فصل سی و هشتم

chapter-38

“Very interesting,” said Akimi, looking through the café’s glass walls and into the Rotunda Reading Room.

“What?” said Miguel.

“I think Clarence just dropped off our books.” Kyle pushed back from the table. He could see the shadowy figure of the bulky security guard slinking away from the round desk at the center of the rotunda. He left behind a stack of books.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go see what sort of ‘inspirational’ reading Dr. Zinchenko has selected for us.” “What about those guys?” said Miguel, gesturing toward the table where Charles and Andrew were finishing their desserts.

Kyle was torn.

On one hand, he didn’t want to give away the bonus his team had received thanks to the other team’s penalty. On the other hand, he didn’t want people saying he and his friends won because Mr. Lemoncello had tossed them an extra clue.

He came up with a compromise.

“Hey, Charles? Andrew? We’re all going to go grab some books to read to kill time till tomorrow morning. You two might want to do the same thing.” “No thanks.” Charles stood up. “We pretty much have this thing figured out. In fact, I think Mr. Lemoncello steered us toward the Clunker Card so we wouldn’t win too easily. I mean, how would it look if we escaped from his library in less than twenty-four hours?” “Bad,” said Andrew. “Real bad.”

“Indeed,” said Charles. “In fact, I suspect nobody would buy Lemoncello games anymore if we showed them how consistently easy they are to win. Anyway, we’re going upstairs so I can give Andrew a tour of my private suite. Would any of you care to join us?” “No thanks,” said Akimi.

“Suit yourself. Oh, by the way, Mr. Lemoncello has a real video game console upstairs.” Kyle felt his mouth going dry.

“It’s top-of-the-line equipment. And it plays real games. Not just educational stuff. Care to join us, Keeley?” “Um …”

“We’re going to play Squirrel Squad Six. The new edition. According to the game box, it won’t be released to the general public until early December.” Kyle felt sweat beading on his forehead. His palms were moist. His fingers were twitching, itching to thumb-toggle a joystick.

But finally, after the inside of his mouth had turned to sandpaper, he said, “No thanks, Charles. We’re just gonna, you know, read.” After Charles and Andrew headed up to the third floor to play what was probably the most awesome version ever of Mr. Lemoncello’s most awesome video game ever (if Charles Chiltington was actually telling the truth), Kyle and his teammates hurried out to see what books were waiting for them on the librarian’s table.

They found seven different versions of the same book: The Complete Sherlock Holmes. One was a leather-bound limited edition; another was a tattered paperback; three were hardcovers with different illustrations on their fronts; one was a bigger kind of paperback with lots of scholarly essays; and the seventh was an e-reader with only the one title loaded onto it.

“I think Mr. Lemoncello wants us to start a book club,” said Sierra.

“What do you mean?” asked Kyle.

“You know—we all read the same book and then get together later to discuss it and share our opinions.” “It’s fun,” said Miguel. “We have a book group at school.” “Are you in it?” asked Sierra.

“Yeah. Maybe you’d like to join us sometime?” “I would. Thank you, Miguel.”

Akimi cleared her throat. “Now what?” she said to Kyle.

Kyle shrugged. “Like I told Charles. We read.” Everybody grabbed a copy of the Sherlock Holmes book.

Nobody went for the e-reader.

Upstairs on the third floor, Haley tiptoed around the Lemoncello-abilia Room.

When she had visited the mini-museum earlier, she hadn’t really looked around. Now she hoped to find another book from the “memorable reads” display, a Little Golden Book called Baby’s Mother Goose: Pat-a-Cake, which could’ve been something Mr. Lemoncello read (or had read to him) when he was a very young boy.

Haley made her way past the orderly stacks of boxes through a doorway and into what looked like a re-creation of Mr. Lemoncello’s childhood bedroom—a cramped space crammed with two bunk beds that he had shared with his three brothers. Next to one of the lower bunks was a bookcase made out of plastic milk crates.

There it was, filed away with maybe three dozen other skinny, hardboard-covered picture books.

Haley pried open the cover.

Out plopped a four-by-four art card:

She quickly folded it in half and stuffed it inside her sneaker with her “BANDITS” clue.

Because now she was pretty certain that “bandits” had, at one time or another, “crawled in” to this building back when it was a bank.

The silhouette of Indiana didn’t represent the Indianapolis 500 like Charles had insisted.

It stood for “IN,” the official post office abbreviation for the Hoosier State.

First thing in the morning, when the doors reopened, she needed to search through the Dewey decimal rooms to find a clue that would tell her exactly how and where the bandits had crawled in.

A tunnel? An air vent? A secret passageway on the first, second, or third floor between the old bank and the office building behind it?

There was only one thing Haley was certain of: They hadn’t crawled in through a book return slot.