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Chapter 1

On a wild and stormy night, five students, Claudia, Colin, Ralph, Pixie and Robbo, are sent

ahead on a school trip to Old Harwick Hall. Instead of taking the school bus with Miss O'Dell

and their other friends, they have to ride on a minibus with Mr. Plumley, one of their

accompanying teachers, to their destination. After arriving, they explore the building and find anold, hexagonal tower room with five beds in it. In the dark of the night, with no electricity due to

the raging storm, Colin spots a door which leads to an old, abandoned room where they discover

a diary of a young boy by the name of Richard Clayton Harwick. Prior to reading the diary, they

wonder why they are put together in the minibus. They achieved the answer after eavesdropping

on Miss O'Dell and Mr. Plumley's conversation - on Miss O'Dell's list, their names had ticks

which indicate that they each had two different addresses on their permission slips, one for their

mother's home and one for their father's home. Each child comes from a divorced family. Pixie

reads Richard's diary out loud for the other children to hear.

Chapter 2Richard Clayton Harwick's father is ill and this worries everyone in Harwick Hall. Before his

death, he tells Richard to take care of his mother and sister, Lilith and Charlotte Harwick. After

that, Richard only feels sad for his father's death, but also because his father had only thought of

his mother and sister instead of him until the end of his life. Later in the story, Lilith marries

Reverend Coldstone, an Anglican priest (he is not Catholic because he is not addressed Father,

and he marries Lilith, Richard's Mother. Roman Catholic Priests cannot marry) who is cruel

towards Richard but is very nice towards Charlotte. Richard is then sent to a boarding school

called Mordanger School, where he is treated like a prisoner. He then decides to run away and

sail all over the world. He comes back twice to Harwick Hall but never bothers to enter it or meet

his mother and sister. He finally returns home after reading a print which states that solicitorshave something to his advantage back home, discovering from a letter Charlotte had written

before her death, that his family had been searching for him until the end of their lives and how

Reverend Coldstone had turned out to be a very bad man. His decision of whether to stay or

leave Harwick Hall remains unknown while leaving his green diary back in his tower room. And

then they discover about Richard's story .

Chapter 3 - Claudia's Story: Green Pyjamas

Claudia starts telling her story to the other children: Claudia's parents quarrel a lot until her

father decides to take his things and move away to his mother's house. One night, there is a floodof phone calls, and for the first time, Claudia hears the name Stella, her dad's new girlfriend.

After that night, Claudia's dad dare not visit nor come near the house anymore, but only talks to

Claudia over the phone. On D-Day, Claudia meets Stella for the first time and thinks that Stella

is a plain and mousy person. After a row with his mother, Claudia's dad then moves into Stella's

house. Later, Stella gives Claudia a pair of beautiful green pyjamas as a late Christmas present

even though Claudia is always rude and mean to her. One evening, Claudia's dad and Stella

holds a dinner party to celebrate his thirty-seventh birthday. During the dinner, Claudia's dad's

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friends ignores Stella as they think that by doing so they would be loyal to Claudia's mum.

Claudia felt sorry and went downstairs to thank her for the green pyjamas and thus making her

point to the dinner guests that Stella is a wonderful person.

Chapter 5 - Ralph's Story A Tale of ThreeStepmothers

Ralph has two brothers, two half-brothers, one half-sister, three stepbrothers, one stepsister,three

stepmothers, one stepfather, two step-grandmothers and a step-grandfather. Living in a big

family is no joke. After school on Mondays and Thursdays, he goes directly to Dads place. Hismum or his step dad,Howard sends him. On Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays, he goes straight

to his Mums place. At times,he will be lost not knowing where to go. The lunchboxes help. M

for Mickey Mouse and Mum, D for Dumbo and Dad. If he is lost, he has to look at his lunch box

to confirm his destination. Edward and George are his brothers. The boys liked Annabel,

stepmother No. 1. The only problem was she never left the boys alone with their dad.Edward andGeorge hated this. Dad and Annabel spent all their time kissing and cuddling. Annabel was

always on a diet. She disapproved of coffee. So the boys had to drink Dandelion tea every

morning. She loved to read out her star sign forecast in the mornings and again in the evenings.

Sometimes, she even tried to look at Edward and George to tell their aura. However, the boys

would deny anything she said.Yet, their dad would not feel embarrassed.One day, Brandy,

Ralphs cat was sent over as their Mum was varnishing the hall. The three boys took Brandy in acage. Edward had made it from a broken milk bottle crate and bits of wire. Annabel was annoyed

and blamed them to be cruel as Brandy did not have room to breathe. Dad distracted her by

pointing out that they were out of bread. Annabel insisted in baking. The poor boys were starving

to death.So, they went to the shops. They boys ate three large loaves and before they came home,

they brushed away the crumbs. Dad was praising of how the dough had risen.When Annabel left

it on the table, Brandy leapt up on the table and sniffed the dough. Then, Brandy lift edits paw

and patted the dough. Next, Brandy curled himself comfortably into the dough. Annabel went

mad.Dad tried to stick up for Brandy. The spell between Annabel and Dad was broken. In the

end, Annabel ranoff with someone and Dad searched high and low to get the divorce papers

signed.picture. Edward met herlying on Dads patio with hardly any clothes on. She had thecheek to tell Edward to cover up as she was enjoying the sun. George met Flora when they went

shopping. Flora was dumping treats like strawberries,kiwi fruits, waffles, Belgian chocolates into

the trolley. Dad was looking