Mr. Lemoncello's Great Library Race

  “Go, Seabiscuit!” shouted Sierra, waving her book in the air.

  “Both jockeys driving!” cried the track announcer. “It’s horse against horse. Seabiscuit leads by a length. Now Seabiscuit by a length and a half. Seabiscuit by three! Seabiscuit is the winner!”

  The horses vanished.

  “Woo-hoo!” shouted Kyle.

  “Whoa!” cried Miguel. “That was amazing!”

  “That was Seabiscuit and War Admiral from their match race of 1938 at Pimlico—a racetrack near Baltimore,” said Sierra.

  “It was unreal,” said Akimi.

  “I know,” said Kyle. “It was incredible!”

  “No, I mean it wasn’t real! You could see through the horses!”

  “Those stupid horses scared me!” whined Andrew Peckleman, sliding his goggle-sized glasses up the bridge of his nose with one finger. “I thought they were going to run right over us. Then I realized they were just holograms!”

  “Well, Andrew,” said Mr. Lemoncello, “let this be a lesson to us all: The first answer isn’t always the best answer. Chet?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Tell them about our brand-new Nonfictionator.”

  “Sorry, sir. No can do. That information is top-secret, classified, and, I believe, restrictified. I also believe that ‘restrictified’ is not an actual word.”

  “Actually, it’s a new word—one I invented and wrote down with my frindle! Plus, I hereby and forthwith—not to mention fifthwith—officially declassify and derestrictify the information in question.” Mr. Lemoncello turned to the kids. “Mr. Raymo is new here at the library and somewhat shy. Perhaps, if you clap your hands as you would for Tinker Bell, we can convince him to tell us about our new Nonfictionator!”

  Everybody clapped. Kyle even whistled.

  “Very well.” Mr. Raymo stood up and smoothed out his lab coat. “Thanks to its high-speed processor and enormous database, the Nonfictionator can generate historical holograms capable of conversing with our library patrons. Ask a question, they’ll answer it. The Nonfictionator can bring historical characters to interactive life.”

  “With this new invention,” added Mr. Lemoncello, “nonfiction doesn’t have to be dry and dusty, unless, of course, it’s a horse race or Lawrence of Arabia. Chet, if you please—astound me!”

  “Yes, sir,” said Mr. Raymo. He tapped the glass on his tablet computer.

  “Careful, dear,” trilled a voice from the second floor. “I smell horse poop.”

  “I am very familiar with horse droppings,” said another.

  “That’s Eleanor Roosevelt,” said Akimi, grabbing Kyle’s arm. “She’s my hero!”

  “And Sacagawea!” added Miguel. “The Shoshone interpreter and guide from the Lewis and Clark expedition!”

  The two holographic women descended a spiral staircase from the second floor.

  “Go ahead,” said Mr. Lemoncello. “Ask them a question.”

  Kyle couldn’t resist. “Um, Ms. Sacagawea, how come you know so much about horse poop?”

  “Because I know much about horses,” she replied. “In 1805, when I was the only woman traveling with Lewis and Clark, they needed fresh horses to cross the Rockies. I helped them barter a pony deal with the nearest Shoshone tribe, whose leader turned out to be my long-lost brother, Cameahwait.”

  “Fascinating,” said Eleanor Roosevelt. “We could’ve used your negotiating skills when creating the United Nations.”

  The two women drifted across the library floor toward one of the meeting rooms and then vanished.

  “Now, that’s incredible,” said Andrew.

  Kyle snapped his fingers. “With the Nonfictionator, we could create all sorts of new exhibits where historical holograms answer questions people ask them!”

  Mr. Lemoncello slapped himself in the forehead. “Why didn’t I think of that? Oh, wait. I did. Several months ago.”

  “Is this why we’re having that special board of trustees meeting this weekend?” asked Andrew. “To unveil your new invention?”

  “Perhaps,” said Mr. Lemoncello mischievously. “I also have a very special announcement to make. Something that will definitely keep several board members from being bored! Oh—slight change of plans. Instead of meeting here at the library, we will gather at my new home!”

  He handed out flashy business cards with an address printed on them.

  “You have a new house?” asked Miguel.

  “Well, it’s new to me! Moved in on Tuesday. I would’ve moved in sooner, but it took them longer than anticipated to install the floor in the living room.”

  “Why’d it take so long?” asked Akimi.

  “Because,” said Mr. Lemoncello, “it’s a trampoline.”

  Okay, thought Kyle. Witnessing a famous horse race and chatting with historical characters was cool. But a trampoline floor?

  That was going to be awesome!

  In Kansas City, Missouri, the game-making Krinkle brothers were facing a crisis.

  Their newest game was a bomb. Children hated it. Parents hated it. Sales were plummeting.

  In damage-control mode, the Krinkle brothers quickly convened a focus group to find out why the new product launch had been such a failure.

  The two brothers, Frederick and David, who were both well over sixty, sat in a viewing room behind a one-way mirror. Both wore suits, ties, and crisp white shirts. Both fiddled with their golden “K” cuff links.

  The “respondents”—children ages ten through fifteen—and a research moderator were on the other side of the glass, seated around a long conference table.

  “So are you guys ready to help us make a good game even better?” asked the chipper moderator.

  The children shrugged.

  “I guess,” said one, whose name tag labeled him as Jack. “I mean, you guys are paying us and all.”

  “Good attitude!” said the moderator. “Okay, you’ve all had a chance to play with Whoop Dee Doodle Thirteen. Reactions? Thoughts?”

  The children shrugged again.

  “It’s sort of boring?” said a girl named Lilly.

