#though I find it really funny that when Rufus eventually cut his hair short he looked even more feminine

[alparlaboratories]

My new headcanon is that Niss played this game at some point post-CoT, saw this Rufus design and was like 'Oh, I NEED to look like that'. Unfortunately she was talked down from having to always wear such a complicated outfit, so she settled for simply wearing a cool three-piece suit and adding a way to clip the jacket to her shoulders so she could wear it like a cape.

Deep down though, she's still thinking: 'Some day... some day.'.

[xsecretblastsx]

2x01 Summer Kind of Wonderful

SEASON TWO HERE WE GO.

I was dying to get here, this is one of my favorite episodes in the whole show. It’s also the episode were I really turned into a Chair shipper, so there’s that too, also The Hamptons!! Honestly was not to love about this episode.

I think this is the longest recap I’ve done in a while. As usaul recap under the cut.

Thoughts I had while watching:

I’ve watched this before and yet I’m still surprised our first taste of S2 is Nate going at it

After the super promising tease on Nate and Serena on the S1 turns out... she’s covering for him while he sleeps around... 😒

Chuck being Chuck, still a womanizer, still obsessed with Blair and as always ignoring Serena’s disgusted face. Also hilarious his enormous basket with cuttlery and such.

Look Joe Goldberg!!! Or is it Dan Humphrey? This bookstore setting is making it even more confusing.

Hi Jenny! And her never ending disatisfaction with her place at whatever she’s trying.

This scene between Chuck and Serena is so underrated. Her mocking face is hilarious. Pimp all you want Chuck it’s useless. Good luck in your suicide mission indeed.

What’s a Jitney? 😆How about where Blair returns to the Hamptons with a new beau. On your face Chuck Bass! On the words of GG: ain’t karma a bitch? We know Blair Waldorf is.

“A hot lifeguard is like Kleenex: use once and then throw away, you couldn’t ask for a better rebound” so says Blair 🤔

“The only thing lamer than dating Dan Humphrey is mourning Dan Humphrey” speaking words of wisdom Blair Waldorf

Of course all the wisdom goes out the window when Chuck appears. With the most extra polo ever and the shortest shorts in the history of menswear

Not that Blair wasn’t transparent with all her talk about James but oh my god Serena’s is so bad a going along with it.

“You’re lying. Your eyes are doing that thing were they don’t match your mouth” Chuck Bass: a walking manual on Blairisms

“I bet you’ll like him as much as I do” “If by that you mean I won’t like him at all then you’re right” meanwhile Serena is trying to pretend she’s anywhere else and not there silent witness to that verball pin pong

I always wonder how Jenny and Dan end up being like that with a Dad like Rufus

So this is “Jenny admitting she was a bitch and that Eric didn’t deserve it” first season.

“A honk instead of a knock? Did someone order a townie?" Blair’sn lines this episode are hilarious

I feel bad thinking that Nate’s main contribution so far is looking really good without a shirt.

Chuck Bass: a walking encyclopedia on everything Blair Waldorf.

If only the show had given us more Chuck and Cece interactions.

I feel I should have kept a score for all the Chuck and Blair jibes to each. That pin play on Blair’s part was check mate though. Auch. I almost feel bad for Chuck. Almost

In terms of cinematography that scene were they talk about the pin is gorgeous probably my fave in the show only behind that scene in Paris in S4. The matching outfits, the colors and the scenery are sooo good. Also the acting.

Knowing her like he does it’s interesting Chuck doesn’t realize Blair only gave that pin to James to hurt him. But the fact that it works is very telling on Chuck’s insecurities and feelings.

Nate being kicked out so the husband won’t catch him wouldn’t be half as hilarious if it wasn’t for Serena’s “no effing way face”

“Damn that Motherchucker” a novel by Blair Waldorf

I love Blair’s summer dress by the way

“All I could see was that Chuck Basstard” the sequel novel, also by Blair Waldorf

What a difference a summer makes: Nate and Chuck talking about Blair. I do feel Nate’s like “thank god it ain’t me anymore”

“And unlike you I don’t lose something if I let it out of my sight” Blair strikes again, this girl is on fire.

