فصل بیست و یکم

chapter-21

Team Kyle’s bookmobile ride from Olympia Village to the Lemoncello Library was extremely quiet on the second morning of the competition.

Finally, Akimi spoke up. “Wonder what kind of wacky games we can lose today.” “Both of them,” said Miguel. “And it’ll probably be my fault again, too.”

Kyle was also feeling pretty low. But since he was still the team’s captain, he decided he needed to give a pep talk. Maybe he could even convince himself that they still had a shot.

“Take it easy, you guys,” he said. “Look—if you were playing Mr. Lemoncello’s Family Frenzy and the first and second time you rolled the dice, you landed on Sewer Repairs and Dog Pound, would you quit?” “Yes,” said Akimi. “I’d consider it an omen.”

“I wouldn’t,” said Sierra. “Especially since you still have so many more turns to go before anyone wins.” “Exactly,” said Kyle. “Well, we’ve got ten more turns. Right now, the score is Pacific one, Midwest one. All we have to do is win one game and we’re tied for first place.” Miguel stroked his chin. “Hmm. When you put it like that…”

“We’re still currently tied for last place,” said Akimi.

“So is everybody else,” said Kyle as the bookmobile pulled up to the front of the library. “So let’s go in there and change that!” “Fine,” said Akimi, who was pretty immune to pep talks. “Whatever.”

—

The setup in the Rotunda Reading Room was slightly different for the second day of the competition.

The two circles of desks closest to the center of the room had been roped off to the crowd of spectators, many of whom were now upstairs on the second and third floors with the news cameras, peering down at the action from the upper decks.

Kyle noticed that Mr. Peckleman, the motel owner, was in the crowd clustered at the remaining tables on the first floor. He was staring up at the Wonder Dome in awe.

“Ah, the sandhill crane migration!” Kyle heard him exclaim to nobody in particular. “Isn’t it marvelous?” The entire underbelly of the Wonder Dome had been transformed into a fluttering flock of birds, soaring across an unbelievably blue sky, swooping through a clay-colored desert landscape.

“Welcome, bookworms!”

Kyle looked up.

Mr. Lemoncello had just climbed on top of the balcony railing outside his private suite—on the third floor! He was wearing a leather aviator helmet with goggles and had a pair of feathered wings strapped to his back.

“Today,” announced Mr. Lemoncello, “in our third and fourth games, you will use the library to help your imagination take flight, much as I am about to do.” “No!” screamed Mrs. Lonni Gause, the frazzled holographic librarian, who popped into view behind the circulation desk. “Don’t jump! You’ll end up a heap of crumpled bones, just like the old library ended up a heap of crushed rubble! And they’ll be back! The book haters with their bulldozers! They always come back! I hear them rumbling up Main Street now!” “Fear not, Mrs. Gause,” cried Mr. Lemoncello. “If anyone should ever again threaten this library, I will fly to its aid, much as I should’ve flown to it all those years ago. But alas, I was too busy doing business in Beijing to come home and save my beloved library, leaving you to ask, ‘Where’s Waldo?’ even though my first name was, and still is, Luigi. Moving on. I’d like to quote the lyrics of Rodgers and Hammerstein—something that’s extremely easy to do when you’re in a library near 782.14 and all those magnificent Broadway show tunes—’I flit, I float, I fleetly flee, I fly!’ ” Mr. Lemoncello leapt off the railing.

Two thousand spectators gasped. Several hid their eyes.

Too bad. They missed the whole thing.

Mr. Lemoncello floated in a graceful arc, then soared up to join the migrating Canadian geese now flocking in a V formation on the Wonder Dome video screens.

After leading the geese toward Montreal, Mr. Lemoncello drifted down to buzz and salute the statues perched atop the pillars at the base of the dome. The holographic heroes were different again. Kyle turned around so he could read all their names: Amelia Earhart, Charles Lindbergh, Neil Armstrong, Bessie Coleman, Jimmy Doolittle, Howard Hughes, Sally Ride, Billy Mitchell, the Tuskegee Airmen, and some kind of monk whose pedestal was labeled “Eilmer of Malmesbury.” “They’re all famous aviators,” said Miguel as Mr. Lemoncello executed a tucked-knee roll and soared around the rotunda like Peter Pan.

Actually, he flew exactly like the star of a touring production of Peter Pan that Kyle had seen at the civic center.

Because now, in the shafts of sunlight streaming through the arched windows at the base of the dome, Kyle could see cables hooked to a harness under Mr. Lemoncello’s wings.

As he spread out his arms and fluttered toward the floor, the audience applauded wildly.

“Thank you, thank you,” said Mr. Lemoncello when his feet finally touched down.

He slipped out of his flying harness, and his wings shot back up toward the ceiling.

“Yowza! That’s almost as much fun as the hover ladders. Almost. Teams, your first challenge today is to make your ideas take flight, something that’s very easy to do inside a library.” “So long as nobody bulldozes it down!” cried Mrs. Gause, whose flickering image was still being projected behind the circulation desk.

“Yes. Thank you for that, Lonni.” Mr. Lemoncello pushed up his goggles. “Dr. Zinchenko? Will you kindly take over? I must go assemble our esteemed panel of judges.” “Of course.” Dr. Z popped up behind the center desk like a hand puppet. Mrs. Gause disappeared.

“Amaze me!” cried Mr. Lemoncello as he dashed toward the towering fiction bookshelves and disappeared through another secret door that whooshed sideways in the shelves.

“Teams,” said Dr. Zinchenko, “on each of your worktables, you will find a sheet of eight-and-a-half-by-eleven paper, one standard paper clip, three inches of tape, one plastic bag containing a dollop of glue, and a stapler loaded with three staples.” Kyle and his teammates checked out their reading desk. Everything on Dr. Z’s supply list was arranged in a tidy row.

“To win today’s first competition, you must design the paper airplane that stays aloft the longest. In the case of a tie, our esteemed panel of judges will also award points for style and what aviators call derring-do.” At the Midwest team’s desk, Marjory Muldauer shot her hand into the air and waved it around annoyingly.

“Yes? Is there a question?”

“Just one,” said Marjory, folding her arms across her chest. “What does building a paper airplane have to do with the study of library science?” “Simple,” said Dr. Zinchenko. “The flight test will take place in three hours, at precisely one o’clock. You may use the intervening time and the library’s vast resources to do research before building your planes. Or not. The choice, as always, is yours.”