فصل سی و پنجم

chapter-35

Kyle dashed across the marble floor.

So did Stephanie Youngerman, the girl from Boise.

And Elliott Schilpp, the skinny genius from Maryland who had won the pizza-eating contest.

Uh-oh, thought Kyle. The Mid-Atlantic team already has one medal. If they win this game, they actually have a shot at being crowned champions.

Kyle ran faster. Fortunately, there were eight hover ladders, one for each team, lined up under the three-story-tall bookcases.

“Only one ladder per team,” announced Dr. Zinchenko.

The instant she did, each of the other teams sent someone scurrying over to float up the fiction wall. Even if they didn’t know what book they were looking for, they knew it wasn’t in any of the Dewey decimal rooms now that the hover ladders had more or less been declared game pieces.

Kyle reached for a hover ladder.

But Marjory Muldauer grabbed its handles first.

“Sorry, Keeley. This ride is taken.”

So were the next three down in either direction. Thanks to Marjory Muldauer, Kyle would have to dash to the very end of the line.

He ran past Stephanie Youngerman, who was furiously tapping in the winning code on her hover ladder’s control pad.

Elliott Schilpp was jabbing in a number, too.

Stephanie Youngerman lifted off first.

By the time Kyle reached his hover ladder and typed in the book code and waited for the safety boots to clamp shut around his shins, three other teams were already floating up the wall: Mountain, Mid-Atlantic, and, of course, Marjory Muldauer for Midwest.

Kyle’s platform finally drifted up from the floor and set off on a diagonal tangent for the 2014 Newbery Medal winner—and a very possible midair collision with the three other players, who were all aiming for the same target.

To his left, Kyle heard keys clacking.

Marjory Muldauer was typing a different code into her pad.

Her hover ladder stuttered to a stop, then shot sideways at a forty-five-degree angle. Kyle stayed on his direct trajectory to Flora and Ulysses, but within seconds, his hover ladder’s infrared collision sensors picked up the approach of Marjory’s platform.

“Yield to traffic,” cooed a computerized voice from the tiny speaker in Kyle’s control panel.

Marjory thumbed her red emergency stop button.

Her hover ladder froze, right where it would block Kyle’s ascent.

“Yield to traffic.” His hover ladder’s safety features had put him in a lockdown mode.

Marjory pretended to be studying the books in front of her.

“That’s not where the book we’re looking for is and you know it!” Kyle shouted at her.

Marjory didn’t say a word. In fact, she looked a little airsick.

Kyle twisted his body so he could see around Marjory’s stalled ladder and watch the final seconds of the race to F.D545f 2013.

Stephanie Youngerman’s hover ladder screeched to a halt and she shot out her arm to grab the book.

Then she started sliding books around on the shelf. Shoving them sideways. Looking behind them.

“I’m here!” she shouted. “But the book isn’t.”

The crowd of spectators gasped.

Mr. Lemoncello surprised all the floaters by swinging open a window-sized door cut into the bookcases. He poked his head out maybe three feet away from where Flora and Ulysses was supposed to be shelved. “I beg your pardon?” “Flora and Ulysses,” said Stephanie Youngerman. “The 2014 Newbery winner. It’s not here. Kate DiCamillo’s other books are. Because of Winn-Dixie. The Tale of Despereaux. But there’s only an empty gap where Flora and Ulysses is supposed to be.” “But this is impossible,” said Mr. Lemoncello. “Dr. Zinchenko? Don’t we have two dozen copies of that book?” “Three, sir,” said Dr. Zinchenko after popping open another window in the bookcase. “They are all checked out. That was our last copy.” “This is preposterous!” declared Mrs. Chiltington, striding forward to the front of the viewer gallery on the first floor. Her son Charles and a group of well-dressed ladies and one gentleman in a bow tie pushed their way forward with her.

“Missing books? Silly dinosaur video games? Money wasted on talking statues and holograms and secret panels in bookcases that could’ve been more wisely spent on extra copies of popular children’s books?” Mrs. Chiltington propped her hands on her hips and scowled up at Mr. Lemoncello.

“This library is a disgrace, sir. An absolute disgrace!” “Perhaps you are right, Contessa Chiltington,” said Mr. Lemoncello, sounding extremely sad—something Kyle had never heard him sound before. “A library without books? That is, indeed, a disgrace. An absolute disgrace.”