This episode is kind of proving that I barely care for any other storyline that doesn’t have the original four. After those two side by side arguments, getting back to Dan is really annoying

I kind of love it when Rufus points out to Dan how he never stops talking and doesn’t let anyone else said anything. Is kind of boring already how he only seems to write about Serena and the UES.

Chuck’s cricket outfit reminds me of how I should enjoy the crazy outfits while they last.

Ofc Chuck’s has a PI on speed dial Eric, duh. Gotta love him though: “i know that face, that face is not your friend��� sorry Nate

I’m still trying to come up with the reason why the show let the fake dating storyline between Nate and Serena be such a waste. Whyyyy????

Just in case I forget: this white party was sponsored by Vitamin Water. For real there’s product placement and then there’s this.

The constrast between Serena looking like a greek goddess next to Nate’s I didn’t bother of an outfit is making me dizzy.

Chuck’s outfit for the white party kind of deserves a post of his own. Then again is probably my fave outfit of his on the whole show.

James calling out Blair for using him, while mentioning charade feels kind of overplayed now. Anyway he’s already pointing out how Blair and Chuck are the same and that’s why they deserve each other.

“Don’t you see? We’re the same? Stop trying to fight it” “I will fight it to my last dying breath because any resemblance to you is something I would hate about myself” this whole dialogue feels like a premonition.

Serena and Nate kissing and being totally into it while paparazzi plays is the background is just one of those moments. This is the kind of content I’m here for. Only to be ruined by Dan Humphrey.

And here we are again Dan getting mad when he doesn’t have a right to, thankfully karma is a thing in the form of drinks poured all over him

And somehow is Serena the one busy cleaning that suit, useless Dan is useless

Chuck’s “I’m so screwed” face when his PI tells him Blair’s guy is actually a british Lord is priceless.

THREE WORDS EIGHT LETTERS SAY IT AND IM YOURS.

Epic scene aside they both look so good here. This episode is gift in matching outfits.

Dan, Serena and fireworks. 😪 here we go again

I loved this episod the first time I watched it and I think I love it even more so now. It’s really good, full of funny lines, great outfits and epic moments. Season two is as of now my fave season (i think this is also true for many people) and it starts with a bang. Quite literally actually with the opening scene being Nate going at it with an “older” woman, which I guess was meant to be shocking in part because we ended last season wondering if something was going to happen between Nate and Serena.

Sadly it didn’t and that’s my biggest complain for this episode because how on earth did they thought it was ok to waste all that set up, and to add insult to the injury they are like so Serena and Nate are secretly dating... but it is just like a throway line because except for that amazing kiss at the white party we never see them fakee dating and I honestly want to pull my hair out of frustration. Just imagine the possibilities that weren’t, granted fake dating is one of my favorite tropes but it could have been quite the storyline imagine: Serenate fake dates and that sparks the feelings that were pushed aside on S1 but that were always there, and now there’s nothing that can stop them to act on it, except Serena has feelings for Dan too, and she struggles because of it all the first half of S1 until eventually she picks Dan and breaks Nate’s heart, combined with all the other pressures in his life, he wants something easy and this happens to coincide with Blair’s downright spiral and that’s how Nair happens again in the second half of S2.

