Characters
- Kenny Huldorf
- Kenny is a 12-year-old boy who moves from Los Angeles to Providence, Rhode Island, where, in his room, he is haunted by a ghost, who turns to be Caleb. He is small in stature, has light hair and freckles. He carries around a Los Angeles Dodgers keychain. He agrees to help Caleb find the murderer, and goes back in time. He learns that the slave traders want to send a message against the abolitionists, setting up the reason why Caleb was killed. But then Willinghast grabs Kenny's keychain and blackmails him into choosing whether to kill Caleb and return to his own time, or to save him and risk being a ghost forever in the past.
- Caleb
- Caleb is a slave boy estimated to be 16 years old in 1800, but is a ghost in the present time whose memories are strongly tied to the house. He was apparently killed in a room in the attic, after being asked to stay at the house while his masters, the Stilwells, were out. He is seen by Kenny crawling out of a blood stain and searching the walls for a way out. Caleb wants Kenny to find his murderer. He has a scar on his cheek and a blood stain on his back. Caleb initially doesn't trust Kenny, but decides to follow him after Kenny agrees to help out. When he and Kenny go back in time, Caleb loses his blood stain and appears to be alive.
- Pardon Willinghast
- Willinghast is a historian that Kenny encountered at the library, but in 1800, he was one of the slave traders who conspired to make a statement against the abolitionists. He knows about Kenny's investigation, and while he was originally helpful, he eventually reveals to Kenny that he is also a strong memory that wants the events to take place so that Caleb dies. He later reveals he plotted the murder of Caleb.
- Moses Brown
- An abolitionist in the 18th century. At one point in the story, he marks a wall and states that as long as the mark stays there, he will not allow slavery.
- Esek Ormsbee
- One of the slave traders. He asks Kenny to give a message to Mr. Seagrave concerning a meeting.
- Philip Seagrave
- One of the slave traders who meets with Ormsbee and Willinghast. His house has the mark that Mr. Brown placed.
- Avi
- The author introduces the story of Caleb and Kenny as coming from a visit by Kenny who wanted to share his story.
Read more about this topic: Something Upstairs
Famous quotes containing the word characters:
“It is open to question whether the highly individualized characters we find in Shakespeare are perhaps not detrimental to the dramatic effect. The human being disappears to the same degree as the individual emerges.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“What makes literature interesting is that it does not survive its translation. The characters in a novel are made out of the sentences. That’s what their substance is.”
—Jonathan Miller (b. 1936)
“Of the other characters in the book there is, likewise, little to say. The most endearing one is obviously the old Captain Maksim Maksimich, stolid, gruff, naively poetical, matter-of- fact, simple-hearted, and completely neurotic.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)