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Charlotte Sometimes (novel)

Charlotte Sometimes AuthorPenelope FarmerCountryUnited KingdomLanguageEnglishGenreChildren's novelPublisherChatto & Windus1969Media typePrintPreceded byEmma in Winter
Charlotte Sometimes is a children's novel by the English writer Penelope Farmer, published in 1969 in Britain and the United States. It is the third and best-known of three books featuring the Makepeace sisters, Charlotte and Emma, sometimes known as the Aviary Hall books. It has a girl starting at boarding school find one morning she has travelled mysteriously back more than 40 years and is known as Clare. Charlotte and Clare change places each night, alternating between 1918 and Charlotte's time, Although Charlotte and Clare never meet, they communicate through diary notes in an exercise book. The story is written from Charlotte's point of view: Clare never narrates. Charlotte becomes trapped in Clare's time, struggling to maintain her identity.

Plot
Part one
Charlotte arrives at a new boarding school, and is shown around by a prefect named Sarah. Sarah's mother also attended the school. She is to share a room with other girls (Susannah, Elizabeth, Janet, and Vanessa). The next morning she finds herself in the same place, but in the year 1918 � with war still going on. A younger girl called Emily calls Charlotte her sister and addresses her as "Clare". She tries to spend the day in 1918 without being noticed. Each night, Charlotte finds herself swapping between her own time and Clare's time. They must learn to live two different lives. Charlotte and Clare manage to write to each other in Clare's diary, which they share and hide in their bed.

Emily and Clare are supposed to leave their room soon and go into lodgings with the Chisel Brown family. They have to make sure this happens when Clare is in 1918, because they won't be able to switch again after that.

Part two
Charlotte, expecting to have returned to her own time for the last time, is shocked to find that she has not, and is still in 1918. She will go into lodgings with the Chisel Brown family: it appears she will be trapped in the past. In the house, Miss Agnes Chisel Brown shows Charlotte and Emily the toys she once played with, including toy soldiers and a solitaire board with marbles. She tells the two girls about her brother Arthur, who died in the war. Charlotte reflects, forward and back: to Arthur in the past; her own sister Emma in the future; and Clare, trapped in Charlotte's time. She struggles with her identity, being Charlotte sometimes but Clare at other times.

Charlotte and Emily form a plan to enter the school by night in an attempt to get Charlotte into the bed which will take Charlotte back to her own time. Inside her room, which is now being used as the school sickroom, Charlotte finds the bed is occupied, and thus she cannot return home. She escapes being seen by Nurse Gregory, but is seen by another student, Ruth.

Charlotte is not the only one who struggles with identity. Emily tells of the wretchedness of being motherless and unwanted, moving between homes while her father fights in the war. Meanwhile, Charlotte dreams she is fighting to stay as Charlotte. She dreams about Arthur.

A letter arrives for Clare and Emily from their father. Emily does not let Charlotte read it, to the bewilderment of the other girls. Charlotte, thoughtful as always, wonders who Sarah's mother is: perhaps it will be Charlotte herself if she is trapped in 1918?

At night, Charlotte dreams about Arthur again, as a drummer boy, and that she has turned into Agnes. Her crisis of identity comes to a head as she struggles to preserve her identity as Charlotte.

One evening, the Chisel Browns hold a seance in an attempt to speak to Arthur. The girls hide behind the curtains to observe. During the seance, they hear Clare's voice crying out for Emily. Emily cries out, and the two girls are discovered and disciplined. Later, Miss Agnes asks about the voice they heard at the seance � Clare's. She then tells Charlotte and Emily of Arthur's war experiences.

Finally, the Armistice comes. The war is over: people dance and celebrate in the street, and Charlotte and Emily join in, even though it would anger Mr Chisel Brown. In disgrace, Charlotte and Emily are sent back to the school. Miss Agnes gives them the toys as a gift.

Part three
Ruth recalls her "dream" of seeing Clare whilst in the sickroom. Because of the flu epidemic the students are able to play wild games in the dormitories, and eventually Charlotte is able to sleep in the bed that will return her to her own time.

On arriving back, Charlotte is startled to learn that her room-mate Elizabeth had deduced the truth about her swap with Clare. Charlotte wonders about Sarah's mother and what has become of Emily and Clare. At the school, Charlotte sees the elderly Miss Wilkin. Charlotte realises that she had known Miss Wilkin when she was a young teacher in 1918.

One day, Charlotte learns what has become of Emily and Clare through a conversation with Sarah. Sarah's mother is Emily, and Clare died in the flu epidemic after the war. Later, Charlotte and Elizabeth discuss the events Charlotte has experienced. They find the exercise book in one of the legs of the bed, where it has been for forty years. It includes the last letter Charlotte wrote to Clare.

Charlotte receives a package from Emily as an adult. It contains a letter from Emily, and the toys which Miss Agnes had given them over forty years ago. Charlotte places the marbles from the solitaire set in a jar and fills it with water, which the other girls admire. Charlotte feels a sense of personal identity in now having her own decoration to her dresser, yet muses that the marbles belonged to her when she was living the life of another person, namely Clare. The end of term comes, and the boarders leave the school in the school bus, singing rhymes.

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