Charlie Bone and the Red Knight, by Jenny Nimmo

Charlie Bone and the Red Knight, by Jenny Nimmo

The novel which I have chosen to discuss is Charlie Bone and the Red knight, by the brilliant author, Jenny animal. It is the last book in the Charlie Bone series, and by far the best I have ever read. There are several reasons why I absolutely love the ending.

With the Green Enchanter defeated and the city saved, things were back to normal. While the main story plot seems to have ended, there were a few loose ends to tie up. Mainly, the wills of Charlie's ancestors have to be found in order to discover the true heir to the Bloor fortune. Instead of revealing the exact documents of the will, Jenny writes that Lyell Bone, Charlie's father had hidden it right under a chair in the cathedral so many years ago, which is truly hidden in plain sight. The next phase to break is how to open the box containing the documents, for the box bore no lock of any kind. Here, Jenny shows us one more time Charlie's power being used by letting him travel into the picture of the box and figuring out the lock from within. There is a secret twist here, which makes the ending all the more interesting. While Paton Yewbeam had discovered that the Septimus Bloor had left his belongings to his descendants, they originally thought it was a certain Billy Raven who inherited the fortune. Instead, the inheritance was passed down from father to son, mother to daughter and by sheer coincidence, passed onto Lyell himself, which meant that the Bloor academy actually belongs to Charlie's father. Another mystery is solved.

The next step was to convince the present owners to hand over the academy. While the judge may rule that Lyell was the indisputable heir to the Bloor fortune, Ezekiel Bloor was not willing to budge. Jenny included another surprise here — Ezekiel's great-grandson Manfred finally has control over his fiery power, which has only been used by the first ancestor, Borlath. He threatened to burn the place to the ground, but instead was crushed to death by Ezekiel's wheelchair when Blessed, Ezekiel's dog accidentally pushed the wheelchair off a flight of stairs. With the evil seat of power, Ezekiel and Manfred, gone, Dr Bloor agreed to hand over the academy without further obstructions. Truly, the bad guys in this story have finally gone, with all the other minor antagonists escaping the city and moving far away.

Another case about an unadopted child, Billy Raven, has been solved. Being orphaned at a young age, Billy had only been taken care of the Bloors only because he had nearly been the hero of the Bloor inheritance. Now that they were gone, there was no one else left to take care of him. He stayed with Benjamin first, but then moved to the Silks and finally to the Gunns. They wanted to adopt him, but no one could tell if he was truly happy about the arrangement. Finally, Billy met Lyell, who told him that they would like to adopt him. Jenny wrote that Billy was adopted by the family he loved best, and also has his best friend as his foster brother. Such a happy ending for the little guy.

One thing I love about the ending of this story is how Jenny tries to follow the story into the present, using present tenses in the epilogue. This shows that all evil has been eradicated — the Branco's cafe lies abandoned, the Bloor Academy opened with a new name, the Bone Academy and Paton and Julia who met in the first book are finally married in the eighth book. The Bone Academy's green kitchen queen has been replaced by cheerful Maisie Jones instead of the grumpy Bertha Weedon, and the Pets Cafe which had been closed down earlier had been reopened with a grand celebration. The entire series ends with Billy telling Charlie that 'Emma and Tancred are holding hands', implying that they are finally in a relationship after so, so many years. Truly, Jenny has devised a happy and suitable ending for every character in this book.

Ho Jin Jonathan
4 Cergas
15th May 2014