Otto Tattercoat and the Forest of Lost Things

by Matilda Woods

  Nim snorted. “They’re not magical,” she whispered to Otto. “It’s a trick. I don’t know how Sage does it. But I do know this. Magic isn’t real. It’s just not possible.”

  Otto stared at the shadows flickering in the night. He had never seen such wondrous beasts. He trusted Nim, but he didn’t trust her on this. How could Sage be creating these creatures? It looked like magic to him. He had a feeling the woods around the city held all sorts of things. He also had a feeling that when he caught the train into the city there truly had been creatures watching him. It wasn’t just his imagination.

  “Tonight, we welcome a new tattercoat into our group,” said Sage. “He has taken his first step down the tattercoat path. He has stolen his first coat. May it keep him warm and safe until it turns to tatters. Welcome, Otto,” Sage said. She motioned for Otto to approach.

  Otto walked down the shining alley. Nim remained at the back, holding a glass jar of her own. Nibbles was sitting on top of it, watching the ceremony intently. The little flames burning inside warmed his bottom half rather nicely. When Otto reached the end of the alley, he stopped before Sage, who recited the Tattercode. When she had voiced the final rule, she looked down at Otto and said, “Do you swear to live by the Tattercode?”

  “I do,” Otto said.

  “And do you swear to live by this code until you are a grown up?”

  Otto paused. He wanted to say yes, but he knew it would be a lie. So he told the truth.

  “I swear to live by this code until I find my mother.”

  A nervous ripple of whispers passed amongst the crowd. Sage looked unsure for a moment, but then nodded her head.

  “I accept that as your oath,” she said. “If any of us was granted the chance to be with our own mother or father, we would take it. Now, what is your tattercoat name?”

  Otto paused. He hadn’t thought about this. He tried to think about it now but couldn’t come up with any name that fit.

  “Can I just be Otto?” he asked.

  Another round of whispers passed amongst the group. A few of the tattercoats lining the path shook their heads. Even Sage looked upset by this. She frowned and thought for some time. Then, she spoke.

  “The code states you must choose your own name when you join the tattercoats. If you choose your old name that is still a choice. You can remain as Otto. Welcome, Otto Tattercoat.”

  Sage motioned for Otto to turn around. The closest tattercoat in the procession stepped forward.

  “My name is Tricky Tattercoat,” she said. “I welcome you, Otto Tattercoat, and gift you with a glass jar of your own. A glass jar you can use for storing things.” She handed Otto an empty jar and then stepped back into the line.

  The next tattercoat stepped forward. He introduced himself as Slink and gave Otto a piece of stolen rope for tying things together.

  The next tattercoat was Roe. She introduced herself and gave him a pair of shoes.

  “They’re very old and smell very bad, but they should stop your toes from turning black and falling off. I stole them from a dead man. I’m not sure if they’ll fit.”

  One by one the tattercoats stepped forward and introduced themselves, then presented Otto with something they had stolen just for him. Even though Otto didn’t agree with stealing, he was very glad to have a few things to help him survive on the streets.

  Nim was the last tattercoat to step forward. Her arms were empty, and she did not need to introduce herself. She also did not give Otto a gift he could touch. Instead, her gift was a promise.

  “I promise to help you search for your mother. I will ask about her in the streets. I will call out her name from the rooftops. I will sneak into houses purely for the purpose of seeing if your mother is inside and not for stealing, not even things I really need. This is my gift to you, Otto Tattercoat.”

  “Thank you,” Otto said. It was, out of every gift he’d received that night, the best gift of all.

  Nim stepped back into line. The tattercoats unscrewed the lids of their jars, and the flaming smoke trapped inside danced up into the night. All around them the air filled with smoke. Clouds that looked like elves and wolves and flying horses swirled through the alley. The smoke rose higher, before dispersing into nothing.

  The alley grew dark and the tattercoats dispersed too. Now, there was one extra amongst them. A boy in a scratchy navy coat called Otto.

