LITMIR.BIZ

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      ‘My, my, a boy who wants his mother,’ Aunt Venetia cooed.

      ‘A boy who wants his mother is a baby,’ said Aunt Lucretia sternly. ‘Time to grow up, Charlie. This is a Yewbeam affair. We don’t want distractions.’

      At this point Uncle Paton tried to slip away, but his oldest sister called him back. ‘Paton, you’re needed. Do your duty, for once.’

      Uncle Paton reluctantly slid into the chair she indicated.

      Charlie was made to sit on one side of the table, facing the four sisters, Uncle Paton sat at the end. Charlie wondered how the assessment would be conducted. There appeared to be no musical instruments, no masks or paint brushes on the table. He waited. They watched him.

      ‘Where did he get that hair?’ Aunt Lucretia asked.

      ‘His mother’s side,’ said Grandma Bone. ‘A Welshman.’ She spoke as if Charlie were not there.

      ‘Ah!’ The three great-aunts sighed, disapprovingly.

      Aunt Lucretia was fumbling in a large leather bag. At last she drew out a brown paper packet tied with black ribbon. She tugged the ribbon and the packet fell open, revealing a pile of ancient-looking photographs.

      Grandma Bone pushed the packet over to Charlie, and the contents fanned out across the table.

      ‘What am I supposed to do with these?’ asked Charlie, who had a very good idea what they wanted him to do.

      The great-aunts smiled encouragingly.

      Charlie prayed that nothing would happen; that he could just glance at the dusty-looking collection and look away before he heard voices. But, one quick look told him that the people in the photographs were making a great deal of noise. They were playing instruments: cellos, pianos, violins. They were dancing, singing, laughing. Charlie pretended not to hear. He tried to push them away from him, towards Aunt Lucretia. She pushed them back.

      ‘What do you hear, Charlie?’ asked Grandma Bone.

      ‘Nothing,’ said Charlie.

      ‘Come on, Charlie, try,’ said Aunt Venetia.

      ‘And don’t lie,’ said Aunt Eustacia.

      ‘Or we’ll make you cry,’ snarled Aunt Lucretia.

      That made Charlie angry. He wasn’t going to cry for anyone. ‘I don’t hear nothing,’ he said, shoving the photographs away.

      ‘Anything,’ said Aunt Lucretia, shoving them back. ‘You don’t hear anything. Not nothing. Grammar, boy. Has no one taught you?’

      ‘He clearly needs to attend the academy,’ said Aunt Eustacia.

      ‘Just look at them, Charlie, there’s a pet,’ said Aunt Venetia sweetly. ‘Just for one minute, and if nothing happens, we’ll leave you in peace and just . . .’ she waved her long white fingers, ‘melt away.’

      ‘All right,’ Charlie said grudgingly.

      He thought he could get away with it; just look at the photographs and block out the sounds. But it didn’t work. The sounds of cellos, pianos, sopranos and great gusts of laughter came bursting out at him, filling the room. The great-aunts were talking to him, he could see their thin lips working away, but he couldn’t hear their words above the dreadful clamour of the photographs.

      At last Charlie seized the pile and flung them, face down, on to the table. The sudden silence was a wonderful relief. The great-aunts stared at him, quietly triumphant.

      It was Aunt Venetia who spoke first. ‘There, that wasn’t so bad, was it, Charlie?’

      Charlie realised he’d been tricked. He’d have to watch out for Aunt Venetia in future. She was obviously more cunning than her sisters. ‘Who are all those people, anyway?’ he said miserably.

      ‘Your forebears, Charlie,’ said Aunt Lucretia. ‘Yewbeam blood ran in all their veins. As it does in yours, dear clever boy.’ Her attitude had changed completely. But Aunt Lucretia being nice was just as scary as Aunt Lucretia being nasty.

      ‘You can go now, Charlie,’ said Grandma Bone. ‘We have things to discuss. Arrangements to make for your future.’

      Charlie was only too glad to go. He leapt up and marched to the door. As he went he caught sight of Uncle Paton’s face. He looked sad and far away, and Charlie wondered why he hadn’t said a word the whole time he’d been there. Paton gave Charlie a quick smile and then looked away.

      Charlie hurried to the kitchen where Maisie and his mother were eagerly waiting for the results of his assessment.

      ‘I think I’ve passed,’ he told them glumly.

      ‘Well, I’m blowed,’ said Maisie. ‘I thought you’d get away with it, Charlie. Was it the voices?’

      Charlie nodded miserably.

      ‘Those ruddy Yewbeams.’ Maisie shook her head.

      Charlie’s mother, however, was not so unhappy. ‘The academy will be good for you,’ she said.

      ‘No, it won’t,’ said Charlie. ‘I don’t want to go. It’s a stuffy old place for geniuses. I won’t fit. It’s halfway across the city and I don’t know anyone there. Suppose I refuse to go, Mum?’

      ‘If you refuse . . . all this could disappear,’ said his mother, waving in the general direction of the kitchen cupboards.

      Charlie was astounded. Were his great-aunts witches, then? Making houses disappear at the touch of a wand, or maybe an umbrella?

      ‘D’you mean the house could disappear?’ he said.

      ‘Not exactly,’ said his mother. ‘But our lives would change. Maisie and I have nothing. Not a bean. When your father, Lyell, died we were at the mercy of the Yewbeams. They provide for everything. They bought the house, they pay the bills. I’m sorry, Charlie, you’ll have to go to Bloor’s if that’s what they want.’

      Charlie felt very tired. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘And now I’m going to bed.’

      He had forgotten about the orange envelope, but when he got to his bedroom, there it was on his pillow. His mother must have rescued it from the piles of food and crockery on the kitchen table. Charlie decided not to take a second look at the man and his baby. He would take the photo straight back to Kwik Foto tomorrow, and maybe get Runner Bean in exchange.

      When his mother came up to say goodnight, Charlie made her sit on his bed and answer a few questions. He felt he deserved to know more about himself before he set foot in Bloor’s Academy.

      ‘First, I want to know what really happened to my father,’ Charlie said. ‘Tell me again.’

      ‘I’ve told you so many times already, Charlie. It was foggy, he was tired. He drove off the road and the car plunged into a quarry, it was a hundred metres deep.’

      ‘And why aren’t there any photos of him around? Not one.’

      A shadow passed across his mother’s face. ‘There were,’ she said, ‘but one day, when I was out, they all disappeared. Even the tiny picture in my locket.’

      Charlie had never heard about this. ‘Why?’ he asked.

      At last his mother told him the truth about the Yewbeam family; how horrified they’d been when Lyell fell in love with her, Amy Jones, an ordinary girl with no exceptional talents. In a word, unendowed.

      The Yewbeams forbade the marriage. Their laws were ancient and strong. The women could marry whomever they chose, but every male with Yewbeam blood must marry an endowed girl. Lyell broke the rules. He and Amy Jones had eloped to Mexico.

      ‘We had a wonderful honeymoon,’ sighed Charlie’s mother. ‘But when we came home I knew that Lyell was worried. He hadn’t escaped them after all. He was always looking

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