step by wicked step (part 2)

Setting
Time
•The novel is set in the modern 20th century.
•The story begins on a wet, rainy night with storms raging in the sky as the five main characters make their way ahead of their classmates to Old Harwick Hall for a week-long field trip.

Place
•The story takes place in Old Harwick Hall which is a spooky Victorian mansion built hundreds of years ago.
•It is described as 'absolutely private' and 'a towering mansion with dunce-hatted turret'. It has 'dark windows' and a 'huge oak and iron door'.
•The Tower Room in Old Harwick Hall - a room equipped with beds pointing to the centre. This is the room where the five characters Pixie, Claudia, Ralph, Robbo and Colin first gather when they arrive.
•A tiny room (' a tower off a tower') adjoining the Tower Room is where the characters discover a mysterious old diary belonging to Richard Clayton Harwick. The room is hidden by the frame of a bed but a pock-mark reveals its existence. The room is full of cobwebs and dust on the furniture. There are six vaulted windows, a lantern, candelabra, some books, cushions and a tiny carved wooden cow with three legs in the room.

Plot Overview
The novel is written in seven chapters. The first two chapters are without titles while the other five chapters consist of stories from the five main characters, Claudia, Pixie, Ralph, Colin and Robbo. In the story, five schoolchildren spend the night in the creepy Old Harwick Hall, as part of a school field trip accompanied by their teachers. The schoolchildren do not really know each other, but the discovery of an old diary in the tower room find themselves coming closer together as they actually have a lot in common. The novel is written in an autobiographical style where the five main characters, Claudia, Pixie, Robbo, Colin and Ralph take turns to tell their five distinct stories step-by-step, story-by-story. They share stories of their stepfather, stepmother and step siblings frankly and openly and how they cope with their own situations. Their stories have a mixture of happy and sad endings.