  *

  As Otto was welcomed into the tattercoats, another boy mourned being expelled.

  Blink had heard the clanging of the bins – the traditional call to gather – and he’d followed the sound to the alley. Afraid of being seen, he’d remained hidden in the shadows.

  The last welcoming ceremony Blink had attended was for his best friend. On that night, the newly orphaned Friedrich had chosen his new name: Snot. Afterwards, Blink had given him a handkerchief to wipe his runny nose. Blink had the handkerchief now. It had been in Snot’s coat pocket when Blink had taken it.

  To keep his mind off Snot and the terrible end he’d suffered, Blink focused on the ceremony. At first, he hadn’t recognized the boy being welcomed. But as Nim made him a promise, he realized who it was. The boy who used to wear a green coat now wore one of blue. It wasn’t as nice as his old one. But even though Blink was wearing the finest coat in the city, and seven more underneath, he would have given them all away if it meant he could rejoin the tattercoats.

  Unfortunately, Blink knew that would never happen. Along with the five spoken rules of the Tattercode, there was a sixth rule which remained unspoken – the rule that said once a tattercoat was expelled from the group they could never, ever return.

  16

  A TALK OF MOTHERS

  True to her word, Nim did everything she could to help Otto find his mother. The day after the welcoming ceremony she set off from her chimney and, instead of robbing people, she asked them a question instead. For the entire day, the streets of the city rang out with the same five words: “Have you seen Marta Schneider?”

  Unfortunately for Otto, those five words were always followed with the same answer: “No.”

  When no one could tell her where Otto’s mother was, Nim began to search for her instead. With the help of the other tattercoats she searched every shop in the city along with every home. To make sure they didn’t miss any, Sage drew a map of the city and allocated two streets to each tattercoat. The tattercoats could be very organized when they needed to be. But no matter where they searched, they came up empty handed. There was no trace of Otto’s mother anywhere.

  “I’m sorry,” Roe said to Otto. They were sitting in the main square with Nim and Skid. All four were searching for their dinner.

  “That’s OK,” Otto said. “You tried your best.”

  “What was she like?” Skid asked. “Your mother,” he clarified. “I never had one.”

  “She was wonderful,” Otto said. “She was the finest seamstress in all of Dortzig. People would order clothes one year in advance because she was so busy. But even when she was busy, she always made time for me. We’d go for walks together, she’d make delicious stews and strudels and at night she’d run me a bath.”

  “That’s awful,” Nim said. “I hate baths. At Frau Ferber’s she made us take one bath a year, and we all had to use the same water. By the time the second person climbed in it was like you were swimming in the vat of boot polish.”

  “Well, my mother’s baths were nothing like that. She used to make me the most wonderful baths. She’d fill the tub with steaming hot water and herbs she found in the woods. After one of her baths, I’d smell fresh for days.”

  “I don’t know if my mother ever gave me a bath,” Nim said. “But she did wrap her coat around me once. I know, because that’s how they found me.”

  “My mother wasn’t like either of yours,” Roe said sadly. “She spent our money on a special drink she would have all the time. Once, I went a whole week without food, even though she never went a day without her drink. Eventually, she said I wa
s costing her too much money, so she tried to hand me to Frau Ferber. But I had an inkling she was bad. So, as my mother let go of me and Frau Ferber reached out, I ran away as quick as I could. That’s how I became a tattercoat.”

  As he listened to the tattercoats talk, Otto realized that even though he’d lost his mother, he was still one of the lucky ones. He couldn’t imagine his mother giving him away or choosing a special drink over him. Realizing how lucky he was to have such a wonderful mother made him even more desperate to find her.

  “I hope you find her,” Skid said to Otto, almost like he could hear his thoughts. “It’s nice to have a mother, even a nasty one like Roe’s.”

  “You know what I’d also love?” Nim said.

  The other children shook their heads.

  “I’d love my very own bedroom. It wouldn’t have to be big,” Nim said. “But big enough for me and Nibbles. There’d be a bed with a thick red blanket; shelves full of books so I didn’t have to wait for Sage to tell me a story, I could just choose one for myself; and there’d be a fireplace that was always burning so the cold never crept in.”

