire was contained in the furnace. They could all sleep peacefully in their beds. But there was much to ponder.

  Emma could see Olivia waiting patiently by the window, and flew up to tell her about the blacksmith and the sword.

  "A sword?" In her excitement, Olivia slipped off the headboard. "Ouch." She climbed up again. "Are you coming in now, Em?"

  "I want to see what's on the other side of those houses," said Emma. "I don't often get the opportunity to be a bird. I might as well take advantage of it."

  Olivia wasn't sure if this was a good idea. If enchanters still lived on Piminy Street, there might be one who could recognize a girl in bird feathers. But tonight Emma was in an adventurous mood. Before Olivia could say another word, Emma had swept up

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  and over the blacksmith's crooked slate roof and down onto Piminy Street.

  The front of the blacksmith's was quite a surprise. Displayed in the window were a variety of homely looking kettles; the largest, made of copper, gleamed so brightly it cast a pinkish glow on the cobblestones. There was nothing to suggest that a blacksmith worked at a fiery furnace on the other side of the building.

  Emma perched on a streetlight and surveyed the row of ancient houses. Piminy Street held a curious energy. The air crackled with unheard sounds and strong emotions. Emma was tempted to fly back to the safety of the bookstore, but found herself drawn farther down the street. She fluttered between trees, glancing at windows and tiny mice scuttling for cover. Somewhere a cat pounced, somewhere else a dog barked. Didn't Olivia say that she sawDagbert Endless running down here? And wasn't that a fish shop, with a badly painted sign hanging on the wall? Perching on the dilapidated sign, Emma looked through the window above it. A slight gap between the curtains gave

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  her a narrow view of the room beyond. Emma caught her breath. Eerie, underwater colors swirled across the wall, and on the bed lay someone whose face was shining.

  Holding back a cry, Emma flew to a tree and sat there, ruffling her feathers and listening to the wild beat of her heart. "Dagbert. Dagbert-the-drowner," she twittered to herself.

  An owl sitting in a tree on the other side of the road hooted, as if to say, "You should be asleep. Nights are exclusively for owls."

  Emma fell silent. Gradually, she calmed down. She had seen more than enough for one night. If there were other houses that held sinister enchantments, she didn't want to know about them. She rose out of the tree - and plummeted back in astonishment. She would have fallen to the earth if she hadn't managed to cling to a branch at the last minute.

  Directly beneath Emma stood a boy she recognized. Eric Shellhorn. He was not alone. As Emma peered down through the naked branches, a figure

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  moved out of the tree's shadow. Its face was covered by a mask with glittering, silvery eyes.

  "Now!" commanded the masked figure.

  "Now!" Eric repeated in a small voice.

  The little boy walked toward one of the shops. Emma couldn't see what lay beyond its darkened window. Eric had stopped now. He was staring at the door. His concentration was so fierce, tiny shock waves rippled through the night air.

  Suddenly, the door opened and a stone man walked out. His gait was slow and awkward, his legs lifting too high and his knees bending with a groan. When his stone feet hit the ground, a dull thud rumbled through the earth, like distant cannon fire.

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  THE UNBEATABLE SWORD

  Are you sure it was Eric?"

  "Yes." Emma answered Olivia's question in a husky whisper. She was lying in bed with her eyes closed, wanting to sleep but knowing she wouldn't be able to. Images of the moving stone man, the shining boy, and the fiery sword kept running through her mind. Closing her eyes against them was useless.

  "What on earth's going on in Piminy Street?" said Olivia, rather too loudly in Emma's opinion.

  "You heard what my aunt said. Even the great fire couldn't destroy those old houses. So many magicians lived there." Emma yawned. She felt exhausted.

  "Yes, but why have all these things started happening NOW?"

  Emma wished Olivia would give her a bit of peace. She didn't want to think about what she had seen. "Maybe they're always happening, but no one's noticed."

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  A loud Hmmm! came from the other side of the room. "I don't think so, Em. Something's happened. Something to do with Charlie
, probably."

  "Why Charlie?"

  "Because his father's turned up after ten years. That's bound to upset things for some people, isn't it?"

  "Why?" Emma asked sleepily.

  "I don't actually know," Olivia admitted. "It's just a feeling."

  Both girls gave themselves over to a bit of silent thinking for a while and then, miraculously, fell asleep.

