by Jenny Nimmo
"Excelente, Charlie!" The music teacher's Spanish accent was soft and compelling. "I am astounded by your improvement. A little more practice and that piece will be perfect."
The lesson was at an end, but Charlie was reluctant to leave. Senor Alvaro was one of the few teachers at Bloor's whom Charlie felt he could trust. He had an overwhelming urge to confide in him.
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"Do you know about Dagbert?" he asked as he put his trumpet in its case.
"I know about the boy's father, if that's what you mean, Charlie. I'm aware of the curse placed upon the Grimwald dynasty and I know that Dagbert believes the charms his mother made can protect him." Sehor Alvaro's tone was very matter-of-fact. Charlie was surprised he knew so much.
"Do you know about... about... my talent?" Charlie was unsure of how to put this question and found himself stuttering.
"Of course!" Senor Alvaro gave one of his heartwarming smiles. "I'll see you on Friday, Charlie. Usual time."
"Yes, sir." Charlie left the room.
When he closed Sehor Alvaro's door, he felt slightly dizzy. Perhaps it was the darkness of the hallway coming so soon after the bright lights in the music room. He closed his eyes for a moment and a rushing, foggy gray seeped behind his lids. It was the sea, and in the churning gray waves, there was a
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small boat bobbing among the foam. Charlie saw this boat in his mind's eye whenever he thought of his parents, somewhere on the ocean, watching whales. But today he could just make out a name on the side of the boat: Greywing.
Charlie opened his eyes. Why had the name come to him so suddenly? Did anyone else know about it? His grandmother Maisie? Uncle Paton? The company that arranged his parents' whale-watching vacation?
"Charlie!"
Gabriel came running down the hallway just as the bell rang for lunch. "Can we talk outside, Charlie, after lunch?"
"Why not now?" asked Charlie.
"I can't explain. It's too complicated," said Gabriel.
"Give us a clue!"
"It's about the Red Knight."
"Now I'm really interested." Charlie hurried into the hall where the usual crowd of children was rushing to the coatrooms:
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blue for music students, purple for the actors, and green for the artists. Gabriel hovered beside Charlie while he washed his hands and then they walked together across the hall and down the corridor of portraits toward the blue cafeteria. As they passed Ashkelan Kapaldi, Gabriel nodded at the portrait and whispered, "I saw him today."
"I think I saw him last night," Charlie whispered back.
Gabriel rolled his eyes. "What's going on?"
Charlie shrugged.
Fidelio had kept two places for them at a corner table. While they ate their macaroni and cheese, Charlie bent close to his friend and, as quietly as he could, described the swordsman both he and Gabriel had seen outside his portrait.
"I wouldn't want to be in your shoes," Fidelio remarked with a grin.
"What do you mean by that?" Gabriel asked in an
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offended tone. "This man isn't after me and Charlie, particularly."
"Sorry." Fidelio often forgot how touchy Gabriel Silk could be. "But you're both endowed, Gabe. These weirdos are always after you lot; by and large they leave normal people like me alone."
Gabriel had to admit that this was true. He realized that he would have to take Fidelio into his confidence as well as Charlie. Best friends always stuck together during break.
After lunch the three boys jogged around the grounds. It was one of those dreary March days when the sky is a dark gray slab and the cold air sneaks into your very bones. Sixth years were allowed to stay indoors, but the rest of the school, almost three hundred children from eight years old to sixteen, were trying various ways to keep warm.
Some of the boys were playing a rather halfhearted game of soccer, others were being violently active in an athletic kind of way, and yet more were
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doing formal exercises, presided over by an enthusiastic outdoorsy type named Simon Hawke.
Most of the girls were walking around in pairs or large groups. Someone had put up an umbrella, even though the rain wasn't more than a damp mist. It was a very bright umbrella, printed with red and yellow butterflies. The girl beneath it had almost white hair and wore a scarlet coat. She was holding her umbrella high enough to cover the head of a very tall boy of African descent.
"Is that Lysander?" Gabriel pointed at the boy beneath the umbrella.
"Must be," said Fidelio. "Who's the girl?"
"Never seen her before," said Charlie.
The girl turned toward them, and Charlie recognized Olivia Vertigo. He had never seen her as a bleached blonde before. Her hair color changed frequently from purple to green to indigo -- she'd even gone stripy -- but never white. He wondered why she and Lysander were together. They were both
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endowed, but they had little else in common. And then he remembered that their best friends were both missing. Lysander was seldom apart from Tancred Torsson, while Olivia and Emma were practically inseparable.
Charlie waved at Olivia and she leaped forward, catching Lysander's head in her umbrella. "Ow!" he yelled. Olivia flapped her hand at him and came bouncing over the grass in her red fur-tipped boots. Lysander stood looking around for another companion for a moment, but finding none, he followed Olivia over to the group.
Gabriel groaned to himself. Now he would have to tell his story to four people instead of one. It was such a small incident; it might mean nothing or everything. He hadn't wanted to broadcast it this way; in fact, he decided, he probably wouldn't tell anyone at all, because what he had seen wasn't all that important. His mind had simply exaggerated its significance.
