فصل پنجاه و پنجم

chapter-55

“Open it!” Akimi said to Kyle. “We only have like forty minutes to figure out how Loblolly and the Dandy Bandits crawled into the bank back in 1968!” Kyle flipped through True Crime Ohio to the place where Charles had slipped in his bookmark.

“Well?” said Miguel.

“ ‘Chapter Eleven. The Dandy Bandits Burrow into a Bank Vault.’ ” “Even though thou should not steal,” said Akimi.

“And I’ll bet they crawled in, right?” said Haley.

“ ‘The clever thieves,’ ” Kyle read from the book, “ ‘took up residence in an abandoned dress factory next door to the Gold Leaf Bank and spent weeks tunneling from its basement into the bank vault.’ ” “Which,” said Miguel, “according to those old blueprints I found, was down where the book-sorting machine is now.” “That explains the first clue,” said Kyle. “The book title was Get to Know Your Local Library. Dr. Zinchenko meant we needed to get to know this library. This also explains why she wanted us to read those Sherlock Holmes stories.” “ ‘The Adventure of the Red-Headed League,’ ” said Sierra. “The story about robbers tunneling into a bank from the building next door.” Kyle nodded. “Dr. Zinchenko told me she had just reread it. I’ll bet that’s where she got the idea for this whole game.” “Hey, Charles should’ve stuck with crawling through sewers like he did in that video game,” joked Miguel. “He might’ve found the Dandy Bandits’ tunnel before we did.” “Come on, you guys,” said Haley. “We need to be back in the basement.” “I’m coming with you,” said Mr. Lemoncello. “I just have to see how this story ends!” Clutching the True Crime book against his chest, Kyle led the way down to the Stacks.

“Why are you bringing that book?” asked Akimi.

“We’ll put it on that conveyor belt thing,” Kyle explained. “Whatever basket the scanner sends it to, I’m guessing that’s where we’ll find our ‘black square.’ ” “Our shortcut out of the library!” “Exactly.”

As the team trooped down the steps to the basement, Mr. Lemoncello turned to Kyle and said, “So, Mr. Keeley, did you have fun this weekend?” “Yeah.”

“Good. Congratulations, Miss Hughes, it seems you have already won.” Akimi sort of blushed.

“What do you mean?” asked Kyle.

“In her essay, your extremely good friend wrote, and I quote: ‘I want to see the new library so I can tell my friend Kyle Keeley how cool it is.’ ” “You wrote your essay about me?” “Maybe,” mumbled Akimi.

“Wow,” said Kyle. “No one’s ever done that before.” “Well, no one’s ever going to do it again if you blow our chance at winning this thing. So can we please stop yakking and find our way out of here?” “Works for me.”

“Warning,” said the calm voice in the ceiling speakers. “This game will terminate in THIRTY minutes.” Everybody moved a little faster.

Fortunately, when the group reached the basement, the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves didn’t start sliding into another maze formation.

“The automatic book sorter is straight up this path, near the far wall,” said Kyle.

They made it to the conveyor belt.

“From what I remember from the old blueprints,” said Miguel, “the vault was right here, in the same spot as this machine.” “Okay, you guys,” said Kyle. “Whatever robo-basket this book ends up in is probably sitting right on top of the entrance to the tunnel.” “Here goes everything.” Kyle placed True Crime Ohio into the array of crisscrossing beams.

Nothing happened.

“What’s going on?” cried Miguel. “Why isn’t it working?” “Maybe this book isn’t heavy enough.” Kyle pushed down on the cover of the book a bit.

Still nothing.

They stared, dumbfounded, at the book sitting on the immobile belt.

“It wouldn’t stop moving yesterday,” muttered Haley.

“That’s it!” cried Akimi. She hurried to the wall and flipped the emergency shutoff switch back to the “on” position.

Several red laser scanners sprang to life under the book drop slot.

The belt started moving. Slowly.

The single book worked its way down the line like a candy bar on a wrapping machine. When it reached the third robo-basket from the end, a set of rollers popped up and shunted the book off to the side into the waiting wire basket.

The conveyor belt stopped rolling. The robo-cart rolled away.

Nothing else happened.

“That’s it?”

“Warning,” said the calm voice. “This game will terminate in TWENTY minutes.” “It didn’t work,” said Haley.

“We’re toast,” added Akimi.

“Wait,” said Kyle, pointing to a square tile on the floor where the robo-basket had been. It was glowing, like one of the touch-screen computers in the desks upstairs. “It says ‘Howdy. Dü you like fun games? Get Reddy.’ ” “Excellent!” Akimi giggled. Then she and Kyle cracked up, remembering the box tops from their first puzzle in the Board Room on Saturday morning.

“Now it says we’re going to get an anagram,” said Kyle.

“My favorite kind of cookies,” said Mr. Lemoncello.

“Okay, everybody,” said Kyle. “Gather round. Get ready.” Kyle, Akimi, Sierra, Miguel, and Haley knelt on the floor in a circle around the square. Mr. Lemoncello hovered behind them.

“Here we go,” said Kyle as game instructions scrolled across the screen.

GIVE ME SIXTEEN WORDS MADE FROM THESE SIXTEEN LETTERS

IN SIXTY SECONDS OR LESS.

A sixty-second clock popped up at the bottom of the screen. And then a four-by-four Boggle jumble of letters: “Luigi L. Lemoncello,” mumbled Kyle.

The sixty-second clock started ticking down.

Sierra shouted out, “Lemon!” and a ding sounded from the speaker above. The five teammates started shouting out words: “Cello!”

“Eon!”

“Elm!”

“Lion!”

“Mole!”

“Leg!”

“Oil!”

“Thirty seconds left,” said Mr. Lemoncello.

“One!”

“Cell!”

“Cone!”

“Lone!”

“Glen!”

“Lime!”

“Eh, mole.”

“We already said that.”

“Melon.”

“That’s fifteen,” said the voice in the ceiling.

“Um …”

“Ten seconds left.”

“Anybody?”

“Five.”

“Four.”

“Colonel!” shouted Haley.

The computer screen flashed “Congratulations!” and “Winners!” Somewhere, a game show audience cheered, fireworks rockets whistled through the air, and several geese honked out a “Hooray!” “Please stand back,” said the soothing voice in the ceiling.

Kyle and his teammates did as they were told.

“Warning,” the voice continued. “This game will terminate in FIFTEEN minutes.” “We still need to get out, you guys!” said Akimi. “Hurry, floor. Do something!” The eight tiles surrounding the glowing tablet also started to glow. First yellow, then orange, then purple.

“Our secret square,” said Akimi.

There was a series of clicks, and the tiles began folding up on themselves and retracting into the floor, opening up like an origami trapdoor.

“Look,” said Haley, “there’s steps.” Mr. Lemoncello peered down into the hole at the well-lit staircase and tunnel. “My, my. Dr. Zinchenko has certainly cleaned things up since Mr. Loblolly was here.” “Of course she did,” said Haley. “So we ‘can walk out the way bandits crawled in in nineteen six-ate.’ ” “Hurry, everybody!” said Mr. Lemoncello. “I don’t want to be late to my own birthday party.”