  “Would I be able to visit?” Roe asked.

  “Of course,” Nim said. “All my friends could come.”

  The four of them sat in silence, imagining their own dream bedrooms, until they saw half a schnitzel fall on to the ground.

  “Quick,” Nim yelled. “Before someone else snatches it.”

  The lights shone on the top floor of the boot polish factory. The streets outside were dark. The tattercoats were all asleep on the rooftops, nestled against their warm chimneys. But Frau Ferber remained awake, sitting in her study.

  Frau Ferber often had trouble sleeping. It was her thoughts that kept her awake. Sometimes she thought about the children sleeping on the floor below. They were an awfully ungrateful lot. Without her, they’d be living alone on the streets. They’d either starve to death or freeze in their sleep. She was their saviour. They should have been paying her.

  Sometimes Frau Ferber thought about her sons. They weren’t the brightest pair, but they were hers, so she had to keep them. Besides, they worked for free as well, and they were as loyal as they came. She knew she could trust them to keep the factory running smoothly, because they stood to inherit it.

  But mostly Frau Ferber thought about her mother.

  Frau Ferber had been her mother’s only child. She’d never known her father. Her mother said that was because her father didn’t want to know her. Sometimes, Frau Ferber used to think her mother didn’t want to know her either.

  Frau Ferber’s mother had inherited the boot polish factory from her own father. Back then, adults had worked to fill the jars of blacking paste. It wasn’t until twenty years ago that Frau Ferber had the idea of getting children to work in the factory. That way, she could make the jars smaller but still sell them for the same price, and the children could work for free. This decision had made her very rich.

  But even with all the money she had stashed away in her office and in a vault at the city bank, she felt like a failure. For years she couldn’t understand why. Then, one night, about five years ago, it had clicked.

  When she was younger her mother always used to moan about how she didn’t want to pass the factory on to her.

  “You’ll ruin all my good work, Flora,” she would say. “You don’t know anything about quotas or capital or profits or business. This factory will be closed within a week of you taking over.”

  No matter how hard Frau Ferber tried to show her mother she could do it – she started working on the factory floor when she was eight and knew every factory worker’s name by nine – her mother still believed she would fail.

  All the changes she had made to the factory – bringing the children in, increasing the quotas and decreasing the food – had made the profits soar. But even though Frau Ferber knew this, her mother never could. She had died long before these changes were made.

  Frau Ferber wished her mother could come back to life, even just for a day, to see all the work she had done. She knew that if she could see the figures in the books, see the money in the bank and see the number of boot polish jars hurtling off across the country by train, she would realize she had been wrong about her daughter. Flora wasn’t stupid or worthless. She was smart and ruthless, and in her hands the factory had become the most profitable business in all of Hodeldorf.

  One day, she’d open up another factory and perhaps another. She’d snatch all the children off the streets, and perhaps a few from their homes as well. Her profits would triple! She wouldn’t just be the richest person in Hodeldorf; she’d be the richest person in the country.

  17

  THE THREE TOLLS

  After the failed search to find Otto’s mother, the days in Hodeldorf grew colder and shorter than usual. One morning it was so cold Nim and Otto didn’t climb down from the roof at dawn. By the time midday came they were still huddled against the chimney. The air was so frosty even Nibbles’ whiskers had an icy lace to them.

  “I didn’t think any place could be this cold,” Otto said through chattering teeth. He was very glad he’d stolen a coat now. If he hadn’t, he bet he would have frozen during his sleep.

  The entire city seemed to have come to a stop. It was even too cold to snow. But that didn’t mean there was no snow around: in fact, the snow that had fallen one week before was now frozen solid. If you tried to walk in the streets you almost always slipped. Soon, even the smoke which rose from the chimneys froze and clattered down on to the rooftops.