My point being you could add so many more moments in the Serenate saga, also give more force to the idea the show always tried to do: that Serena can’t really let go of Dan, because Nate and her are quite something and yet... and still have almost the same story on the second half which was important because it gave closure to Nair and also had both Chuck and Blair realizing a couple of things. Alas one can only dream and be happy that at least we got that kiss at the white party

So back to the episode, we learn that Nate is having and affair with a married woman, Serena misses Dan a lot and basically mourned him the whole summer meanwhile he was being an asshole in the City fooling girls he met at his intership and Jenny is working and trying to stand out in her own internship at Waldorf desings. Which reminds me Eric is such a gem of a character, he’s always have good one liners but whe’s also a nice counter balance to all the manipulation and bitchery going around him. Anyway all of these storylines are barely a tease of what’s coming, and they really take off in the next episode, so I’ll get into them then, so at the end of the episode Nate manages to keep the affair goin into the city, Jenny earns a bit of respect from her boss and Serena and Dan see each other again (thanks to Cece which is another character I wish we had see a bit more) they meet at the beach ready to see if there’s something to salvage between them. We’ll see.

The real star of this episode are Chuck and Blair. This episode belongs to them. I’ve seen comments that claim this is the season that made them epic and really take off and I quite agree, and this episode in particular sets up the stage for it, touching on a lot of the aspects that are going to be their arc for this season and even beyond. So at the end of S1 Chuck stands up Blair and she goes alone to Tuscany and he doesn’t goes after her the whole summer. Instead he spends the summer in The Hamptons being Chuck Bass, she ends up in France. We soon learn that while Chuck  enjoyed himself during the summer Blair wasn’t far off in his mind:, the minute she’s back he goes aftet her, roses in hand only to find out she came back with a new guy, and she does everything in her power to rub that fact in his face which Chuck should have expected, it obviously bothers him but truth is they both know this is just Blair trying to get back at him for abandoning her, he hurt her, she obviously doesn’t tell him but he ruined his summer and she couldn’t stop thinking about the motherchucker

Shenanigans ensue but there are bits that really stand out: first of them the heart pinn. That's a telling bit about Chuck’s feelings, when that pin make its first appearance on S1 it was the beginning of the end for Chuck, the meaning of it was what got her to accept going to Cotillion with Nate  and now she has gave it to James and Chuck buys it because I guess part of him couldn’t believe she would go as far as to use that to hurt him, that’s a low blow and she also didn’t gave it to him that week they were going out after the wedding, even though it went really well but most importantly he believes she can’t really feel that way about him because he’s just not the kind of guy someone can feel something for, but specially someone  like Blair Waldorf, who dreams of finding her prince charming and such, and to his utter horror it’s revealed that Blair’s new guy is actually a british lord. Just his luck.

He’s anything but that, therefore not for Blair. He tells her as a much later in the episode when he let’s her know that he basically stood her up because he was afraid of her getting to really know him and see he was not good enough nor someone she could be with. And this is something that’s going to be quite the struggle for him for a long time, more than once during the show he’s going to remove himself from the picture because he believes she deserves someone better who can actually make her happy, and this season this happens quite a few times.

Thing is nothing is ever that simple, and this is the other bit that really stands out for me: when James calls her out on how she just use him to make Chuck jealous she justifies herself by pointing out Chuck’s an awful person, who lies and deceives so he kinds of deserve it, and James points out the fact that well she’s sort of the same, and they deserve each other. She lashes out at Chuck because of this and blames him for her argument with James, it’s his fault she played with James, and Chuck’s point out that no one force her to do anything she did it because they’re the same, meaning they scheme and manipulate to get what they want, so she should just stop fighting this thing between them, she rejects him claiming she would hate any resamblance to him. This whole argument is honestly quite interesting, because variations of it are going to keep popping up the rest of the show, and depending on who you ship you either take literally as if  Chuck is the root of Blair worst tendencies or rather see this argument as representation of Blair struggles not with Chuck, but with herself.

Blair struggles in accepting herself, at her core she’s an insecure person, and the fact that she has a dark side that she can’t exactly change because it’s so deep roothed in her bothers her even before she and Chuck were anything, to me it bothers her not because she really wishes she was nice & good person, but rather because Serena is  nice person, who’s regarded as literal ray of sunshine at times, and Serena got two things she wanted for the longest time: positive atention from Eleanor and Nate’s interest.So that fight within herself was always there, it didn’t appear the day she started dating Chuck, is just that in the same way they brought out the best in each other, when things go bad between them the opposite sometimes happened, and even then when they blame each other for something half the time it was to share some of the hurt and to avoid dealing with their own shortcomings and mistakes. Truthfully Chuck and Blair did something for each other no one had really done for them they accept each other fully, Blair’s able to accept and love his darkness, and for Chuck there’s no darkness in Blair she’s the way she is and that’s what makes her wonderful. It was easier for them to love each other than to love themselves. 

