Charlie Bone and the Time Twister. Jenny Nimmo
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For Ianto, who likes to travel, with love.
First published in Great Britain 2003 by Egmont UK Limited
This edition published 2010
by Egmont UK Limited
239 Kensington High Street
London W8 6SA
Text copyright © 2003 Jenny Nimmo
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
ISBN 978 1 4052 2544 1
eBook ISBN 978 1 7803 1203 3
10
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
Printed and bound in Great Britain by the CPI Group
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Contents
6 Into the freezer
7 The black glove
8 You can’t go back!
9 Thunder House
10 Skarpo the sorcerer
11 The Pets’ Café
12 ‘Take him to the dungeons!’
13 Ezekiel’s visitors
14 Run over!
15 The tollroc
16 The wand
17 Tancred and the tree
18 Ambushed!
19 The Time Twister
20 A journey to the sea
21 Paton has a party
The endowed
The endowed are all descended from the ten children of the Red King; a magician-king who left Africa in the twelfth century, accompanied by three leopards.
The Red King had already lived for several centuries and he made a marvellous glass sphere, putting into it memories of his life and travels through the world. He used the sphere to twist through time, visiting the past and the future.
In any other hands, the Time Twister is dangerous and unpredictable.
The children of the Red King, called the Endowed.
| Manfred Bloor | Head boy of Bloor’s Academy. A hypnotiser. He is descended from Borlath, eldest son of the Red King. Borlath was a brutal and sadistic tyrant. |
| Asa Pike | A were-beast. He is descended from a tribe who lived in the Northern forests and kept strange beasts. Asa can change shape at dusk. |
| Billy Raven | Billy can communicate with animals. One of his ancestors conversed with ravens that sat on a gibbet where dead men hung. For this talent he was banished from his village. |
| Zelda Dobinski | Descended from a long line of Polish magicians. Zelda is telekenetic. She can move objects with her mind. |
| Beth Strong | Beth is also telekenetic. She comes from a family of circus performers. |
| Lysander Sage | Descended from an African wise man. He can call up his spirit ancestors. |
| Tancred Torsson | A storm-bringer. His Scandinavian ancestor was named after the thunder god, Thor. Tancred can bring rain, wind, thunder and lightning. |
| Gabriel Silk | Gabriel can feel scenes and emotions through the clothes of others. He comes from a line of psychics. |
| Emma Tolly | Emma can fly. Her surname derives from the Spanish swordsman from Toledo, whose daughter married the Red King. He is therefore an ancestor to all the endowed children. |
| Charlie Bone | Charlie can hear the voices of people in photographs and paintings. He is descended from the Yewbeams, a family with many magical endowments. |
| Bindi and Dorcas | Two endowed girls whose gifts are, as yet, undeveloped. |
A game of marbles
It was January 1916. The coldest winter in living memory.
The dark rooms in Bloor’s Academy were almost as cold as the streets outside. Henry Yewbeam, hurrying down one of the icy passages, began to hum to himself. The humming cheered him up. It warmed his spirits as well as his feet.
On either side of the passage the eerie blue flames of gaslights flickered and hissed in their iron brackets. The smell was horrible. Henry wouldn’t have been surprised