Progression: teachers’ choice of this text should be influenced by the degree to which the study of The London Eye Mysterywill allow a class to make appropriate progress in their knowledge and skills of reading. The London Eye Mysteryoffers students the opportunity to closely examine the use of a first-person narrator, building suspense and tension, inference and deduction, and to engage with the themes of family, citizenship, bullying, social exclusion and Asperger’s Syndrome.
Cross-curricular links: opportunities to link with PSHE, geography and citizenship.
NAVIGATOR
Chapter
Plot outline
Chapter 1
A description of Salim’s disappearance on the London Eye.
Chapter 2
A letter arrives with news that Gloria, Ted’s aunt, will be visiting London with her son, Salim. The family joke that Gloria is like a hurricane, leaving a trail of devastation in her wake.
Chapter 3
Ted is upset when he finds out that he will be sharing his bedroom during the visit with Salim.
Chapter 4
Gloria and Salim arrive and tell the family about their forthcoming move to New York. The family decide to visit the London Eye the following day.
Chapter 5
Ted and Salim talk in bed about Ted’s Asperger’s Syndrome, and both reveal they are teased at school for being different (Salim for being mixed race). Salim has overcome his troubles by befriending another boy called Marcus.
Chapter 6
The family go to the London Eye. While waiting in a long queue, a stranger offers the children a single ticket. They accept it and Salim boards the Eye without them.
Chapter 7
Kat and Ted wait for Salim to finish his ride on the Eye, but when his pod lands he isn’t in amongst the tourists coming out. Kat buys a souvenir photograph, but there is no sign of Salim, who has disappeared completely.
Chapter 8
After waiting at the Eye for a while and trying Salim’s mobile phone (which is turned off), the family report Salim’s disappearance to the police and return home to wait for news.
Chapter 9
Ted comforts Kat, who feels responsible for Salim’s disappearance. She asks Ted for his help in solving the mystery. Ted finds Salim’s camera in his jacket pocket.
Chapter 10
Ted thinks about his history with Kat as they try to decide what to do with the camera. Two police officers arrive.
Chapter 11
The police ask Kat and Ted questions and explain that they are doing everything they can to find him. They ask Aunt Gloria more questions in private and Ted and Kat feel extremely frustrated.
Chapter 12
The police ask Aunt Gloria whether Salim would run away and Ted and his father discuss it. Ted thinks about body language and how he finds it difficult to understand what people are feeling.
Chapter 13
The police ask about Salim’s father and Gloria tells them they are divorced and not on speaking terms. Once the police leave, the family are in shock. Ted’s father tells them he has finished work preparing a nearby tower block for demolition.
Chapter 14
Ted and Kat discuss Ted’s eight theories for how Salim could have disappeared from the London Eye pod. Ted comes up with another idea, but before he can tell Kat, the phone rings.
Chapter 15
The body of a young Asian boy is found and Ted’s father goes to identify it. The boy isn’t Salim.
Chapter 16
Kat and Ted test out one of his theories, which leads to a family argument. Ted and Kat go out with their father and convince him to revisit the London Eye with them to try to see things from Salim’s perspective.
Chapter 17
Ted rides the London Eye with Kat and his father and tries to imagine what Salim did the day he disappeared. Kat gets Salim’s last roll of film developed.
Chapter 18
Ted and Kat examine the photographs for clues, but find none. They look over their theories to eliminate some of them, and Ted speculates that perhaps Salim didn’t get on the Eye. Kat considers this, then insists that she saw him do so.
Chapter 19
The police return and tell the family that a boy has been spotted on CCTV boarding a train to Manchester. Salim’s father, Rashid, arrives.
Chapter 20
Ted thinks about how objects look different depending on your perspective. He overhears Salim’s parents talking, and Rashid reveals that Salim asked to live with him rather than move to New York with his mother. Aunt Gloria and Rashid kiss.
Chapter 21
Ted looks at the photographs and identifies the strange man who gave them the ticket.
Chapter 22
Kat has the photographs blown up. She and Ted try to figure out which words are written on the stranger’s shirt. They come up with ‘security’ but before Kat can get any further, there is a scream from downstairs.
Chapter 23
Aunt Gloria misses a call from Salim’s mobile phone. Kat goes out to try to solve the mystery, taking a page from the phonebook, and leaves an upset Ted behind.
Chapter 24
Ted searches the phonebook to find the page Kat has taken, and realizes the shirt said Frontline Security.
Chapter 25
A TV crew arrive to film an appeal for information by Aunt Gloria. Ted calls Frontline Security, and is directed to an employee called Christy. He leaves to find Christy and Kat himself.
Chapter 26
Ted follows Kat to Earl’s Court station on the tube.
Chapter 27
Ted goes to a motorbike show manned by Frontline Security, where he watches a bike jump and finds Kat.
Chapter 28
Ted and Kat find Christy, who denies knowing anything about Salim’s disappearance. However, Kat and Ted both conclude that the man is lying.
Chapter 29
Kat and Ted follow Christy on to a tube train and to a pub in Mile End. They wait outside and see Aunt Gloria’s TV appeal through the window of a shop, then are surprised by Christy coming up to them.
Chapter 30
Christy tells Kat and Ted he was given the ticket by a dark haired woman in the London Eye queue and asked to give it to them. He escapes on a bus before answering more questions.
Chapter 31
Ted and Kat return home to find their mother worried and angry. Kat and her mum argue.
Chapter 32
Ted gathers his thoughts and realizes how Salim disappeared.
Chapter 33
Ted tries to tell someone in his family what he has figured out, but nobody will listen to him. He calls the police inspector.
Chapter 34
The family eat dinner and Aunt Gloria is upset because she feels everyone blames her for Salim’s disappearance, because perhaps he ran away. She is about to go out and try to find him herself when the police arrive, sirens blaring.
Chapter 35
The police explain that, thanks to Ted, they know how Salim disappeared but not where he is. They also know that the boy on the train was Salim’s friend Marcus, who they have with them.
Chapter 36
Ted explains that Marcus posed as a girl getting on to the London Eye, then swapped disguises with Salim in the pod while the other tourists were having their photo taken, and that Christy is a relation of Marcus’s. This is how Salim was able to fake his disappearance.
Chapter 37
The police read out Marcus’s statement. He and Salim had planned the disappearance but Salim had changed his mind and decided to go to New York with his mum. Marcus hadn’t seen Salim since he left him at Euston station.