Finally the biggest stand out of the episode is that iconic scene, the one that really puts into place the dynamic they will have for the rest of the season: Three words, eight letters are brought to the table, and they won’t move forward until the words have been said. It makes sense, because they tried this twice before, the first one came out of nowhere and it ended with Chuck getting dumped in favor of Nate, and that burned him badly, the second one Blair was the one who got hurt, and both times this pretty much happened because they aren’t able of telling each other how they feel, particularly Chuck. The first time he didn’t let her know he actually cared and wanted to be with her, the second one he didn’t tell her he was afraid, and all of this was too much too soon. So Blair wants, needs some kind of reassurance, and it makes me wonder how that week after the wedding really went, what happened? how wonderful it must have been that even though he abandoned her a that helipad she still had hope in the fact that he may love her. He doesn’t say it, and yet I still love this moment so much for  because jus by asking him to say it is in some way an admittance on her own feellings, and he fails to saythe words  but he did try, and the fact that he did try is also a form of admittance and as such  from here on no matter what happens, how much they fight and toy with each other there’s always an undercurrent of love behind their actions,and this is (borrowing a phrase from a certain popstar) the most amazing unspoken dialogue ever. 

Random bits I’ve noticed

Chuck has a bouquet of yellow roses for his intent on getting Blair back. If my memory serves right, those were his mom favorites

I’m such a sucker for the little backdrop details like the Van der Bass house having all these background pictures of the wedding

Thanks to Chuck for giving us the rank on Blair’s favorite films: Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Roman Holiday & Funny Face (even if he said Charades to prove a point)

I’ve read somewhere I think it was on twitter that Blair’s crying in the garden scene was unscripted, Leighton did because she got really caught up in the scene particularly by Ed’s acting. I’ve looked it up but so far I haven’t found anything on this.

There’s a bunch of miniature cyclists under the mirror where Cece’s doing the final touches to her hair, looks sort of weird.

that vitamin water is even on the invitation, agust 30, 2008.

[a-crack-in-the-universe]

Midnight for Charlie Bone Chapter Summaries/Analyses: Chapters 1-3

*Disclaimer: All quotes in this post are taken from Midnight for Charlie Bone by Jenny Nimmo, and thus belong to her.*   

*Below the cut-line are spoilers for the entire Charlie Bone series. Read at your own risk*

This is the first post in a series of posts I wish to write-up about the many things I’ve noticed in the Charlie Bone books. I’m starting with Book 1, and if that goes well and if I have enough time, I might do the other books too. These posts will help me describe my own theories about certain aspects of the series and also personal thoughts and opinions too. :)     

Chapter 1: “Charlie Hears Voices”

On a Thursday afternoon (Thursday 24th October 2002, to be exact :)), Charlie Bone sees the smoke of a fire coming from somewhere on the other side of the city. The very next day, Charlie’s life changes drastically. He mistakenly receives a photo of a morose old man holding a baby, and when he looks at it, he starts to hear the old man’s voice, and also the voice of the woman taking the picture. Grandma Bone senses what is going on (Eustacia had one of her clairvoyant episodes) and quickly enters the room to see what’s happening. Charlie tells her. 

Amy gets really anxious at the thought of Charlie being endowed, and to put her mind at ease Charlie claims that he only pretended to hear the voices to trick Grandma Bone. He’s also trying to convince himself. However, when he is walking outside with his best friend Benjamin and Benjamin’s dog Runner Bean, Charlie sees a newspaper with an image of Manfred Bloor standing outside Bloor’s Academy, and is able to hear what Manfred is saying while being photographed and interviewed by reporters. He is then forced to admit that he’s not imagining things.

