Charlie Bone and the Time Twister. Jenny Nimmo

but an early moon sparkled through the long, frosted windows, giving the grey flagstones a soft pearly glow.

      Henry decided to play Ring Taw, his favourite game. Deprived of an opponent, he would try to improve his skill by playing alone. With a piece of chalk, kept handy in his pocket, Henry drew a large ring in the centre of the hall. He then chalked a smaller ring inside the first. Selecting thirteen marbles from his bag, he placed them in a cross inside the smaller circle.

      Now Henry had to kneel on the icy floor, just outside the large ring. Already his hands were blue with cold and he could hardly stop his teeth from rattling. Tucking the blue cape under his knees, he took out his favourite marble; it was a clear blue with a silvery glint inside it, like starlight. This was always his taw, or shooter.

      Placing the knuckles of his right hand, palm outwards, on the floor, Henry put the blue taw on the tip of his first finger and flicked it with his thumb towards the marble cross. With a sharp clink it hit an orange marble right out of the two circles.

      ‘Bravo!’ Henry shouted.

      There was a light creak from behind him. Henry squinted into the deep shadows on the oak-panelled walls. Was he imagining it, or did a long tapestry shiver slightly? On the other side of the tapestry a small door led into the west wing. Henry preferred the main staircase, for the passage behind the door was dark and creepy.

      A cold draught swept past his knees and the tapestry billowed again. A flurry of hailstones clattered against the windows, and the wind gave a sudden moan as it rushed round the snowy courtyard.

      ‘Wind.’ Henry shivered and drew his cape closer. For good measure he even pulled the hood over his head.

      In the passage behind the tapestry, Ezekiel Bloor stood with a lantern in one hand, and in the other – a glowing glass sphere. Dazzling colours swirled out of the glass; a rainbow laced with gold and silver; sunshine and moonlight, one after the other. Zeke knew he mustn’t look at them. He held one of the oldest marbles in the world.

      On her deathbed, Zeke’s great-aunt Beatrice, a witch if ever there was one, had pressed the marble into his hand. ‘The Time Twister,’ she said in her cracked, dying voice. ‘For journeys through time. Do not look on it, Ezekiel, unless you want to travel.’

      Ezekiel didn’t want to travel. He thrived in the great gloomy building that was his home and could seldom be persuaded to leave it. However, he longed to know what would happen if someone did look into the Time Twister. No one, in Zeke’s opinion, was more deserving of a shove through time, than his wretched cousin Henry Yewbeam.

      Henry had by now knocked another three marbles out of the small chalked ring. He hadn’t missed once, in spite of his freezing fingers. He was just stepping back to his place outside the circle when a glass ball came rolling towards him. It was slightly larger than Henry’s blue taw, and tiny points of coloured light danced and shimmered all around it.

      ‘Oh, my,’ breathed Henry. He stood where he was while the strange marble rolled on until it reached his foot.

      Henry picked it up. He gazed into the bright depths within the glass. He saw domes of gold, cities in sunlight, cloudless skies and much, much more. But even as he watched the scenes taking place before his eyes, Henry became aware that a change was taking place within his body, and he knew that he shouldn’t have looked upon those unbelievable and breathtaking scenes.

      The oak-panelled walls were breaking up. The frosted moonlight was fading. Henry’s head whirled and his feet began to float. Far, far away, a cat began to mew. And then another cat, and another.

      Henry thought of his small brother. Would there be time to reach him before he faded away completely? And if he did, and James saw a brother disappearing before his eyes, might he not be so frightened he would have nightmares forever? Henry decided to leave a message.

      While he still had the strength, he took the chalk from his pocket and with his left hand (the right was still clamped round the Time Twister), he wrote on the stone floor, ‘SORRY, JAMES. THE MARBLES . . .’

      It was all Henry had time for. The next moment he had left the year of his eleventh birthday and was travelling forward, very fast, to a year when most of the people he knew would be dead.

      In a small, chilly room at the top of the west wing, James waited for his brother. He was so cold he had put his coat on over his flannel nightshirt. On the table beside him the flame from his candle, quivered in a draught from the door. Where was Henry? Why was he taking so long?

      James rubbed his eyes. He was very tired but too cold to sleep. He drew the bedcovers up to his chin and listened to the patter of freezing sleet against the windowpane. And then his candle went out.

      James sat rigid in his bed, too frightened to call out. Aunt Gudrun would be cross and Cousin Zeke would tease him for being a baby. Only Henry would understand.

      ‘Henry! Henry, where are you?’ James closed his eyes and sobbed into his pillow.

      Before he had completely run out of tears, James stopped shivering. The room was getting warmer. He opened his eyes and found that he could see his pillow, his hand, the window. A soft glow had spread across the ceiling. When James looked to see where it was coming from, he was amazed to find that three cats were silently pacing round his bed. One was orange, another yellow and the third a bright coppery colour.

      As soon as the cats knew they had been observed, they jumped up and rubbed their heads against the boy’s cold hands, his neck and his cheek. Their gleaming fur was as warm as sunlight, and as James stroked them, his fear began to leave him. He decided to go and look for Henry. Hardly had this thought entered his head than the cats leapt off the bed and ran to the door. They waited, mewing anxiously, as James pulled on his socks and his small leather boots.

      With light sparkling on their silver whiskers and bright fur-tips, the cats led the way down the dark passages and narrow steps, while James hurried after them. At last he came to the wide staircase leading down into the hall. Here the cats’ worried mewing became loud and urgent, and James hesitated before he descended into the vast moonlit room.

      Henry was not there. His marbles lay scattered on the stone floor, winking in the bright frosted light from the windows. As James moved slowly down the stairs, the cats ran before him, wailing and growling.

      James reached the bottom step and walked to the chalked circle. He could see that Henry had been playing Ring Taw, his favourite game.

      ‘Henry!’ James called. ‘Henry, where have you gone?’

      Never had a place appeared so vast and empty to small James Yewbeam. Never had his brother’s absence seemed so utterly complete. He wouldn’t try to call again. It was quite clear that Henry was gone. And he hadn’t even said goodbye.

      Before the tears could fall again, the three cats pounced into the white circle, drawing the boy’s attention to four words chalked on the floor. A message? If only James could read. Henry had been patiently trying to teach him for weeks but, so far, James hadn’t managed a single word.

      Perhaps he hadn’t really tried. Now, when it was a serious matter . . .

      ‘S . . . s . . . s . . .’ murmured James as the cats paced along the row of letters.

      Next came an ‘o’ and then two ‘r’s, and further on his own name. And all at once James found he could understand the words his brother had left for him.

      ‘SORRY, JAMES,’ he read, ‘THE MARBLES . . .’ There the message ended.

      Obviously Henry wanted his brother to keep the marbles safe for him. James picked up the leather bag but before he could reach the blue taw, the orange cat tapped it playfully and it sped across the hall. The yellow cat raced after it while the copper cat swept another three marbles out of the ring.

      Now the great hall was alive with the sound of clinking glass and joyful purring. James was surrounded by dancing, glistening spheres of colour. The cats were playing a game and, as he watched them, a big smile broke over the boy’s face.

      ‘Stay