45 pages • 1 hour read
Jenny NimmoMidnight for Charlie Bone: The Children of the Red King #1
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2002A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 6-11Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 6 Summary: “A Ruined School Break”
Aunt Venetia drags Charlie home, she and Grandma Bone question him about the silver case and the keys, and Charlie lies that he received it as part of a game. The sisters eventually give up their interrogation. Once left alone with his mother, Charlie tells her about his quest to help Miss Ingledew find her missing niece, explaining that he feels compelled to help. His mother promises to keep Charlie’s secret despite her worries about the Yewbeams.
A cheerful boy named Fidelio Gunn arrives at the house and says he’s a music tutor from Bloor’s. Charlie will be placed in the music department, and Fidelio has come to prepare him. Charlie struggles to learn basic piano skills, but Fidelio’s lively style makes it more enjoyable. After Fidelio leaves, Grandma Bone assigns Charlie “homework” and gives him a file of questions about obscure historical and scientific topics to complete by the end of the week. Uncle Paton secretly offers to help.
Though exhausted, Charlie later tries using his “gift” to entertain Maisie and his mother by listening to a humorous magazine photo, but Grandma Bone catches him and scolds him. Benjamin warns Charlie that the Yewbeam aunts have been lurking around his house, searching for the case.
Chapter 7 Summary: “Hypnotized!”
Charlie completes his homework with Uncle Paton’s help, but Grandma Bone demands he answer a final set of questions under her supervision. When she falls asleep, Charlie sneaks over to Benjamin’s house, where he finds Mr. Onimous and the Flames attempting to open the silver case. Despite the cats’ magical attempts, the case remains sealed, and Mr. Onimous suggests Charlie will need the original key. Charlie and Benjamin go to Miss Ingledew’s store the next morning but are intercepted by Manfred Bloor. Manfred hypnotizes Charlie, causing him to fall into a trance in which he relives his father’s fatal accident. Charlie awakens, shaken, and is convinced that Manfred is somehow connected to his father’s death.
That night, Uncle Paton volunteers to return the keys to Miss Ingledew and promises to be there when Charlie finally opens the case. Paton cautions Charlie that Bloor’s Academy is designed to control the endowed and says he endured his time there by keeping a low profile. Their conversation is interrupted by Grandma Bone, who orders Charlie to bed and demands answers from her brother.
Chapter 8 Summary: “Breaking the Rules”
Fidelio Gunn arrives at Charlie’s house for another music lesson, and the boys play in a noisy trio with Benjamin. After the lesson, Charlie asks Fidelio for help hiding the silver case from his spying relatives and Asa. Fidelio offers to take the case to his house by hiding it inside his father’s xylophone case.
When Charlie packs for his first week at Bloor’s Academy, his mother gives him a tie that once belonged to his father, adorned with a golden “Y” for Yewbeam. A nervous Charlie is escorted to the school—a dark, imposing building—the next morning. Inside, Charlie meets several students, including Billy Raven, a young orphan who is also one of the endowed. Charlie sees Asa bullying a girl named Olivia Vertigo. Charlie gets into trouble for losing his school cape, and Asa drags him to Manfred’s office. Manfred gives both Charlie and Olivia detention.
Chapter 9 Summary: “The Red King’s Room”
Olivia tells Charlie his missing cape was taken by a boy named Gabriel Silk. During lunch in the blue cafeteria, Fidelio tells Charlie more about Gabriel. The rest of the day passes without incident until Dr. Bloor, the academy’s headmaster, publicly announces Charlie’s endowment to the whole academy at dinner. Charlie realizes Dr. Bloor was the one who took Dr. Tolley’s daughter, then notices Dr. Bloor talking to a girl who Fidelio tells him is an art student named Emilia Moon. After dinner, Charlie follows Billy to the King’s Room, where the endowed children have study time.
Later, in the dormitory, Charlie finally tries to retrieve his cape from Gabriel, but Gabriel begs to keep it. Gabriel, who can feel emotions through clothing, explains it’s haunted by something terrible that happened to the cape’s previous owner. Charlie agrees to swap capes. As a thank-you, Gabriel reads the tie Charlie’s mother gave him and reveals that Charlie’s father isn’t dead but lost.
Chapter 10 Summary: “Skeletons in the Closet”
Charlie, Olivia, and Billy Raven are stuck at Bloor’s Academy. Before dinner, Billy reveals his ability to talk to animals, though he asks them to keep his gift a secret. Billy also says that the Flames snuck into the academy to set Manfred’s room on fire after he yelled at Emma. The cat trio was supposedly sent by the long-deceased Red King.
Manfred forbids them from talking at dinner, forcing them to eat in silence. Later, Olivia suggests exploring the Da Vinci tower, an abandoned and supposedly unsafe part of the academy. They stumble upon a hidden room filled with metal sculptures and pieces of armor. When they hear footsteps, they hide in a closet just before Dr. Bloor enters. They watch him dismantle one of the figures and search through it. He approaches the closet where the children are hiding, but Manfred enters the room and interrupts him.