  On Sunday morning, when Emma and Olivia went down to breakfast, they found Miss Ingledew, in a blue velvet bathrobe, entertaining Paton Yewbeam. He must have arrived while it was still dark. They were both drinking black coffee, and were obviously in the middle of a rather serious conversation.

  Miss Ingledew seemed flustered. She jumped up and began to get breakfast ready. Paton said, "Morning, girls," in a distant kind of voice, while he watched Miss Ingledew waft around the room.

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  Olivia nudged Emma. "Are you going to tell them about last night?"

  "Last night?" Miss Ingledew put four cereal bowls on the table with a heavy clatter. "What happened last night?"

  Emma sat down and told them about the stone man, the shining boy, and the fiery sword.

  It took the two adults some time to digest this news. They drained their coffee cups, and then Paton said, "Can you go through that again, Emma?"

  Emma went through it again.

  "What does it all mean, Mr. Yewbeam?" asked Olivia, who thought that Paton Yewbeam knew almost everything there was to know.

  "What does it mean?" Paton rubbed his chin. "I don't know, Olivia."

  Olivia was not disheartened. "I bet you do. I mean, I bet you've got a bit of an idea about what's going on."

  Paton smiled. "All right. I admit I've got a bit of an idea. It goes like this. Charlie's father..."

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  "I knew it had something to do with Charlie!" cried Olivia. "I knew -"

  "Please! Let Mr. Yewbeam speak," said Emma.

  Olivia subsided.

  "Thank you." Paton winked at Emma. "As I almost said, Charlie's father comes out of a trance, a spell or whatever you like to call it, after ten years. That's going to put a lot of people out, especially the people who put him 'under, shall we say. There was a reason for the terrible thing they did. We've always assumed that it was Ezekiel Bloor's revenge for the accident that put him in a wheelchair for life. But now that Charlie has told me about the Pikes searching his old house for a certain box, I'm absolutely convinced that Lyell Bone was punished for something he knew about, something he steadfastly refused to give up: the contents of that box."

  "But why would that cause all those weird things to happen on Piminy Street?" asked Olivia.

  "Things have rather come to a head, Olivia, my dear," said Paton, "now that Lyell has, so to speak,

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  woken up. Piminy Street was once full of magicians. If you ask me, someone has stirred them up."

  "Y-e-e-s." Olivia poured cornflakes into her bowl in a slow and thoughtful stream.

  "They've got that little boy Eric working for them," said Miss Ingledew, jamming sliced bread into the toaster. "Charlie's aunt, Venetia, married Mr. Shellhorn just to get her hands on the poor child."

  "I'm going to investigate," Emma announced. "I want to know why that blacksmith was making a sword."

  "For the knight," Paton told her. "The Red Knight on the bridge."

  "Do you think it could be the Red Knight, Mr. Yewbeam?" asked Emma.

  "I really couldn't say."

  "I still want to see the blacksmith." Emma looked very determined. "I mean, she seems to be the only one in the street who is kind of good."

  "You're not going without me," said Olivia.

  Miss Ingledew wanted Paton to go with the girls.

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  "I don't like to think of them alone on Piminy Street," she said.

  Paton cast a gloomy look out the window. "It's too late for me. The sun's up. Besides, I suspect that whoever was making that sword will be more likely to talk to the girls if they're on their own, rather than with a peculiar chap like me."

  Miss Ingledew shook her head at Paton and said she would go around to the Kettle Shop herself if the girls weren't back within half an hour.

  Emma and Olivia bolted down their breakfasts, dressed hurriedly, and left the bookstore. They were so eager to find the mysterious sword maker, they didn't even bother to brush their hair. Almost unheard of for Olivia.

  Piminy Street was silent and deserted. The girls headed toward the Kettle Shop. They hadn't gone far when they heard footsteps behind them. A voice said, "Are you two spying?"

  The girls swung around. Dagbert Endless walked up to them. "What are you doing here?" he asked.

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  "I don't see that it's any of your business," Olivia said hotly.

  "Maybe not, but I'd still like to know." Dagbert's aquamarine eyes flicked from Olivia to Emma. "Well?"

  "As a matter of fact, we've come to buy a kettle," said Emma, trying to sound casual.

  Dagbert gave her a pitying look. "On a Sunday? The shops are all closed. You'll have to do better than that."

  "We don't have to do anything," Olivia snapped.