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"We've been talking about the Pets' Cafe," said Olivia, obligingly closing her umbrella, "and you -- know -- who." She glanced at Lysander.
"Shhh!" Lysander looked over his shoulder as the Branko twins passed behind them.
The Branko twins were now lingering just within earshot. They had pale, impassive faces and the bangs of their shiny black hair touched the tips of their long, thick eyelashes. The eyes beneath those lashes were dark and inscrutable. If the twins were to get the slightest hint that Tancred was still alive, they would pass the news straight to Manfred, and that would be a disaster. The Bloors would be furious that his survival had been kept a secret, and Dagbert might even make a second attempt on Tancred's life.
"Let's move," Lysander suggested, nodding at an ancient wall standing at the top end of the grounds.
The massive red walls surrounded a castle built by the Red King nine centuries ago. It had been a vast and beautiful building, but today it lay in ruins,
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its thick walls crumbling, its stone floors lined with moss and weeds, its roofs fallen, and its once sturdy beams mildewed and rotting. But just inside the great arched entrance was a paved courtyard, surrounded by thick hedges, and facing the entrance were five smaller arches, each one leading into the castle. Four were like the mouths of dark tunnels. Only one gave a view of the green hill beyond.
"Smells a bit musty in here," said Olivia. She planted herself on one of the stone benches located between the arches.
The others squeezed in beside her, but Fidelio suddenly jumped up and ran to the entrance, He stood beneath the arch where he could get a good view of the rest of the school. "Don't want any snoops," he said.
A low grunt came from beneath the bench beside them. Everyone stared at it until a gray paw emerged, followed by a long-nosed, overweight, short-legged dog.
"Blessed!" they cried.
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Olivia held her nose. "I might have known."
"He can't help being smelly," Gabriel reproved her.
"He looks so sad," said Charlie. "I'm sure he misses Billy."
At the mention of Billy's name, Blessed waddled over to Charlie, wagging his bald tail. Cha
rlie stroked the dog's rough head, saying, "Billy will come back, Blessed, I promise you."
The dog grunted a couple of times and then waddled away through the arch.
"How are you going to keep that promise, Charlie?" said Gabriel. "Billy doesn't even want to come back."
"He will." Charlie looked pointedly at Gabriel. "You wanted to tell me something, Gabe."
Gabriel grimaced. "I said you, Charlie, not everyone."
"We're not everyone, Gabe." Olivia dug her elbow into his side. "Or is it just very, very private?"
Gabriel shifted uneasily on the cold stone bench.
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"Not private exactly. I mean, I suppose it concerns you as much as anyone, being endowed."
"Come on, Gabe. I can't bear the suspense," said Lysander.
Gabriel stared at his hands rather than meeting anyone's eye. "It's about the Red Knight," he muttered.
No one spoke. It was as if Gabriel had dropped a spell into the chilly air. He looked up and saw that they were taking him very seriously.
"What about him?" asked Charlie with a catch in his voice.
"I think you're the only one who's seen him," said Gabriel, playing for time.
"I've seen him," Olivia said quietly.
"Oh, yes. I forgot." Gabriel had seldom seen such an earnest expression on Olivia's face. It was encouraging. "As you know," he continued, "my family inherited the Red King's cloak. It was kept in a chest under my parents' bed, and as I told you before,
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the cloak disappeared just before the knight was seen."
Charlie nodded. "He was on the iron bridge, and he saved Liv and me from drowning. He's saved my life twice now."
"The cloak was billowing all around him, like a great red cloud," Olivia said, elegantly demonstrating with her arms, "but we couldn't see his face because of the helmet and the visor. We thought it might be the Red King himself, or his ghost."
"No," said Gabriel. "It wasn't. I've thought and thought about it. I've gone over it in my mind, trying to remember every little detail. ..."
"Hurry up, Gabe," said Fidelio. "Some of the others are leaving the grounds. It's nearly the end of break."
Fidelio's interruption flustered Gabriel. He frowned with concentration while the others waited for him to continue.
"It was one morning," Gabriel began, "very early, still night really, because the moon was up.
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Something woke me, I don't know what. I went to the window to see if a fox had crept in and gotten one of our chickens. And I saw this figure in our yard in the moonlight. He was wearing a dark, heavy coat with the hood up, so I couldn't see his face. The funny thing was, my dad was down there, talking to him in a very low voice, almost whispering really. And then my dad handed the man a package. Quite a big package, tied up with string. And then the man left. He crossed our yard and when he reached the gate, he gave my dad a wave, and then he was gone. And the next day I found that the cloak had disappeared, and I thought it must have been the man in the dark coat who took it. And if my dad gave it to him, he must have trusted him."
"Or he was under some kind of spell," muttered Charlie.
"It might not have been the king's cloak, Gabe," said Lysander, standing up and rubbing his cold bottom. "I mean, we know your dad writes thrillers. It could have been a manuscript or a load of books."
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Gabriel shook his head. "It was the cloak."
"What makes you so sure?" asked Lysander.
"Because the horse was there," said Gabriel, "the white mare, Queen Berenice. She was standing just beyond the hedge, waiting for the man, whoever he was."
