فصل بیست و سوم

chapter-23

Kyle flipped over his lemon-scented Super-Dooper Bonus card and read what was written on the other side.

YOU WILL FIND THE ULTIMATE VERSION OF THIS BOARD GAME ON THE SECOND-FLOOR BALCONY CIRCLING THE ROTUNDA.

“Huh?” said Akimi. “What’s that mean?”

“I don’t know. Let’s roll out the paper and see.” Akimi and Sierra helped Kyle anchor the edges of the scroll on the tiled floor.

“Okay,” said Kyle. “It looks like the early sketch for a board game. See the circle in the center of the other circle? That’s probably where you place the spinner. You move your pieces around the ten rooms.…” He stopped.

“Wait a second.”

“What?” said Akimi.

“Do you recognize the game?” asked Sierra.

“Yep,” said Kyle. “I played it this week with my brother Curtis. It’s Mr. Lemoncello’s Bewilderingly Baffling Bibliomania. It takes place in a make-believe library.” “What about finding the ‘ultimate version’ up on the second-floor balcony?” asked Sierra.

Kyle grinned. “You’ll see.”

Coming up from the basement, Kyle saw Andrew Peckleman in the middle of the Rotunda Reading Room, opening a long metal box sitting on top of the center desk.

The holographic image of Mrs. Tobin was there, smiling patiently, as Peckleman pulled some kind of magazine out of the box. Miguel was also near the librarian’s desk, apparently waiting his turn for a consultation.

“That’s the box we saw the robot pluck off the shelf,” whispered Akimi.

Kyle nodded. He motioned for the others to follow him and slipped around the circumference of the rotunda. Akimi and Sierra slunk after him.

In the shadows on the far side of the room, they saw Haley Daley heading for the staircase they’d just come up: steps that would take her back to the basement.

Kyle wondered if she’d found something else to crawl through. If so, he hoped it was bigger than a mailbox.

“Is this the real magazine?” he heard Peckleman shout at the hologram.

“Yes, ANDREW. This concludes your Librarian Consultation. Next? How may I help you, MIGUEL?” “Not so fast,” snapped Andrew. “I’m not done.” “Um, your consultation just concluded,” said Miguel.

“Says who?”

“The librarian.”

“MIGUEL?” said the hologram of Mrs. Tobin. “What is your question?” “Sorry, bro. I told you.”

“She’s just like Mrs. Yunghans at school,” snapped Peckleman. “All the librarians like you better than me!” “Yo. Ease up.”

“You’ll see, Mrs. Tobin! You’ll all see. I’m gonna beat Miguel Fernandez, big-time! And when I win, I’m gonna tell Mr. Lemoncello to fire you!” “She’s a hologram,” said Miguel with a laugh. “You can’t fire somebody who doesn’t actually exist.” “Then I’ll tell Lemoncello to pull her plug.” Peckleman grabbed his magazine and stormed out of the rotunda into the lobby.

“I guess Andrew’s planning on doing something with the front door,” Kyle whispered to Akimi.

“Well, that’s totally dumb. They already told us the way out isn’t the way we came in.” “Maybe Andrew doesn’t think Dr. Zinchenko was telling us the truth,” suggested Sierra.

“Come on,” said Kyle, leading his team toward the closest staircase up to the second floor. Glancing over his shoulder, he watched Miguel place a slip of paper on the table in front of the semi-translucent librarian.

“This item has been temporarily removed from the Stacks, MIGUEL,” said Mrs. Tobin. “You will find it in a display case next to the original Winkle and Grimble scale model. Let me give you that location.” There was a grinding sound, like when movie tickets shoot up through the slot at the box office. Miguel snatched the small square of paper that popped up from the librarian’s desk and spun around.

He froze the instant he saw Kyle, Akimi, and Sierra sneaking around the room behind him.