Read Online The Whizz Pop Chocolate Shop by Kate Saunders - Free Book Online Page B

takeout pizzas and his mother never let him have them.
    “And there’s a spare sofa you can use as a bed. Frankly, I haven’t really thought this through.” Isadore was gloomy. “I just grabbed you when I lost the mold. I lost my head.”
    “They’ll never let you make your chocolate,” Oz said boldly. “You might as well let me go.”
    “Certainly not. You’re my bargaining chip.”
    It was depressing to be a “bargaining chip,” and horrible to think of spending any time in this ghostlyold tube station—but at least Isadore wasn’t planning to kill him. Oz drank his tea and ate the biscuits. As he grew less scared, he began to pay more attention to the objects around him. Isadore’s “Grotto” was crammed with antique furniture, old clocks, paintings and statues that made a net of weird shadows. Isadore shifted the oil lamp, and a face leapt out of one of the framed photographs on the wall—Lily’s face.
    A second later, Oz saw that it wasn’t his sister, but a young woman who looked very much like her. She had the same bright black eyes, the same untidy heap of curly hair, the same dark freckles.
    “Who’s that?” he asked.
    Isadore followed his gaze. “That’s Daisy. She was your great-great-grandmother.”
    “Oh. I’ve only seen a picture of her when she was old. She looks just like my sister.”
    Isadore let out a long sigh. “Ah, my sweet Daisy!”
    “You were in love with her.” Oz remembered the long story Demerara had told them. “But your magic love chocolate didn’t work.”
    “Yes, it did,” snapped Isadore. “It worked perfectly.”
    “But not with Daisy.”
    “No—I was too late.”
    “She was already in love with your brother Marcel.”
    “All right! Don’t rub it in!” All these years later,Isadore was still in the agonies of jealousy. “If only—but she refused to eat the damned chocolate, and I was doomed to spend the rest of eternity ALONE.”
    Oz was interested. “Did you try to make Daisy immortal?”
    “That was part of my plan.” Isadore poured another slug of whisky into his tea. “But they poisoned her sweet mind against me, and she wouldn’t trust me.”
    “Well, fair enough,” said Oz. “You did kill her husband.”
    “She wouldn’t have fallen in love with Marcel if she’d met me first.”
    “You don’t know that.”
    Isadore winced as if Oz had stabbed him. “I DO! Daisy and I are destined to be together!”
    “But she’s dead,” Oz pointed out. “She died before I was born.”
    “Daisy!” wailed Isadore.
    To Oz’s enormous embarrassment, Isadore began to cry. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and sobbed into it wretchedly. Very unwillingly, Oz found himself feeling slightly sorry for his wicked great-great-uncle. His wickedness had only made him lonely.
    Isadore blew his nose, with a trumpeting that echoed forlornly through the empty station. “I haven’t given up, you know.”
    “You—you haven’t?” This was just plain crazy.
    “Oz, I’ll tell you something I’ve never told anyone.” Isadore leaned across the table toward him, a hungry look on his thin face. “I have a dream—the only thing that has kept me from despair since my Daisy grew old and died!”
    “You did tell me,” Oz said uneasily. “You want to be the richest man in the world.”
    “But why do I need the money? Because my dream involves a very expensive spell. One day, I’m going to make a blend of magic chocolate that turns back time!”
    “Oh.”
    “You think I’m crazy.”
    “Well, yes, I do a bit.”
    “If I had my way,” Isadore said fiercely, “you and your sister and father would never have existed. My dream is that I turn back time to just before Daisy came to work at our shop in Piccadilly—so that I can kill my brother before she even meets him! Then we’ll eat the immortality chocolate together, and live happily ever—EVER—after!”
    “Oh.” It wasn’t going to be much fun, living with a man who wished you didn’t