The others stared at him for a moment, and then Lysander said, "Come on, we'd better get going."
They left the castle courtyard and began to run across the grass toward the school door. Just before they stepped into the hall, Charlie said, "Did you ask your dad about the stranger, Gabe?"
"He told me I'd been dreaming," Gabriel said.
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5. FIRE IN THE TUNNEL
Charlie had often wondered about the Branko twins. He knew where all the other endowed children lived; he even knew about their parents, although he hadn't actually met them all. But the Brankos were a mystery. This was because they ran a store called Fine and Fancy, the sort of shop that Charlie generally avoided.
Mr. and Mrs. Branko prided themselves that almost anything at all could be purchased in their store, as long as it wasn't a live animal and you didn't mind your food in a can. The Brankos didn't like animals.
Mrs. Branko looked like a large, tired version of her daughters. Before she was married she had been Natalia Dobinsky, a woman renowned for her telekinetic powers and a few other, more peculiar talents. Not only could she move things with her mind, she could also produce anything -- from cans
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of Peking duck to breadfruit, boiled cauliflower, and curried spiders.
Mrs. Branko liked to wander the store, encouraging her customers to spend more than they could afford, while her husband remained behind the vast oak counter.
Bogdan Branko often wondered how he had come to marry Natalia Dobinsky. He had forgotten how they had met. He was a small, mild man with a slanting-back sort of face, his receding chin blending into a flat nose, and a wrinkled caved-in forehead that disappeared beneath thin strands of sandy hair. Bogdan had been very surprised when the exotic Natalia had chosen him above all her other suitors. Lately he had begun to wonder if it was because of his appalling memory. If you can't remember how you came to be married, you're inclined to blame yourself rather than your wife. You're also likely to forget all the appalling things she has done.
Beneath Bogdan's counter were boxes containing
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everything from size 20 ballroom dresses to fur-lined rain boots. If a customer asked Mr. Branko for anything out of the ordinary, such as a pair of rainbow-striped stilts, Bogdan would delve beneath the counter while Mrs. Branko stared at it, from wherever she happened to be in the store, and the stilts would obligingly materialize within an inch of Mr. Branko's desperately delving hands.
Every Saturday morning, the Brankos would receive a visit from their benefactor. In other words, the person who had loaned the Brankos enough money to buy their store and who would, every now and again, give them a little more money to refurbish the place with fancy lights, brocade seats, and extra shelves.
This Saturday, Natalia was even more restless than usual. The benefactor would be coming to inspect the small cafe that he had suggested the Brankos should open at the back of the shop. "Just a few chairs and tables," he said, "a good coffee machine and some nice herbal teas.
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I'll leave the choice of food entirely to you, Natalia." He gave her a knowing wink.
The benefactor also suggested that Mr. and Mrs. Branko should change the name of their shop. From Fine and Fancy to Not the Pets' Cafe.
Natalia and the benefactor seemed to find this suggestion absolutely hilarious, although Mr. Branko could see nothing at all to laugh about. However, before he forgot the new name, he managed to telephone a sign writer and today the new sign would be going up.
It was 8:30 a.m. The shop was due to open at 9:00 a.m. Mrs. Branko had instructed the twins, Idith and Inez, to tidy the shelves, and they were now sitting on the counter, rearranging the cans telekinetically. The twins didn't always get along with each other, and today they were both becoming increasingly angry as cans that Idith had just arranged on the bottom shelf were sent flying up to the top shelf by her twin.
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Mr. Branko sat in a corner, reading his newspaper while, outside, two men on ladders hammered the new sign into place.
At that very moment, Charlie's friend Benjamin Brown was walking down Spectral Street with his dog, Runner Bean. They were heading, in a roundabout way, for the park.
Benjamin lived opposite Charlie on Filbert Street. They had been friends since they were four years old, but Benjami
n wasn't endowed, so he didn't go to Bloor's Academy, for which he was truly thankful.
Benjamin was almost at the end of Spectral Street when he saw two men on ladders fixing a sign above a shop door. He stopped to watch the men and remembered that the shop had once been called Fine and Fancy. Benjamin read the new sign, and his mouth dropped open. He rubbed his eyes, not quite able to believe what he was seeing.
"Not the Pets' Cafe?" he said in a loud and shocked voice. Then he repeated himself in an even
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louder and even more shocked voice, "NOT THE PETS' CAFE?"
Runner Bean gave three hearty barks in sympathy.
"What's your problem?" said the man on the left-hand ladder.
"Not... not... not..." Benjamin stuttered as he pointed to the sign.
"Move on!" said the other man, hammering the last nail into the sign. "You'll give the place a bad name."
"It is a bad name," cried Benjamin, and Runner Bean barked in agreement.
"That dog can read," said the first man with a nasty laugh. "Not the Pets' Cafe! Ha-ha!"
Both men came down their ladders, folded them up, and began to fix them onto their van.
Benjamin stared and stared at the sign, and then he became aware that two girls were glaring at him through the shop window. They had very pale faces and very black hair. One of them stuck her tongue out at Benjamin. This brought on a storm of howling
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