Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes

Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes is a middle grade novel by Jonathan Auxier originally published in 2011. The novel encompasses a variety of genres: fantasy, the heroic quest, and even some Dickensian orphan flourishes, for good measure. It was a BookPage Magazine Best Book of the year, an ABA New Voices selection (2011), and a finalist for the Monica Hughes Award for science fiction and fantasy.

This study guide references the edition published by Amulet Books.

Plot Summary

Peter Nimble, a blind orphan found floating in the sea and raised in a dodgy port town, learns the art of thievery from Mr. Seamus, his abusive caretaker. Over time, Peter becomes the greatest thief in town, equally adept at picking locks and pockets. One day, Peter encounters a mysterious Haberdasher who is actually searching for a great thief. To test Peter, he leaves his heavily locked cart unattended. When Peter successfully opens the cart, he discovers a strange box with six strange objects—actually eyes (golden, onyx, and emerald). When he inserts them into his empty eye sockets, Peter vanishes.

Peter reappears in churning lake filled with clinking bottles alongside Sir Tode, a knight transformed by a curse into a human/cat/horse hybrid. The Haberdasher, whose real name is Mr. Pound introduces them to Professor Cake, the owner of the island. Cake reveals to Peter a note containing a mysterious rhyme, a plea for help from the Vanished Kingdom. Cake believes Peter to be the perfect candidate for the quest and gifts him the Fantastic Eyes, magical tools to aid him along the way. Peter and Sir Tode board the Scop, a small ship, and set sail.

One day, they help an enormous dogfish named Frederick, who swears to repay the favor. One morning, they awake to find the Scop marooned in a vast desert with no trace of open sea. They are trapped in the Just Deserts, a prison for thieves. One night, Peter and Sir Tode meet Old Scabbs, a fellow thief who tries to steal food from them. They agree to spare him if he will act as a guide to help them escape. As he leads them across the desert, a terrified Scabbs orders them to hide in the sand from a swarm of ravens, the desert guards.

The next morning, Peter and Sir Tode set off on their own, eventually coming to a well. When ravens settle on the rock, Peter overhears their conversation—they are a military unit in service to the king. Out of nowhere, Scabbs comes over a nearby dune. The ravens fall on him and peck him to death and take Peter’s magic eyes.

Eventually, Peter and Sir Tode, with the help of a small gang of thieves, make their way to the raven’s Nest, a tower built of the remains of shattered boats. After successfully infiltrating the central core of the Nest, Peter finds the eyes, but the thieves betray him. Hundreds of other thieves come out of hiding, seize the weapons, and storm the Nest; the sleeping ravens rally to defend their tower.

As a great battle ensues, Peter and Sir Tode sneak out on to a platform overlooking a great chasm. As the platform gives way and they plummet into the abyss, Peter uses the golden eyes so he and Sir Tode vanish.

Peter wakes up in a soft bed in the Perfect Palace, in a kingdom ruled by a wise and benevolent king. In the Eating Hall, everyone seems uniformly happy, but Peter senses something is amiss. After dinner, another bell chimes, and everyone scrambles back to their homes. All homes are locked from the outside sides, keeping every citizen of the kingdom prisoner.

That night, Peter goes in search of Sir Tode. He encounters a talking beetle who tells him that Sir Tode was captured. Taking care to avoid the Night Patrol, a gang of vicious apes who serve the king, Peter makes his way to the Eating Hall, but an iron gate bars his way. He inserts the onyx eyes and is transformed into a beetle—the last thing he touched—and skitters into the courtyard. The dining hall is in disarray, waiting to be cleaned by the children the king keeps as slaves. A sparrow named Pickle tells him the king is really a tyrant who keeps his subjects locked up and drugged with the Devil’s Dram so they won’t remember their own children.

Peter steps into a trap and is captured by some of the Missing Ones, renegade children who have escaped the king’s enslavement. One of them is Princess Peg, the rightful heir to the throne, which was usurped by her uncle, Incarnadine, who killed Peg’s father, King Hazelgood. Peg also wrote the note with the mysterious rhyme. Peter vows to help overthrow the king and return the kingdom to Peg.

Simon, a raven and Hazelgood’s former guard, tells Peter that Incarnadine forces the children to work an enormous clockwork machine in the mines below the palace. Incarnadine plans to drill through the bedrock and release the seas back into the great chasm. Peter, Simon, Peg, and Sir Tode concoct a plan to free the children and kill the king.

Sir Tode and Simon sail the king’s airship across the chasm to retrieve the ravens from the Just Deserts. Meanwhile, Peter replaces the Devil’s Dram with pepper. They then sneak down to the mines to grease the rusted shackles keeping the children chained, making them easier to open. When they see the children are also guarded by several large sea serpents, Peter uses the onyx eyes to transform into a serpent, slither through cracks in the bedrock, and seek help.

As the massive drill penetrates deeper into the bedrock, water pours into the mine. The ravens arrive just in time to free the children and fight off the apes. When the serpents join the battle, Peter returns with Frederick the dogfish and six giant sea turtles who dispatch the slithery beasts with ease. The now-flooded kingdom is the sight of a chaotic battle: ravens versus apes, adults versus their own children. Peter and Peg face off against the king wearing deadly clockwork armor of spinning blades. Peter uses his lock picking skills to disable the king’s armor. Peg pushes the king over a balcony, and he is impaled on Peter’s fishhook. The king’s subjects, free of the effects of the Devil’s Dram, recognize their children and take up the fight against the apes, who are quickly outnumbered and defeated.

Peter learns his true identity: He is Peg’s missing brother and the other rightful heir to the throne. Peter finally uses the emerald pair of eyes, which restore his sight.

As order is restored to the kingdom, Peter and Peg are crowned king and queen. Mr. Pound sails into port bearing gifts for the young rulers, but Peter’s heart does not lie with affairs of state. He longs for adventure, so he and Sir Tode sail off to find the hag and restore the knight to his human self.