Amber’s eyes grow wide and she starts to dance on the spot. ‘OMG, Nelly. Was she the one who found the balloon and read my message?’
‘Yes,’ I gush, as my body is engulfed with excitement. In a moment of madness, I mirror her dance moves. She raises her eyebrows. ‘Nelly, you need to stick to selling books. Your dancing is cringe.’
I ignore her comment. ‘We need to get them to meet.’ I can’t believe how excited I feel at the prospect of bringing two people together. What has happened to me? ‘Amber, Alice lives next door,’ I squeal.
Amber starts to dance again but this time I remain still. ‘Is she nice? Does she give you evil stepmother vibes?’
‘What?’
Amber ignores me and taps her long nails on the spine of the book. ‘There’s only one way to find out. Dad is up a big tree today. I’ll have to persuade him to come down from it.’
‘Can you do that?’
‘He doesn’t like to be disturbed.’
‘Amber, I will leave that with you. Let me know when he can pop in, and I’ll tell Alice to turn up at the same time.’
Amber is looking troubled. ‘I don’t know how to get him to get down from that tree and come here.’
‘Use your imagination.’
I restack a few shelves, tidy up the children’s section, answer several queries on books about insects and rearrange some of the history books when I hear Miranda gasp.
‘Nelly,’ she shouts, ‘Ben’s here, saying Amber has called him to say she’s been taken hostage in this book shop.’
I let out a groan. Why the hell did I tell a fifteen-year-old to use her imagination?
‘I’ll go find her,’ I shout.
I head for the young adult section to find Amber hiding behind the armchair. ‘Is my dad here?’
‘You told him you’d been held hostage,’ I hiss.
She nods. ‘I had to get him down from that tree. My father doesn’t respond to most of my texts.’
I roll my eyes and take out my phone to message Alice. I quickly tap out:
Come now. He’s in the bookshop.
‘Let’s go see him,’ I say to Amber. ‘You can tell him what you’ve been up to.’
She groans. ‘I can’t do that.’
‘Amber – you have to explain.’
We walk over to the counter, and Ben glares at Amber. ‘What is going on? I thought you’d been taken hostage?’
Amber grins. ‘I had to get you here quick.’
He runs a hand through his brown hair and casts her a bewildered look.
‘Amber, you better explain,’ I say, seeing Alice enter the bookshop out of the corner of my eye.
‘Dad, I did something bad.’
Ben lets out a loud groan. ‘Oh, God, Amber, what have you done now?’
‘I put a message in Mum’s balloon.’
