Dominik Mikulaschek (born in Linz in 1983) writes children's books that you start reading "just one chapter" of – and suddenly it's late. He loves puzzles that can actually be solved, rules that can be politely ignored (if necessary) and stories in which friendship is stronger than any clipboard. His adventures are exciting, but never too scary: they're about discovery, about sticking together – and about that tingly feeling when you realise: something's not right here... and we're the first to notice.
Dominik Mikulaschek
Project: Break Bell
Children's novel for ages 8 and up | When time goes haywire
tredition GmbH
© 2026 Dominik Mikulaschek
Printing and distribution on behalf of the author:
tredition GmbH, Heinz–Beusen–Stieg 5, 22926 Ahrensburg, Germany
This work, including all parts thereof, is protected by copyright. The author is responsible for the content. Any use without his consent is prohibited. Publication and distribution are carried out on behalf of the author, who can be reached at: Dominik Mikulaschek, Holzwurmweg 5, 4040 Linz, Austria.
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Chapter 1 – The bell rings in the middle of a sentence
At Regelberg Primary School, Monday mornings always smelled a little like freshly mopped floors, pencil shavings and the feeling that somewhere, an adult with a clipboard was already waiting for you, even though you hadn't seen them yet. Milo Mertens (9) thought that was unfair. Mondays should smell like cocoa and adventure, not "Please sign here". He slung his satchel onto his back as if it were a treasure bag that was much too heavy and ran the last few steps across the playground because he was late – just a tiny bit late. Milo breathed extra quietly. Nevertheless, the whisper meter above the door remained orange for a moment. "It hates me," he whispered. "It knows your face," whispered Fina back. Fina Fuchs was already sitting in her seat and had arranged her desk so neatly that you could probably have performed heart surgery on it. "Milo, you're three minutes and twelve seconds behind schedule," she remarked without looking up from her notebook. "Move," whispered Turbo "Turbo" Tan, who slid in next to Milo. "I don't want to lose to thin air again." Turbo wasn't named that for no reason. He was so fast that he sometimes arrived at a place before he had even started running. Most of the time, he ran into closed doors, but today, for once, he was on time. Mrs Krambeutel stood at the blackboard and wrote the word "main clause" in such straight letters that Milo wondered if she had a ruler built into her eye. Her bun was so tight at the back of her head that her eyebrows almost touched the ceiling. Even the chalk dust seemed to stand at attention when she looked at it. "A sentence," explained Mrs Krambeutel, holding up the chalk like a magic wand, "consists of a subject, a predicate and the unconditional will to finish on time..." DRIIIIIIIIIIING! The noise was so loud that Milo's pencil case jumped slightly on the table. It wasn't the normal, cosy break bell that sounded like a tired duck stepping on a bell. It was a shrill, energetic noise that sounded like someone had fed a siren with a bad mood. Turbo was gone. He hadn't just gotten up. He was a blue blur that whizzed past Milo's table. Before the bell had stopped ringing, Turbo was already at the door. His rucksack hung crookedly from one shoulder, and he had a look on his face as if he had just won the lottery – a lifetime supply of cheese sandwiches, no less. "Break time!" Turbo yelled, throwing open the door. "Freedom! Football! Where's my ball?" Milo stared at the clock on the wall. It read 9:12. The hand twitched nervously back and forth, as if it didn't know whether to move forwards or backwards. Milo felt the stress of time creeping into his neck like a cold paper clip. "Mrs Krambeutel?" Milo asked, raising his hand cautiously. "The bell just interrupted my brain." Mrs Krambeutel looked as if someone had just undone her favourite bun. She stared at the bell above the door, which was still vibrating quietly. "That... that's impossible," she said, adjusting her glasses so that they were almost at a right angle to her face. "The bell at Regelberg Primary School is subject to the official timetable." Fina Fuchs wasn't staring at the blackboard, but at her silver wristwatch. She pressed a small button and a light came on. "That was exactly nine o'clock, twelve minutes and forty-two seconds," she said, without taking her eyes off the watch. "That's an error of seventeen minutes and eighteen seconds compared to the official timetable." Fina wrote the number down in her notebook. "If there's a pattern, there's an error," she muttered. Running gag alert! Chaos instantly broke out in the hallway. It sounded like a herd of elephants trying to write a maths test on roller skates. Milo heard doors flying open and children loudly demanding their lunchboxes. The whisper meter in the hallway emitted a desperate whistling sound and then displayed only "ERROR: TOO MUCH TIME". "Turbo, come back!" Milo shouted, but Turbo was already part of the break jam. At Regelberg- Primary School, there was a break jam when everyone wanted to go through the door at the same time, but no one knew if they were actually allowed to go out. It was like a blockage in a giant file cabinet. Arms and legs were sticking out of the classroom doors everywhere. Leni, the class representative, stood up and held her ruler aloft like a conductor's baton. "This is not according to the rules!" she cried indignantly. "I haven't collected any time points for packing up on time yet!" Milo looked out of the window. The birds in the schoolyard looked just as confused as the children. A sparrow was trying to catch a worm, but stopped in mid-motion, as if afraid of not having timed it right. Milo felt a little alarm light go off in his head. "Time is going crazy," he whispered to Fina. "It's not just going crazy, Milo," said Fina, pointing to the second hand of the wall clock. The hand suddenly jumped forward three times, paused, and then ran around in circles like crazy. It looked as if the clock had drunk too much sugar water. Mrs Krambeutel stepped to the door and blew her whistle, which she always kept in her bag for such occasions. CLANG. Her bag hit the doorframe. It was the sound of absolute authority. "Everyone back to your seats!" she ordered. "We're waiting for the official correction signal." But the signal didn't come. Instead, the bell rang again. Three short rings, one long ring. DONG. DONG. DONG. DOOOOOOOONG. Turbo shot back into the classroom as if he had been fired from a time cannon. "Is it break time now?" he gasped. "Or is it already tomorrow?" Milo looked past Turbo into the hallway. There were children from fourth C standing there, carrying their maths books on their heads. No one knew where to go. Time suddenly no longer felt like a taut string, but like a tangled ball of wool. Milo felt a tingling sensation in his fingers. Something was wrong here. And in this school, "something is wrong" usually meant that Inspector Order was not far away. Milo saw caretaker Kratz appear at the end of the corridor. He was holding a huge bunch of keys in his hand and shaking his head ly. Kratz looked as if he had invented time itself – and as if he wasn't happy with the result. He pointed up at the bell tower and muttered something that sounded like "time error". Milo was just about to get up when the door to the hallway flew open with a metallic clang. There he stood. Inspector Ordnung. He was wearing a grey suit that was so smoothly ironed you could cut yourself on it. In his hand he held a golden pocket watch, which he held right under Milo's nose. "Mertens," he croaked, his voice sounding like dry parchment. "You're breathing at the wrong rhythm." Milo held his breath. "The office has detected an irregularity in PROJECT TAKT-PAUSE," announced the inspector. Milo exchanged a glance with Fina. Project Takt-Pause? That sounded like a lot of work and very little fun. The inspector pressed a small button on his watch. Small red lights began flashing on the walls throughout the school. They looked like evil eyes counting every second of your life. "From now on," said Inspector Ordnung, smiling as thinly as a postage stamp, "time discipline applies here." Milo saw Fina start her stopwatch. The chaos had just become official. And the bell began to vibrate again, as if it were about to devour the next sentence. Milo knew that when time goes haywire, you have to be faster than the second hand. Or at least faster than Turbo on his way to the buffet.
Chapter 2 – Turbo runs into the wrong break
