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.

      ‘Stop staring, Charlie Bone,’ said the brown-haired girl, walking up to him.

      ‘Olivia?’ Charlie exclaimed. ‘What happened?’

      ‘I’m auditioning for a part in a movie,’ Olivia told him. ‘Got to look younger than I really am.’

      They climbed another set of stone steps, and then they were walking between two huge doors studded with bronze figures. As soon as all the children were safely inside, Weedon, the porter and handyman, closed and locked the doors. They would remain locked until Friday afternoon, when the children were allowed home for the weekend.

      Charlie stepped into the vast stone-flagged hall of Bloor’s Academy. ‘What’s the movie?’ he asked Olivia.

      ‘Sssh!’ hissed a voice from somewhere near Charlie’s ear.

      Charlie looked up into a pair of coal-black eyes and nearly jumped out of his skin. He thought Manfred Bloor had left the school.

      ‘I hope you haven’t forgotten the rules, Charlie Bone!’ barked Manfred.

      ‘N. . . no, Manfred.’ Charlie didn’t sound too sure.

      ‘Come on then . . .’ Manfred clicked his fingers and glared at Charlie who looked down at his feet. He didn’t feel like fighting Manfred’s hypnotising stare so early in the day.

      ‘Come