He tells Benjamin about it, who (surprisingly enough) believes him. Then a short while later Uncle Paton arrives on the scene to take Charlie home, which surprises Charlie since Paton never goes out in daylight hours. This has happened because Charlie is ‘wanted at home’.    

 Chapter 2: “The Yewbeam Aunts”

When Charlie gets home he finds out the reason why Paton came for him. The Yewbeam Aunts are coming. Amy again looks nervous, and with good reason. The Aunts mean to test him to see if he’s ‘worthy’ of attending Bloor’s Academy. In other words, they want to see if he really is endowed like they suspect. Charlie doesn’t want to go to Bloor’s and decides to do what he can to fail the Aunts’ test.

Charlie agrees to serve the soup after seeing how hot and tired his mother looks, despite not wanting to be alone with the Aunts. I find this heart-warming. It shows that he really cares about his mother. When the time comes for the test, Charlie demands that his mother also be present, but the Aunts refuse to allow it.

  "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."  

Yikes. :(  

Also :( : Paton in this scene. It’s clear that he doesn’t want to be there, but he doesn’t have a choice about it.

Also, seeing Grandma Bone and the Aunts criticise Charlie’s hair and claiming that it’s from his mother’s side is kind of funny and ironic when you remember that later in the book Mr Pilgrim (aka Charlie’s father) is described as having hair much like Charlie’s, while Amy’s hair isn’t described at all beyond it being a golden-brown colour. So, it’s more likely that Charlie actually gets his hair from his father. Apparently Grandma Bone and the Aunts are in denial about this fact.

The Aunts give Charlie some photos to look at. The people in these photos are making a lot of noise. Charlie pretends not to hear, even pushes the photos away, but the Aunts aren’t having it. Eventually Venetia persuades Charlie to look properly at the photos, which results in Charlie not hearing anything except what’s happening in the photos, thus proving to the Aunts that he has an endowment and must go to Bloor’s Academy.

(Well, I’d say that Charlie should have known better than to listen to Venetia, but he is only ten years old…so yeah.)      

Charlie is dismayed at this outcome, and so is Maisie. However, Amy is more optimistic about it. The wording of her dialogue surprises me. “For his father’s sake”? I suppose it means just that Charlie should go there because Lyell went there, but I can’t help but be curious about it, especially since Lyell actually is in Bloor’s Academy. Whatever meaning this line has, it’s interesting that Amy says it here, since Charlie’s entering Bloor’s does end up (indirectly?) leading to Lyell’s awakening.   

Okay, so when Charlie goes to bed, he makes his mother sit down with him and answer some questions, since he feels he deserves to know more about himself before setting foot in Bloor’s Academy. Firstly, he asks how his father died.

"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 that was a hundred meters deep."

Hmm, so they’ve had this conversation many times before.

It’s interesting how Charlie phrases his question: "First, I want to know what really happened to my father. Tell me again."

It’s possible that the use of ‘really’ here has no deeper meaning than what is shown. But I’d like to point out that (combined with the fact that they’ve already talked about Lyell’s accident so many times) it could imply that Charlie is actually suspicious of what his mother has always told him about Lyell’s death. Like, why would Charlie ask his mother about it so many times? It doesn’t make sense to me, unless Charlie felt (either consciously or subconsciously) that something didn’t add up in regards to the accident. Of course, this could be stretching it a bit too far, but I think it’s good to consider any possibilities, even unlikely-looking ones. :)

After that question is answered, Charlie asks why there aren’t any photos of Lyell in the house. (And that’s a very good question.) Amy tells him that they all disappeared one day when she was out.

"There were," she said, "but one day when I was out, they all disappeared. Even the tiny picture in my locket."      