  “This isn’t just a cold snap,” Nim said that night as she huddled close to the chimney with Otto and Nibbles. “This feels like a true coldstorm. The kind where people die. The kind that killed my parents – and Snot.”

  The following day Nim’s fears were confirmed. The clock tower bells tolled three times at dawn. It was now officially a coldstorm. When they braved the main square in search of food, they learnt a tattercoat had died in the night.

  “Tricky died in her sleep,” Skid said. “Frozen solid against the Wagners’ chimney. The fire went out during the night and none of the Wagners relit it. Two of them died too.”

  The cold was showing no signs of going away. Nim knew things would only get worse. She also knew the tattercoats were at the greatest risk of dying in the cold. It was always those living on the streets who succumbed first. They needed somewhere warm to stay, and, after saving Otto, Nim knew just the place. But there was a problem. Most of the tattercoats would prefer to freeze in the streets than go there.

  “It’s the only place we can stay warm,” Nim said to the tattercoats gathered before her. The clanging of garbage lids had called them to the same alley where Otto was welcomed into the group.

  “There’s no way we’re going there,” one of the tattercoats yelled.

  “Yeah,” yelled a few of the others. “We’re not going into Frau Ferber’s factory!”

  Ever since Nim had escaped from Frau Ferber’s, she’d blocked all memories of that place. Rescuing Otto had reminded her that there was one good thing about the factory. It was warm, and if they could make use of that warmth without being caught, maybe they would all survive this coldstorm.

  “But I’m not asking you to go into Frau Ferber’s factory,” she said. “I’m asking you to go under it. The cellar is warm – I don’t know why, but it is. It’s the warmest place in the whole city. If we sleep in there, there’s no chance we’ll freeze.”

  “But we might get caught,” Skid said. “And then we’ll be locked in the factory for ever.”

  “We won’t get caught. Not if we’re quiet. Frau Ferber never goes into the cellar. Even Heinz and Helmut are too frightened to step inside. And all the other children are too. Apart from Otto, no one’s been in that cellar for four years.”

  Nim had hoped her words would convince the other tattercoats that the cellar was the safest place they could be. But none looked convinced.

  “Fine,” Nim said. “I can’t for
ce you to do anything. But if anyone wants to sleep in the warmth tonight, you can meet me and Otto on the corner of Sonne Street just before dusk.”

  Otto and Nim stood on the street corner and waited. “I don’t think anyone’s coming,” Otto said to Nim. They stood one street away from Frau Ferber’s cellar. From this angle, they couldn’t be seen through any windows of the factory.

  “They still have a few minutes,” Nim said.

  The city grew dark. Nim feared no one else would show. Then, a cluster of children appeared at the end of the street. As they got closer, Nim made out the shapes of Skid and Roe. More than ten other tattercoats followed. Half of the group had come.

  The tattercoats waited until it was truly dark. Then, Nim raced over to the factory and opened the grate. One by one, the tattercoats snuck into the cellar. Nim was the last one inside and closed the grate behind her. If anyone walked past during the night, they would have no idea that a group of tattercoats slept on the other side. Hopefully, Frau Ferber wouldn’t either.

  18

  THE BLIND GIANT

  Word quickly spread that the cellar below Frau Ferber’s factory truly was as warm as Nim had said. With each passing night, the number of tattercoats seeking refuge grew. Soon, all the tattercoats lined up outside at night – even Sage. As the days grew colder, the tattercoats spent more time inside the cellar than out. Soon, they only left for a few hours during the day to stretch their legs and steal food.

  One day Nim went out to steal some dinner. Dusk was falling over the icy city. Fires burnt inside the homes she passed and chugged smoke into the darkening sky. Most people in Hodeldorf remained inside.

  The woodcutters were the only people spending more time outside than in. They were constantly leaving the city gates to fell wood, cut it and haul it back to the city. It was a dangerous job, but it had to be done. If the city ran out of wood, the fires would go out and half the city folk would freeze in their sleep.

  The main square was almost empty when Nim arrived. Fewer than half the stalls were open and only a few customers passed between them.