by Webb, Holly
At this point she always burst into tears and Otto was obliged to make her a cup of strong tea, and open a packet of biscuits.
Otto’s mother had a great fondness for biscuits. They were the only thing that really stopped her worrying for any length of time. It was because of this that Otto was not present when one of the most extraordinary things in the history of Bridlington Chawley took place. She had sent him to the corner shop for a couple of packets of chocolate digestives. So he only discovered what had happened when he returned.
It was the first day of the summer holidays, and all the way to the shop Otto was thinking about what he would do in the weeks to come. Other children in his class went on holiday to exotic places, but there was no chance of that for Otto. Even if they could afford to go away, his mother would be far too worried to contemplate such a trip. Perhaps if his father had been alive, Otto thought to himself, things might have been different.
He was still thinking about what might have been when he arrived back home to find the door of the bookshop wide open and no sign of his mother. Surprised, he stepped into the shop. Immediately the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and goosebumps sprang up all over his body. The air in the shop seemed to crackle with energy as though a thunderstorm might break out above the bookshelves at any moment. It made Otto quite dizzy. He took hold of a bookcase and steadied himself.
‘Mum?’ he called out. ‘Where are you?’
There was no answer. He walked across the shop and opened the door to the stock room. But it was empty, except for the hundreds and hundreds of characters who lived within the dusty covers of the books. He could almost hear them muttering unhappily to each other, as if they, too, sensed that something was wrong.
Otto looked in the back yard in case his mother was putting out the rubbish. Then he went upstairs and checked the apartment that they both shared. There was no sign of her. But in the kitchen, stuck to the front of the refrigerator door was a set of magnetic letters that had been there ever since he was a baby. He hadn’t played with them for many years. They had been rearranged into two words.
HELP ME.
www.orchardbooks.co.uk
www.orchardbooks.co.uk
www.orchardbooks.co.uk
www.orchardbooks.co.uk
www.hodderchildrens.co.uk
www.hodderchildrens.co.uk