I’m the King of the Castle: Chapter 13 Summary & Analysis

Charles watches Edmund fall, as if in slow motion. They’re only as high up as they might be on the roof of Warings, but the fall seems to take a long time. After that, time seems to speed up: a “man in uniform” arrives, and Charles feels as if Helena and Joseph are ignoring him completely. Edmund is lifted into an ambulance.

Charles is sure that Edmund is dead—and he’s sure that it’s his fault. He decided against pushing Edmund, but he certainly thought about pushing Edmund. Furthermore, Charles knows that, from a distance, what happened would have looked like a push.

Charles goes back to Warings with Joseph and Helena. In the car, he remembers being eight years old at his former school. A prefect named Lesage used to send him on useless errands. Once, Lesage made Charles lie down on the floor and close his eyes. Charles did so. When he opened his eyes, Lesage was still standing over him, and told him to go to class. The incident disturbed Charles.

Helena doesn’t speak to Charles in the car. Suddenly, Charles says, “I didn’t push him. I didn’t touch him at all.” Helena says, “It was very, very silly to go up there at all, Charles. But we won’t talk about any of it, now.” Charles is desperate to convince his mother of what happened. But as he tries to explain, Helena says, “I am a little ashamed that you were not sensible enough to realize what might happen.” Charles says that Edmund is a baby and frightened of heights.

Back at the house, Helena tells Charles that she’s going to the hospital and that Mrs. Boland will be taking care of him. She hugs Charles and says, “Promise me you will never, never do anything so silly again.” She leaves, and Charles, sitting alone, whispers, “Hooper is dead now” to himself.

Night falls, and Helena and Joseph still haven’t come back from the hospital. Charles and Alice Boland watch television together. The film playing on television shows a blind man walking down the road. Then, it shows another man, walking quietly behind him, getting closer and closer. Suddenly, there’s a screaming sound from the television. Charles thinks about how, soon, he’ll be going to school without Edmund, since he thinks Edmund is probably dead.

Alice Boland tells Charles that it’s time to go to bed. She notices that Charles’s face is “peaky.” She hasn’t been able to “figure him out,” but she suspects that he likes being around Joseph Hooper, since he doesn’t have a father of his own.

Alone in his room, Charles thinks about how he won’t have to avoid Edmund from now on. He’ll have the entire house to himself—and in fact, he’ll be the King of the Castle. He falls asleep and has vivid dreams.

Around midnight, Joseph and Helena drive home from the hospital. Joseph tells Helena that he couldn’t have “managed” without her. Helena says, “If only it had not been for Charles,” but Joseph replies, “I will not have that … There is to be no blame.”

Charles dreams about a hand clawing at him. He runs away from the hand, toward a distant light. Suddenly, a huge, winged creature swoops down on him. He turns and sees a pack of crows, puppets, and ambulance men chasing him. He wakes up in the middle of the night, sobbing, and decides to go to his mother. Outside his bedroom, he begins to cry noisily. Joseph and Helena rush up the stairs toward him. They dry his tears and give him a hot drink. Charles tries to explain, “It’s because [Edmund’s] dead.” Helena explains that Edmund isn’t dead.

Helena and Joseph take Charles back to bed and wish him goodnight. He falls asleep, and when he wakes up it’s still dark. He whispers, “Hooper isn’t dead” again and again.