فصل چهل و هشتم

chapter-48

“Have you read Flora and Ulysses?” Andrew asked Kyle.

Kyle looked at the floor and sort of shuffled his feet. “I wanted to. But all the copies were checked out or missing and…” “It’s about a squirrel, Kyle,” said Sierra with a smile.

“So are all these other books,” said Andrew.

Sierra read a few titles off the list. “The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin by Beatrix Potter. The Bravest Squirrel Ever by Sara Shafer. Earl the Squirrel by Don Freeman.” “Earl’s a great audiobook, too,” said Andrew. “Uncle Woody also checked out every single book from the five hundreds room about squirrels—all three subcategories under 599.36 for Sciuridae.” “For who?” said Kyle.

“ ’Sciuridae’ means ‘squirrel family,’ ” explained Sierra.

“Indeed it does,” said Andrew, smiling at Sierra, who, believe it or not, was smiling back at him. “Uncle Woody took everything Mr. Lemoncello had about tree squirrels, ground squirrels, and flying squirrels.” “And then,” said Sierra, “he went downstairs and scooped up all the Rocky and Bullwinkle DVDs.” “Because Rocky is a flying squirrel!” added Andrew eagerly. “He also removed all the ‘S’ encyclopedias….” “Because they’d have squirrels in them,” said Kyle, finally catching on. “But why does your uncle need all these books? Is he some kind of squirrel nut?” Andrew laughed. “Touché, Kyle. Very clever.”

Sierra laughed, too. “I get it. Squirrel—nut.”

“And Uncle Woody was squirreling away all the squirrel books he could!” “So,” said Kyle, “for whatever reason, your uncle loves squirrels so much he has to hoard every single squirrel book he can find?” “Oh, no,” said Andrew, sounding deadly serious again. He adjusted his glasses with his fingertip. “My uncle doesn’t love squirrels. He hates them. What he loves are birds.” “Right,” said Kyle. “All those bird feeders on the motel property. Calling it the Blue Jay Extended Stay Lodge. The way he looked at those birds up on the Wonder Dome that day.” “Correct. Uncle Woody thinks squirrels are ‘nothing but thieving rodents’ and ‘rats with fluffy tails.’ They make a mess of all his bird feeders.” “So since he hates squirrels, he doesn’t want anybody else reading about them?” Andrew shrugged. “I guess. Like we said, he’s kind of nutty.” Kyle snapped his fingers. “This is why that Squirrel Squad video game never worked in the motel game room.” “Uncle Woody probably snipped the power cord.”

“Do you know where he put the books?” asked Kyle.

“No,” said Andrew. “I only started figuring this out early this morning, after I heard Uncle Woody talking to Marjory about Flora and Ulysses. However, if you guys will have me, I’d like to help you find the missing books.” “You would?”

“Certainly. No matter how much I disagree with Mr. Lemoncello and his loony ideas about libraries, I totally respect his right to stock his shelves with whatever books he chooses—and our right to read them.” Sierra was beaming when Andrew said that.

Kyle’s phone started chirping. It was Akimi.

“What’ve you got?” he asked her.

“Meet us in Liberty Park, across the street from the motel.” “We’re on our way.” He ended the call. “Come on, you guys!” “Where are we going?” asked Andrew.

“Liberty Park.”

“Why?”

“I have no idea.”