FLOSS AND THE BANDITS Characters: Full List & Analysis

Who drives the story

Main characters

Floss

A young girl with a mop of curly red hair, dropped on her aunt while her parents 'sort things out' abroad. She wants somewhere to belong, and finds it by defying a warning, digging up a key, and carrying Black Bart's journal into the light.

Appears in:: Part 1: The Girl with Warning-Flag Hair; Part 2: Button, Map, Key; Part 3: The Boy in the Wood; Part 4: Darkness, Then Daylight
Themes:: History is whoever holds the paper; Abandonment and found family; Grown-ups as the real danger; The wild edge at the garden gate

Aunt Mabel

A large, booming painter in a paint-spattered smock who believes books and biscuits are all a body needs. Keeper of the family map, she turns from eccentric guardian to rescuer, arriving with the constable at the crucial moment.

Appears in:: Part 1: The Girl with Warning-Flag Hair; Part 2: Button, Map, Key; Part 3: The Boy in the Wood; Part 4: Darkness, Then Daylight

Tom

A wood-dwelling boy with sharp eyes and dirt-smudged cheeks, whose father disappeared but left him stories and a second tunnel. He wants the wood's truth told, and saves Floss by killing the light.

Appears in:: Part 3: The Boy in the Wood; Part 4: Darkness, Then Daylight
Themes:: Grown-ups as the real danger; The wild edge at the garden gate

Mrs. Grudge

The postmistress who warns children off the wood while secretly helping developers buy it up. Her warning was never protection; it was a fence around a secret.

Appears in:: Part 1: The Girl with Warning-Flag Hair; Part 2: Button, Map, Key; Part 3: The Boy in the Wood; Part 4: Darkness, Then Daylight
Themes:: Grown-ups as the real danger

Black Bart / Bartholomew Blackwood

The legendary bandit of Dithering Wood, dead two centuries but present through button, chest and journal. His written account recasts him from thief to rebel who returned stolen tax money to the village.

Appears in:: Part 1: The Girl with Warning-Flag Hair; Part 2: Button, Map, Key; Part 3: The Boy in the Wood
Themes:: History is whoever holds the paper

How they are connected

Key relationships

Floss Black Bart / Bartholomew Blackwood
She wants somewhere to belong, and finds it by defying a warning, digging up a key, and carrying Black Bart's journal into the light.
Tom Floss
He wants the wood's truth told, and saves Floss by killing the light.

Go deeper

FLOSS AND THE BANDITS themes & symbols

History is whoever holds the paper · Abandonment and found family · Grown-ups as the real danger · The wild edge at the garden gate

Themes explained

Read the full FLOSS AND THE BANDITS summary

The full story act by act, the ending explained and a quick quiz.

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