Eddy scrabbled at the laces on his baseball boots and yanked them off. Then he tugged his socks from his feet, balled them up and held them as tightly as he could over his ears.

That shut out some of the terrible noise. It was still horrible, but it was better – in the same way that having an agonizing toothache is better than having two agonizing teethaches.

Ducking low to try to avoid the storm of flying books, he headed to the heap of things that the Crew had taken out of her big red rucksack. What would make thousands and thousands of books shut up? And then he had an idea. It might be a really useless idea – his head was in such a state that he just couldn’t tell any more.

He hunted through and found what he wanted – a big, fat marker pen and large piece of stiff white cardboard. He had to let go of the socks he was pressing to his ears, which made it even harder to think what he was doing. But he managed to scribble the word Silence on the board. And he spotted a megaphone lying nearby – that would be helpful.

He stood up. Books battered and clattered into him, but he raised the board above his head with one hand, put the megaphone to his lips with the other, and bellowed: “This is not a zoo, it is a LIBRARY!!” Just like when Horrible Horrocks the scary school librarian shouted at his class during Quiet Reading.

The nearest books stopped talking immediately. Eddy heard the whisper “Library!” travel from book to book. He turned slowly round, holding the board. Silence flowed thickly across the field like a puddle of careless soup.

The great roar dwindled to a growl, then to a distant purr. And then all was hush.

The Captain pulled his head out of the hole he had dug in the sand, and sat up, spluttering. The Crew clambered out of the rucksack, and started to tidy away all her things. The Penguin tugged a sardine from each ear and swallowed them thoughtfully.

“Blimey,” he said. “I’ve heard of books being called volumes, but that was ridiculous.”

The books had quietened down, but they were still flapping about.

“Which of you was the very first book to speak?” asked Eddy. A small blue book fluttered over to him.

“Not a word from the rest of you,” said Eddy. “What was all that noise about?”

“I just want to tell my story,” said the book, sounding sad.

A ripple of murmurs ran round the clearing.

“Me too.”

“We all do.”

“And what is your story?” asked Eddy.

“Ahem,” said the book. “Gerald the Pixie Paints His Shed. Chapter One. One bright sunny morning, Gerald the Pixie threw open the shutters…”

“No,” said Eddy. “Not every word. What happens?”

“Gerald paints his shed blue – his favourite colour. Then some naughty gnomes play a trick on him in the middle of the night and paint it red. When Gerald wakes up and sees it he decides that red is a very nice colour too.”

“I see,” said Eddy. “And then?”

“What do you mean ‘and then’?” said the book. “The end. Page thirty-two. Look out for lots more lovely stories about Gerald.”

“That’s the whole story?” said Eddy. “I don’t want to be rude, but it’s a bit boring, isn’t it?”

“Boring?” huffed the book. “Children loved Gerald. He has shoes with bells on the end that go jingle jangle and he sings his jolly jingly jangly shoe song. He was a big favourite. There are another 126 Gerald the Pixie books. Nice stories for nice children. Gerald The Pixie Meets A Rabbit. Gerald The Pixie Has An Afternoon Nap. Gerald The Pixie Tries Toast. How is that boring?”

“Well…” began Eddy, trying to work out how he could answer without hurting the book’s feelings.

“And no one has read me since 1953,” the book sniffled. “It’s the same for all of us. No one has opened us for years. No one wants us any more.” And it began to sob.

“I’m sorry,” said Eddy. “That’s not fair. It’s not your fault that you are old-fashioned and dull.”

“I’m afraid you can’t force people to read what they don’t want to,” said the Crew.

“They do at school,” said Eddy.

“That’s different,” said the Crew.

“Why?” said Eddy. “Is my geography textbook any less dull than, say –” he picked up a nearby book and read its title – “Tilly’s New Tutu? …Okay, bad example.”

“And what is wrong with Tilly’s New Tutu,” sniffled Gerald The Pixie Paints His Shed.

“It sounds wet,” said Eddy. “What’s it about?”

“How should I know?” asked Gerald The Pixie Paints His Shed.

“Hang on,” said Eddy. “Do any of you books know each other’s stories?”

“I shouldn’t think so,” said Gerald The Pixie Paints His Shed.

“And you all want someone to tell your stories to. So why don’t you split up into little groups and take turns telling them to each other? And when you’ve finished, you can all swap round and do it again. Nice and quietly.”

“I don’t know,” said Gerald The Pixie Paints His Shed. “Why don’t we do that?”

Not one of the other books knew, either. So that’s what they did. By the time Eddy had laced up his baseball boots again, all the books had arranged themselves in little circles, and the first of them had begun to tell their stories, nicely and quietly. A sound like ten thousand bees gently buzzing hung over the clearing, as the Codcakers headed towards the Poet Tree.

The whopping great tree was an even bigger whopper than it had looked from a distance. But as Eddy picked his way through the books that sat round its trunk, he could see that it wasn’t looking well. Limp grey leaves hung from its drooping branches.

“The map told us to wake a tree with a thousand ends,” the Captain said to Eddy. “And you reckoned that meant the ends of twigs. Well, this one has got at least a thousand of those. Besides which it’s the only tree on the island. So what do you think we should do next?”

“I’ve no idea,” said Eddy. “How on earth do you wake a tree?”