فصل دوم

chapter-2

Since the dunce cap was only a hologram, it couldn’t actually trap Kyle.

But its laser-generated sides were equipped with motion sensors. So when Kyle tried to step out from under the flickering image of the giant parking-cone-shaped hat, he triggered some pretty embarrassing sound effects. Mostly gassy BLATTs and FWUUUUUMPs.

All the other players were cracking up, so Kyle took a goofy bow.

And activated the motion sensors again.

FWUUUUUMP!

“That’s Keeley, all right,” snickered Charles. “Nothing but windy blasts of gas.” “You’re right,” said Kyle, taking another bow and activating another FWUUUUUMP!

“And you were in the lead, Charles, so you win. Congratulations.”

He stuck his hand in and out of the laser grid to blare a gassy fanfare to the tune of “Happy Birthday to You”: BLATT-BLATT-BLATT-BLATT, FWUMP-FWUMP!

“All right,” cried a no-nonsense voice in the midst of all the laughter. “Shut it down. Need to iron out that glitch.” There were six thumps and a loud whir, and then the holographic Rube Goldberg contraption disappeared. A bald man in a lab coat stepped out of the shadows, toting a tablet computer the size of a paperback.

“Switch on the Wonder Dome,” he said to the flat screen he held in his palm.

Instantly, the ten wedge-shaped, high-definition video screens lining the library’s colossal cathedral ceiling started shimmering as the dome went from black to its swirling, full-circle kaleidoscopic mode.

“Friends,” announced Mr. Lemoncello, marching across the rotunda’s marble floor toward the man in the white coat, “allow me to introduce you to the library’s brand-new head imagineer, Mr. Chester ‘Chet’ Raymo, the genius behind my new Mind-Bogglingly Big ‘n’ Wacky Gymnasium Games!” He cleared his throat and warbled, “Mr. Raymo is a brilliant brain-o! What he does is hard to explain-o!” Mr. Raymo was so busy tapping his tablet he didn’t realize that Mr. Lemoncello was singing his praises.

The head imagineer wore thick black-rimmed glasses and a skinny black necktie and had seriously slumped shoulders. He looked like he could work at mission control for NASA.

“I believe we need to make a few minor adjustments before we roll it out to the schools,” said Mr. Raymo. “Those sound effects activated when the loser attempted to escape were supposed to be burglar alarm bells, not farts.” “I know,” said Mr. Lemoncello. “I changed them.”

Mr. Raymo nodded. Tapped his tablet again.

“Duly noted.”

“Thank you, Chet.” Mr. Lemoncello threw open his arms and, in a very loud voice, addressed the players still standing in various spots along the game board.

“And thank you, one and all, for participating in this trial run of my newest gaming concept. Soon we will be able to take these same portable hologram projectors to gymnasiums, cafetoriums, and, if we hold our breath, natatoriums, so schools, even those with swimming pools, can use my life-size board games as fund-raisers—free of charge, of course.” “I really enjoyed the game,” said Sierra Russell, Kyle’s bookworm friend. “I was able to read two whole chapters while I waited for everybody else to spin and take their turns.” “It was awesome,” agreed Kyle, who loved all of Mr. Lemoncello’s wacky games, even the ones he lost.

“Totally!” added Miguel.

“It’s a rip-off,” scoffed Charles Chiltington, who’d been trying to run Mr. Lemoncello out of town ever since the eccentric billionaire first came home to Ohio and spent five hundred million dollars building Alexandriaville the most extraordinary high-tech library in the world.

“I beg your pardon, Charles?” said Mr. Lemoncello, blinking repeatedly. “A rip-off?” “It’s just a warmed-over version of that old parlor game Botticelli! You should be more inventive. Like the Krinkle brothers.” The Krinkle brothers owned a huge game company that, in Kyle’s humble opinion, made extremely boring board games and dull generic stuff like Chinese checkers, pachisi, and dominoes. In fact, Kyle had come up with his own ad slogan for the rival game maker: “If it’s a Krinkle, it’s going to stinkle.” “See you later, losers.” Charles marched out of the Rotunda Reading Room.

Kyle sometimes wondered why Charles was still allowed to come to the Lemoncello Library. He and his parents had done so much to try to wreck Mr. Lemoncello’s dreams. Since Kyle (along with all the other “champions” from the recent Library Olympics) was now on the library’s board of trustees, he once suggested that Charles (plus the rest of the Chiltington family) be banned from the building.

When he did, Mr. Lemoncello gasped, clutched his chest, and pretended that he might faint or have a heart attack. Maybe both.

“Why, if we did that, Kyle,” Mr. Lemoncello had said, “we couldn’t really call ourselves a library, could we?” Kyle knew his idol was right. Libraries were supposed to be for everybody. Even jerks like Charles, who always pretended to be super polite around grown-ups—except Mr. Lemoncello.

“Not to be as nosy as Pinocchio,” Mr. Lemoncello said to Sierra, “but you seemed more interested in reading your book than in marveling at my latest holographic extravaganza.” “Sorry, sir.”

“Oh, there’s nothing to be sorry about—a game, by the way, that I wish I had invented. I was just curious about what you were reading.” “It’s called Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand.”

Mr. Lemoncello waggled his eyebrows, put his hand to his mouth, and hollered, “Oh, Mr. Raymo? Is there a Seabiscuit in the house?” Suddenly, a bugle blared, a bell clanged, and two Thoroughbred racehorses, their jockeys up in the saddles, came thundering into the rotunda from the fire exit!