فصل بیستم

chapter-20

Losers.

That’s what Charles Chiltington thought about sentimental saps like Kyle Keeley. A damsel in distress starts screaming and he forgets all about winning the game to go rescue her?

What a pathetic loser.

Unless, of course, Haley Daley was screaming because she had already found the alternate exit.

That made Charles laugh.

Impossible.

Although quite pretty, Haley Daley, the princess of the seventh grade, was a total airhead. There was no way a dumb girl like her could’ve outsmarted Charles Chiltington.

It was time to play his hunch.

Twice already, the head librarian, Dr. Zinchenko, had said, “The library staff is here to help you find whatever it is you are looking for.” She said it once when they were just about to enter the library, again when she was reading the laundry list of rules.

Well, what Charles was looking for was a way out of the building that wasn’t the front door and wouldn’t set off any alarms.

That was why he kept coming back to the lobby with the gurgling fountain. Why he kept studying the display case labeled “Staff Picks: Our Most Memorable Reads.” “The staff is here to help,” he muttered. “These are staff picks. Ipso facto, this has to be some sort of enormous clue.” Inside the sealed bookcase, Charles saw twelve book covers.

One for each of the twelve twelve-year-old players? he wondered.

The display items weren’t actual books. They were cover art mounted on book-sized foam core. Three covers were lined up on each of the case’s four shelves. Since they weren’t actual books with spines, none of the covers included their call numbers.

Charles focused on the three books lined up on the bottom row.

Hoosier Hospitality was on the left. In the Pocket: Johnny Unitas and Me was in the middle. The Dinner Party was on the right.

Charles decided to concentrate on the Johnny Unitas title. He moved into the rotunda and did a quick card catalog search on one of the desktop computers. When he typed “In the Pocket,” a matching cover image popped up.

But still no call number.

In the spot where the identifier should have been, there were instead a censor’s thick black box and the words “I.D. Temporarily Removed from System.” Scrolling further down the screen, Charles came across a rather unusual annotation: “You didn’t really think we’d make it that easy, did you?” Charles grinned.

The computer was telling him he was on the right track.

He glanced up from the desk. The Children’s Room was directly in front of him. The book about Johnny Unitas, with its cartoony cover depicting a football player wearing a number nineteen jersey and dropping back to launch a pass, was most likely a children’s book.

Of course, it was also a sports biography.

So would it be shelved with sports books, biographies, or children’s books?

Charles went back to the computerized card catalog. He read the book’s description: “Billy wants to be a great quarterback like his hero, Johnny Unitas, but his coach is worried he’ll get hurt.” It sounded like fiction. A made-up story. It had to be in the Children’s Room.

As Charles crossed the slick marble floor, something else struck him.

This was like Hüsker Dü?, a memory game he had played when he was in kindergarten. He was on a hunt to find a hidden match for the football book cover he had just memorized. This was, in short, another memory game—that was why the Staff Picks display had been subtitled “Our Most Memorable Reads.” “Clever, Lemoncello,” he mumbled. “Very clever indeed.” Charles entered the children’s department. It didn’t take him very long to find the book, because In the Pocket was propped up on a miniature stand on top of a shelf.

“Found it!” Charles proclaimed. Then, savoring the moment, he picked up the book and read the title out loud: “In the Pocket: Johnny Unitas and Me.” All of a sudden, a row of animatronic geese tucked into a corner of the room started honking and singing.

“They call him Mr. Touchdown, yes, they call him Mr. T.” The squawking birds startled Charles so much he dropped the book.

When he did, a four-by-four card fluttered out from behind its cover.

Charles bent down to pick it up.

Printed on the card was a black-and-white silhouette. A quarterback, wearing a number nineteen jersey (just like Johnny Unitas), was arching back his arm to throw a pass.

Charles grinned.

He was definitely on the right track.

He tucked the silhouette card into his pocket and hurried back to the lobby to memorize more book covers.