Leave the Last Page by Stephen Barnard Page B

the bus got moving again.

    *
    It took ten minutes to get into the town centre. A short walk from the bus station put them in the middle of a busy precinct of shops. Tom knew it well, but it seemed to look a little different from his new upright position compared to being sat in a chair. He did, somewhat bizarrely, feel a twinge of loss for Dodge.
I hope he’s found his way back to Mum and Dad.
    Grandma Patty waved her stick towards a side street. ‘There’s a place down there that might be interesting.’
    The place in question was called
Odds, Sods an’ Things.
It was a singled fronted store with a large window crammed full with all kinds of bric-a-brac, arranged in no logical order. Tom could see lava lamps, Punch and Judy puppets, a twin-necked guitar, a wall-mounted singing fish, and a collection of painted ships and aeroplanes, amongst other things. No dinosaur tooth. Grandma Patty was looking beyond the wares and into the shop. ‘Doesn’t look like there’s been a disturbance.’ She nodded to the notebook in Tom’s hand. ‘If it’s anything like the story, we should have just missed him.’ She scanned the street around them, looking for any other signs of mayhem. Nothing looked out of place or affected in any way. She turned back to the shop. ‘Let’s hope he hasn’t been up to too much mischief, but instead has left us a juicy clue.’
    Tom, still looking in the window, watched steel marbles on wire continuously clang into each other on a desk toy. ‘Or we’re at the wrong place.’
    â€˜Or we’re at the wrong place. Let’s find out, shall we?’ A little bell tinkled as Grandma Patty pushed the door open.
    Inside, the store was long and thin. The walls were floor to ceiling with shelves, crammed with all manner of memorabilia and trinkets. Like the window, there didn’t seem to be any logical order to it. Along the centre of the shop ran a line of cabinets with glass displays on the tops. Tom could only see the first one at the moment: there was an oversized, ornate smoking pipe in it, resting on a red velvet mound. At the end of the long room was a bare desk, except for an old fashioned till. A bespectacled and balding man sat behind it. He stood, and as they walked further into the shop, he slid out from behind his desk and inched towards them. Tom and his grandma were looking at what seemed to be a crocodile’s foot encased in a giant marble, when he sidled up to them.
    â€˜See anything you like?’
    â€˜Not that, for a start,’ said Patty. ‘Get much interest in those, do you?’
    â€˜You’d be surprised at people’s taste.’ He looked at Grandma’s outfit. ‘There’s no guessing what folk like.’
    Tom grinned as he inspected the next display cabinet. It was an old toy robot with a key sticking out of its back. He put his hand on the glass.
    â€˜Don’t touch that!’ snapped the old man. ‘It’s not meant for children!’
    â€˜Ermm…it’s a toy robot?’
    â€˜It used to be. Now it’s an antique.’
    Grandma Patty interrupted. ‘Anyway, that’s not the kind of thing we’re after. I’m interested in…well, teeth. Anything made from teeth, or maybe bones. Something fossily perhaps?’
    Tom jumped in. ‘And has anyone been in already today and bought something like that?’
    The old man gave them both quizzical looks. ‘Well, aren’t you two a pair?
Teeth
indeed! And you rolled your eyes at a crocodile’s foot!’
    Grandma Patty thumped her stick against the floorboards. ‘So do you have anything?’
    He pushed his glasses up his long nose, then scratched the tip of it. ‘I think I have a goat’s skull, but that’s about it.’ He stared off into the light from the windows. ‘Let me think…’
    Tom and Patty stepped further into the shop, browsing shelves