Charlie Bone And The Red Knight (Children Of The Red King, Book 8) by Jenny Nimmo Read Free Book Online Page B

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 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 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.
    "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, 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,