one of those faded sepia-coloured 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 frock 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 round his neck above a tightly-buttoned jacket, and almost brushed his chin. He wore knee-length breeches, 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 light bulbs, and your mum’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 humour. He also had a talent for exploding light bulbs 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 father.’ He pointed to the small boy sitting on his mother’s knee. ‘And that,’ putting an ink-stained finger 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 realised 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, springy hair flat.
‘Hm. Poor Henry,’ muttered Paton. ‘He disappeared.’
‘How?’ Charlie was amazed.
‘They
