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chapter-11

Playing off the NCAA basketball tournament’s “March Madness” theme, Mr. Lemoncello declared the first Saturday in March “Library Lunacy Day.” It was time for each of the seven regions to make its toughest cuts and choose the four members for its Library Olympics team.

At two p.m. Eastern Standard Time (eleven a.m. on the West Coast), Mr. Lemoncello himself addressed all the contestants via a video conference call. He wore a bright yellow shirt with a custom-cut tie shaped like a cello.

“Hearty and splendiferous congratulations on having made it this far in the competition. I wish I could invite each and every one of you plus everybody else in America to my first-ever Library Olympic Games, but, unfortunately, Ohio fire codes do not permit occupancy by more than three hundred and twenty-five million people, even if they are all little women. Good luck! Have fun! And remember, books are the true breakfast of champions! You may devour them. But please don’t eat them. Thank you.” In California, where all sixteen finalists were library whizzes, Sarah Trager Logan, the librarian in charge, knew teamwork would be crucial for victory inside the Lemoncello Library. That’s why she made all sixteen finalists participate in a synchronized book-cart drill. It was judged by the same Hollywood celebrities who judge TV dancing shows.

In Colorado, the four members of the Mountain team would be the first four students who could solve one final puzzle. All the top contestants were given a sheet of paper with the following paragraph printed on it: Thoze four beople who will reprasent awl of the bibrareans id the creat and heroik Mountain states knaw one thing aboot anything primted in a card cadalog sydtem. Without it, library users would simply be lost.

There were so many mistakes most of the contestants didn’t know what it meant, what they were supposed to do, or why the judges hadn’t proofread their paragraph before passing it around.

But the final four knew the mistakes were the secret code.

By writing down the letters that should have gone where the wrong letters were, they came up with a simple lesson about library card catalogs: S P E L L I N G C O U N T S.

In San Antonio, Texas, the final contest was a fresh and very complicated rebus puzzle.

“The category is ‘famous quotes,’ ” said Cynthia Alaniz, the librarian who would be coaching the Southwest team. “Good luck!” The eight finalists wrote their answers as quickly as they could. When they were finished, they put down their pencils and bopped bright yellow hotel bells.

The four fastest puzzle solvers nailed it: “ ’Google can bring you back one hundred thousand answers. A librarian can bring you back the right one.’ —Neil Gaiman” Marjory Muldauer, who had aced every test and game thrown her way during the first eight rounds of the regional competition, was in Madison, Wisconsin, for the Midwest finals.

And she was feeling invincible.

In the Midwest’s “elite eight,” she played a rapid-fire “first lines” game.

A librarian stood at a podium and read from a note card. The contestants had to buzz in like they did on Jeopardy!

“ ’Where’s Papa going with that axe?’ ” said the librarian.

Marjory slammed her fist down first.

BUZZ!

“Charlotte’s Web, by E. B. White!”

“Correct. ‘All children, except one, grow up.’ ” Marjory banged her button.

BUZZ!

“Peter Pan, by J. M. Barrie!”

“Correct. ‘In the light of the—’ ”

BUZZ!

Marjory didn’t wait for the librarian to finish.

“The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle.” “Correct. ‘Mrs. Rachel—’ ”

BUZZ!

“Anne of Green Gables, by L. M. Montgomery.” The other contestants never had a chance.

To lock down her spot on the four-person team, Marjory competed against five other finalists in one last Dewey decimal challenge.

“Give me the Dewey decimal number for ‘freedom of speech,’ ” said Tabatha Otto, a librarian from Lincolnshire, Illinois.

Two contestants began weeping.

Three wrote down the same answer: 323.44.

“Very good,” said the librarian.

“But not good enough,” said Marjory. “Three-two-three-point-four-four is the call number for ‘freedom of action,’ also known as liberty. But three-two-three-point-four-four-three would be ‘freedom of speech.’ ” And that’s what she had written on her card.

Marjory Muldauer was good.

Scary good.