Wow, that’s… really harsh. Like, really. Poor Amy. :’( First her husband supposedly died, and then all pictures of him disappeared, leaving her almost nothing to remember him by. And they even got the picture in her locket (and that photo seems like a particularly private and treasured keepsake, considering that it was in a locket that’s usually worn around someone’s neck).      

Amy goes on to talk about the truth around her and Lyell’s marriage—how the Yewbeams forbade it because of an ancient law of theirs and how she and Lyell eloped anyway. Their honeymoon was ‘wonderful’, but when they returned, Lyell was worried, and always ‘looking over his shoulder’ and ‘running from shadows’. (And, considering the information given in Wilderness Wolf, Shadow of Badlock and Red Knight, this implies that by this point in time Rufus had already given Maybelle’s box into Lyell’s keeping.) And then on a foggy night when Charlie was two years old, Lyell received a phone call from Grandma Bone (‘a summons’), telling him that she was ill and he had to go to her immediately. He got into his car and drove into a quarry.

Amy also says that the reason that Grandma Bone chose to shelter Amy and Charlie was because the Yewbeams thought that Charlie might be endowed (and if he was endowed, they wanted to be in a good position to be able to take control of him). And also that Grandma Bone moved in to watch (aka spy) on them. To me, this last line in Amy’s dialogue (actually, all of Amy’s dialogue in this section in the book) implies that she knows more than she usually lets on, and that even though she’s quiet and timid, she’s also pretty smart in her own way.

Amy claims to not understand why the pictures vanished. It’s clear (to me, anyway) that she blames Grandma Bone, even though Grandma Bone denied touching them. Charlie guesses that Grandma Bone didn’t want him to know what his father had to say (even though, like Amy tells him, Grandma Bone really couldn’t have known that he’d develop an endowment that would let him hear what people in pictures were saying). To me, Charlie’s guess about why Grandma Bone destroyed the pictures couldn’t have been more wrong. She did it because she didn’t want Charlie to know what his father looked like, not because of any endowment she thought he might one day develop.

This is partly why I love reading this series. :) The characters all have their own assumptions about things and they’re actually allowed to be wrong in their assumptions sometimes. It makes them feel a little more real to me.

A short while later, Amy leaves but Charlie can’t sleep. At midnight, this happens: “On the twelfth stroke, Charlie felt a sudden, strange breathlessness. Something was happening to him. It was as if he were passing through a moment when he might live or die.”  

“He thought of Lyell, the father he couldn’t remember.” :’) Considering that it’s Charlie and Amy who keep Lyell alive just by thinking of him, I find moments like this one very heart-warming in hindsight.

Eventually, just after midnight, Charlie hears Paton leave the house, and suddenly decides to go after him. Keeping hidden, he follows his uncle down the street, and sees Paton burst a street-light just by looking at it. After a while, Paton admits that he knows Charlie is there, by saying, “Why are you following me?”    

Chapter 3: “The Flame Cats”

Paton asks again, “Why are you following me?” Charlie comes out of hiding, and the two converse. Charlie ends up learning a bit about his uncle. The reason Paton only comes out at night is because of his endowment. Paton hates his endowment, calling it ‘pathetic’. He thinks it’s useless. (Which is interesting, considering how much damage it does at later points in the series.) Charlie questions Paton about his endowment. Paton admits that he once ‘brightened the lights’ for a girl he knew, who ran away afterward and never spoke to him again. (Now that is a plot bunny. :) I wonder what happened? Anyway, it’s kind of sad when Paton recounts it.) Paton and Charlie return to the house, and Charlie finally goes to sleep.