Chapter 11 Summary: “Clues at Last”
Charlie, Olivia, and Billy overhear Dr. Bloor and Manfred discussing the need to destroy whatever is inside Dr. Tolly’s case before it wakes a girl, who Charlie realizes must be Miss Ingledew’s niece. Manfred mentions keeping the girl in a state of hypnosis and says he’s planning to retrieve the case from Benjamin’s house while the boy’s parents are away.
After escaping the tower and bumping into Matron Yewbeam—Charlie’s Aunt Lucretia—the group retreats to their dorms. Olivia deduces that the girl they talked about is Emilia Moon and volunteers to watch her. Billy later asks Charlie to use his ability to listen to a photograph of his parents. Charlie hears the Ravens’ plans to escape with Billy, only to be caught by a young Manfred’s hypnotic gaze. He spares Billy the grim details and lies that he heard something happier to comfort the other boy.
Chapters 6-11 Analysis
These chapters unfold the rising action of the narrative, develop the story’s mystery, establish and deepen character relationships, and set the stage for the impending conflicts of the later parts. In particular, the conflict between Charlie and the Yewbeam Sisters escalates through this section. Aunt Venetia drags Charlie home for an interrogation after she catches him at the end of Chapter 5. While the Yewbeams frame Charlie’s actions as rebellious, this scene also reveals their insecurities, showing that they fear Charlie’s independence and potential to reveal secrets. This part of the novel shifts the theme of The Weight of Family Legacy to a more positive perspective, as Charlie increasingly finds strength in his father’s legacy against the other Yewbeams. Amy tells him, “How like your father you are” (109) when Charlie shares his courageous intentions with her. Here, the novel sets up a parallel between Charlie and his heroized father, prefiguring the series’s eventual reversal that Charlie will become his father’s hero. Through these family dynamics, Jenny Nimmo establishes the theme of The Struggle Between Good and Evil but also the dangers and courage necessary to fight. When Grandma Bone warns Charlie about his father, “He broke the rules, Charlie. That’s what happened. Beware it doesn’t happen to you” (119), this foreshadows later revelations of what the Yewbeams are capable of doing to their own family when expectations are not met. Her words also provide Charlie with an alternative course of action, providing the narrative with a moral imperative: Nimmo makes explicit that Charlie knowingly and willingly chooses the moral course. Charlie’s endowment has placed him at a crossroads, demanding that he choose between submission and defiance. As the story continues, he chooses the latter with increasing frequency, despite the risks.
Further establishing The Struggle Between Good and Evil, Nimmo significantly develops its second antagonist, Manfred Bloor, in this section. While Bloor made a brief appearance at the beginning in the form of a photograph Charlie heard, here he confronts Charlie in the flesh near the cathedral. Manfred’s hypnosis of Charlie creates a parallel to the Yewbeam Sisters’ psychological manipulation of him. Paton’s later insights into the Bloors’ desire for control and his frankness about his own experience at the academy further establish the danger Charlie is about to be thrown into, developing tension and a sense of jeopardy as the narrative builds.
A significant portion of these chapters is dedicated to Charlie’s first days at Bloor’s Academy; it is important that the novel shows how challenging it is for Charlie to navigate this alien environment. Nimmo can provide exposition for the reader through Charlie’s own eyes; this is credible because Charlie is equally new to Bloor’s. Tension and excitement are also created by the setting: Charlie is immediately overwhelmed by the imposing architecture, which mirrors the institution’s oppressive nature. The school’s towering, medieval facade and “dark rectangles of reflecting glass” (152) present the academy as a fortress where the children’s autonomy is surrendered to the Bloors and their staff. These descriptions draw on Gothic imagery and tropes. Another Gothic touch is the foreshadowing of the novel’s forthcoming climax, through the references to the “ruin game” that will happen later in the year. The competition, where children enter the crumbling remains of the Red King’s castle on the grounds, and occasionally go missing, lends an eerie tone and further reinforces this atmosphere.
Within the grim walls, the school is a place of complex social structures and allegiances, with its strict rules and harsh punishments, headed by Manfred. The archaic buildings and portraits underscore the rigid hierarchy, as well as The Weight of Family Legacy. The academy’s divided departmental structure makes the setting practically more complex to navigate, creating mystery and intrigue, and also symbolizes the divisions at the heart of the endowed community. The grand King’s room separates the endowed from the rest of the academy, highlighting their elite status but also reinforcing their isolation. Charlie, however, forms alliances across this divide, with Billy and Gabriel but also Olivia and Fidelio, strengthening the book’s message of The Power of Friendship. His friendships with Olivia and Fidelio become more crucial to Charlie’s mental and emotional survival as he faces an increasingly hostile environment in the school.
Nimmo escalates the mystery at the end of this section when the friends hear the argument between Manfred and Dr. Bloor, revealing clues to them and to the reader, made explicit by the heading “clues at last.” This title creates anticipatory excitement as the chapter proceeds and helps dissipate the sense of danger for younger readers. This information constitutes a key turning point in the plot and provides a sense that Charlie and his friends may succeed as their story continues.
