Horowitz Horror by Anthony Horowitz

Author:Anthony Horowitz
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Publisher: Penguin USA, Inc.

“You are the most irresponsible, disobedient, selfish children I’ve ever met! Do you realize I was two inches away from calling the police about you? Your mother and I were sick with worry. This is the last time you go to a party on your own. In fact, it’s the last time you go to any party at all! I can’t believe you could be so stupid . . .”

It was Sunday morning, breakfast, and John Hancock was still in a rage. Of course he’d been waiting for the boys when they got home, cold and exhausted, at ten to one. That night he’d rationed himself to ten minutes’ shouting, but after a good night’s sleep it seemed he was going to rage on until lunch. In his heart, Nick couldn’t blame him. His parents had been scared—that was the truth of it. Admittedly, he was seventeen and could look after himself, but Jeremy was just twelve. And there were lots of weirdos out on the streets. Everyone knew that.

Weirdos . . .

“I want you to tell me more about how you got home,” his mother said. Rosemary Hancock was a quiet, sensible woman who was used to stepping in between the father and his sons when arguments flared . . . which they often did in the small, crowded household. She managed a bookshop in Richmond and Nick noticed she had two books with her now. One was a history of London. The other was a map book. She had brought them to the table along with the croissants and coffee.

“They already told us.” John scowled.

Rosemary ignored him. “You said you took the 227B bus,” she said. “An old-fashioned bus. Did it look like this?” She showed Nick a photograph in the book. It showed a bus just like the one he had been on.

“What does it matter what the bus looked like?” John said.

“Yes. It was just like that,” Jeremy interrupted. “With the open door at the back.”

“And the conductor gave you old coins?”

“Yes.” Nick had left the coins beside his bed. In the daylight they had looked more than old. Some of them were rusty and coated in some sort of slime. Just looking at them had made him shudder, although he couldn’t say quite why.

“Do you remember where the bus stopped?” Rosemary asked. She closed the book. “You said it went to Clifford Avenue and Lower Mill Hill Road.”

“Yes.” Nick thought back. “It stopped in Fulham first. St. Peter’s Grove or something. And then at Palliser Road. And then—”

“Would it have been Queensmill Road?” Rosemary asked.

Nick stared at her. “Yes. How do you know?”

“What are you going on about?” John demanded. “What does it matter what the bus looked like or where it went?”

“It’s just that there is no 227B bus,” Rosemary replied. “I called London Transport this morning while you were out getting the croissants. There is a bus that goes from Trafalgar Square to Richmond, but it’s the N9.” She tapped the book. “And the bus that the boys described, the one I showed them in the photograph .

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