  Dagbert stared at her. "Want to change your mind before something nasty happens?"

  Olivia's mouth became a grim, defiant line.

  "OK." Dagbert looked past them at a sewer grate in the road. His mocking expression changed to one of cold intensity. Suddenly, water began to gurgle beneath the grate. It flipped open with a clang and the water gushed out in a muddy fountain. The girls were covered in it. Screaming, they ran past the grate, up toward the Kettle Shop. But the water pursued them; twisting

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  away from its natural course, it swept around their ankles in a thin, snakelike tide. The pressure was so great they felt themselves slipping to the ground, unable to withstand the force.

  Emma was the first to fall; Olivia, grabbing Emma's arm, came crashing after her. As they dragged themselves toward the Kettle Shop they heard, for the first time, Dagbert's terrible laughter. It bubbled out of him in horrible gloops and burbles.

  Olivia, pulling herself upright against the door of ^the shop, began to bang the knocker, noticing, in spite of her predicament, that the knocker was, in fact, a small, bronze kettle.

  "Help!" cried Olivia. "Someone, please help!"

  Emma, scrambling to her feet beside her, added, "We're drowning!"

  The door was opened so abruptly, both girls tumbled headlong into the shop, one on either side of the large woman standing on the threshold.

  Mrs. Kettle glared across the muddy stream at Dagbert. "STOP THIS NONSENSE!"

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  Dagbert made a deep, gulping sound, almost as if he were swallowing a bucket of water.

  "I suspected something like this," said Mrs. Kettle, with a scathing look at the wriggling water. "Well, you can keep your water to yourself, fish boy!"

  Dagbert gazed angrily at the water which appeared to be drying up very fast. Lifting his chin, he marched past the Kettle Shop without even glancing at the owner.

  Mrs. Kettle slammed the door. "Well, now, you are in a pickle, aren't you?" she said to the girls.

  "We were in a pickle," said Olivia. "Thanks for saving the day. I'm Olivia Vertigo and this is my friend Emma Tolly."

  "Pleased to meet you. I'm Katya Kettle." She peered closely at Emma. "Have I seen you before?"

  "Um, you might have," said Emma.

  "Hmmm. Come in then, both of you. I'll get you some dry clothes. You're soaked to the skin." Mrs. Kettle led the way through an arch and into a warm room at the back of the shop. "Get those thin
gs

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  off," she commanded, giving the girls a friendly push toward the stove. "I'll be right back." She disappeared through a thick metal door, studded with screws.

  Emma and Olivia removed their socks, shoes, jeans, and jackets. Luckily the brief shower hadn't permeated Olivia's pink and silver top, or Emma's blue sweater.

  When Mrs. Kettle reappeared, she was carrying two large pairs of coveralls and two pairs of thick, woolen socks. "These won't be a perfect fit," she warned. "Just roll up the parts that are too long."

  Grinning shyly, Emma pulled on her coveralls and socks. Olivia took her time, sizing up the huge garment and wondering how she could jazz it up a bit. "Have you got a brooch or something?" she asked Mrs. Kettle.

  The big woman hooted with laughter. "I don't go in for such things. Pretend you're a princess in disguise." She hung their wet clothes on a wooden rack above the stove.

  Olivia grimaced and stepped into the coveralls,

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  rolling up the sleeves until her pink and silver cuffs were revealed.

  "I can see you're a bit of a fashion queen," said Mrs. Kettle, with a chuckle. "Cup of tea, girls?"

  Before they could reply there was a loud and urgent knock on the shop door.

  "I hope it's not that blasted fish boy again," said Mrs. Kettle, striding back into the shop.

  "Well, well, it's you," they heard her say. "What's up, young man?"

  There was a mumbled reply and the next minute Charlie Bone walked into the room.

  "Good grief!" Charlie blinked at the girls in disbelief. "What an outfit, Liv. Is that the latest fashion?"

  "I think it suits me," Olivia said haughtily.

  Emma burst out laughing. Charlie joined in, and then Olivia began to giggle. Mrs. Kettle laughed loudest of all. Still spluttering with mirth, she went through her metal door to make some tea.

  It was only then that Emma noticed Charlie was

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  carrying his old black kettle. "You've brought it back," she said.

  "Yes." Charlie put the kettle on the floor. "I wanted Mrs. Kettle's advice."