The next morning, Charlie is so nervous about going to the Academy that he has little to no appetite. Amy’s in some kind of reverie—thinking about Lyell? :’) She tells Charlie that he’ll have to wear a uniform—a blue cape. Blue for the music department, which Charlie will be sorted into. It’s because his father was in Music, and there’s no department for the strange talent Charlie has. (And I have to agree that sapphire is a lovely colour. :))

Maisie and Amy go out shopping. Paton’s stuck in his room like always, and Grandma Bone is who cares where. When someone knocks on the front door, Charlie goes outside to see who it is. He’s greeted by the sight of a short and hairy man (who introduces himself as Mr Onimous) with three extraordinarily-coloured cats (The Flames! :D). Apparently they’re there to take care of a pest problem in the house. Charlie recalls that he shouldn’t let strangers inside the house, but by the time he’s finished that thought, they’re already inside. Luckily for him, they don’t mean him any harm. The cats go into the larder, where to Charlie’s surprise there really is an invasion of mice. Meanwhile Charlie serves Mr Onimous some coffee and they talk about the photo of the old man with the baby that’s lying on the kitchen table.

Mr Onimous explains that he was led to Number 9 by the cats (called Aries, Leo and Sagittarius). The gist of it is, something terrible happened to the baby in the photo, and Charlie has been tasked with finding her. The Flames and Mr Onimous are sure that she’s in Bloor’s Academy, which is coincidentally where Charlie is going.

"He knew you were connected, Aries did. And so you are; you have the photograph. These cats aren't ordinary. They know things. They chose me because I've got a special way with animals. They lead me here and there, trying to undo mischief, and I just follow, helping where I can. This case," his finger came down on the man holding the baby, "this is one of the worst. Aries has always been very angry about it. Time and again he's tried to put it right, but we needed you, Charlie."

Now, this part of the conversation intrigues me, because Onimous specifically says that they needed Charlie of all people. Why Charlie? Mr Onimous says that Charlie is connected, and that Aries knew that. If it weren’t for the last part of the paragraph, I would just assume that it’s because Charlie was the one who happened to get the photograph. But, later on it’s revealed that the Flames themselves orchestrated the photo switch. So it wasn’t a coincidence that Charlie of all people got Miss Ingledew’s photo. Therefore, I’m theorizing that it wasn’t just because of Emma that the Flames chose Charlie for this quest—it was also because of Lyell, who was also ‘lost’ and in Bloor’s Academy. The Flames meant all along for Charlie to wake his father up. This is also how he’s connected, aside from him obviously having the photograph. He’s connected through Lyell.   

Also, ‘this case is one of the worst’ and Aries being so angry about it make a lot of sense, given what Charlie hears in Dr Tolly’s taped message. But I won’t go into that right now.

Mr Onimous advises Charlie to take the photo to the person who’s meant to have it—and who can tell him more about what happened to the baby. Charlie does so, but not before asking Paton to tell Amy where he’s gone. He also asks where Cathedral Close is, and gets a rather blunt (rude?) answer in reply: “Where do you think? It’s beside the cathedral.” (And it is a stupid question, though I don’t blame Charlie for asking.)

So, Charlie sets off. He goes to 3 Cathedral Close, which happens to be a bookshop called ‘Ingledew’s Bookshop’. Miss Julia Ingledew answers the door when he knocks, and lets him in when he tells her about the photo he has. Miss Ingledew gives Charlie the photo of Runner Bean she accidentally received, and as thanks for returning her photo(s) to her, she gifts Charlie with a robotic dog and a mysterious metal case, both of which belonged to her late brother-in-law, Dr Tolly. She also tells Charlie about why the baby is missing. Apparently Dr Tolly decided to give his daughter, Emma, away after the sudden death of his wife from illness eight years ago, and the baby became “lost in a system of lies and tricks and forgery”. Miss Ingledew longs to see her again, but doesn’t know how to find her.

Charlie asks what’s in the case; Miss Ingledew doesn’t know.

"I don't know. And I'm not sure I want to. Dr. Tolly exchanged it for his baby. Whatever it is, it can't be worth as much as a baby, can it?"

Miss Ingledew begs Charlie to take the case, telling him that she has to get it out of the house somehow and he seems like just the right person to take it. She also asks him to keep it a secret, for now.

"Tell no one who you wouldn't trust with your life."

And that’s where I’ll leave this summary/analysis for now. Up next, summary/analyses for chapters 4-6. :)