  The other kids started nodding. “ ‘Boring’ is a good word for it,” said one.

  “Stupid,” said a boy.

  “And sad,” said a girl. “It’s just sad.”

  “It’s the exact same game as Whoop Dee Doodle Twelve,” added Jack. “And Whoop Dee Doodle Eleven.”

  In the viewing room, David Krinkle’s left eye started twitching.

  “That’s not true,” he muttered. “We put a smiley face on the whoopee cushion!”

  “Ungrateful brats,” mumbled Frederick, who was always a little grumpier than David.

  The object of all the Krinkle brothers’ Whoop Dee Doodle games was to get your teammates to guess a phrase or famous saying by using only pictures, no words. If the time in the sandglass ran out before your team guessed correctly, you had to sit on a whoopee cushion.

  Whoop Dee Doodle 13 was the thirteenth edition of the game. A bright yellow starburst on the box top said it was “All New and All Fun!” The company’s lawyers assured the Krinkles they could legally make that claim because the clue cards and phrases were new. So was the sandglass. It used to be pink. Now it was purple.

  But customers weren’t buying the claim or the game.

  And it was the only new product the Krinkle brothers had in the pipeline for the coming holiday season—just six months away.

  “My grandmother made me play Whoop Dee Doodle Thirteen when I was home sick from school last month,” said Lilly. “It was about as much fun as the stale saltines and flat ginger ale she gave me.”

  “Okay, okay,” said the moderator. “I’m hearing you. Let me topline these notions.” He turned his back to the kids and started filling a whiteboard with words like “boring,” “stupid,” “sad,” and “stomach flu.”

  While the moderator wasn’t paying attention, Jack showed Lilly his smartphone.

  “Have you played Mr. Lemoncello’s Oh, Ge
e, Emoji! yet?” he whispered to her.

  “No.”

  “Okay, let’s put the phone away, Jack,” said the moderator.

  Jack didn’t listen. “Guess the book or movie.”

  He showed everybody the emoji clue.

  Lilly studied the phone.

  The other boys and girls leaned across the table to peer at Jack’s phone and try to solve the puzzle first.

  “Got it!” said Lilly. “It’s The Wizard of Oz!”

  “Is that game fun?” asked a boy.

  “Fun?” said Jack, happily imitating the tagline on every Lemoncello TV commercial. “Hello? It’s a Lemoncello!”

  “Enough,” fumed Frederick behind the one-way mirror. “Turn them off! I hate those stupid commercials!”

  David flicked the intercom switch so they wouldn’t have to listen to the little monsters in the other room.

  “Thirteen was bad luck,” said David, his eye spasming. “That’s all.”

  “Bad luck? It could ruin us!” Frederick was seething.

  “We just need a new idea,” said David. “A new game. Something spectacular. A home run!”

  “We also need a way to stop Luigi Lemoncello once and for all,” said Frederick, working his hands together. “That ludicrous lunatic has been a boil on our backsides long enough.”

  David smirked. “The answer is simple.”

  “Oh, really? And how do you propose we create a new smash hit while simultaneously crushing Mr. Lemoncello’s Imagination Factory?”

  “Easy. We just need to increase our research and re-positioning efforts.”

  Frederick actually smiled. “Hmm. Too bad Benjamin Bean is no longer in our employ. He was one of the best researchers we ever hired.”

  “Don’t worry,” said David. “Our new recruit is already on the job.”

  “Is he up to the task?”

  “Oh, yes. In fact, she will start this weekend!”

  Friday night, Kyle’s mother drove him to Mr. Lemoncello’s home for the trustees meeting.

  “I bet his house is amazing inside,” said Kyle.

  After the Library Olympics ended, Mr. Lemoncello had converted the main building of the Blue Jay Extended Stay Lodge, which had been Olympia Village, into a fully renovated mansion (adding a forty-foot-tall glass ceiling over the whole thing so he could see the stars at night). He kept the motel’s outlying guest chalets so out-of-town trustees and their parents would always have a nice place to stay when they came to Alexandriaville for official meetings and events.

  The first thing Kyle noticed when his mom pulled in was the clusters of sandbagged balloons lining the driveway.

  “Balloons!” said Kyle. “I hoped there’d be balloons.”

  The next thing he noticed was the line of parked bookmobiles.

  “I guess they picked up the out-of-towners at the airport,” said Kyle.

  Kyle and his mom hurried to the front door, where instead of a doorbell or knocker there was a shiny brass plaque engraved with these words: “To enter, look in the mirror and say ‘emases nepo.’ ”

  “The plaque must be the mirror,” said Kyle’s mom, because it was shiny enough for her to see her reflection in it.

  “Emases nepo!” she said loudly.

  Nothing happened.

  “Wait a second,” said Kyle. “It’s a puzzle. If you flip the letters, like a mirror would, and read them backward, it says ‘open sesame’!”

  The instant Kyle spoke the words, the doorknob twisted and the door glided open.

  Mr. Lemoncello stood on the other side.

  “Welcome!” he said. He was dressed like a daredevil in bright yellow socks, a yellow flight suit, and a lemon-spangled crash helmet. “Be careful crossing the carpet in the living room, Mrs. Keeley. It’s a little springy.”

  “I know. Kyle told me.”

  “Did he tell you about the bathroom?”

  “No.”

  “It’s a bouncy house. Makes using it that much more fun! So be sure to hang on to your toilet paper!”

  Kyle and his mom made their way into the living room and bounded across the carpet.

  “Hey, everybody—look at me!” cried Angus Harper, a kid from Texas, who’d been on the Southwest team in the Olympics. He was bouncing off the trampoline floor and leaping for the ceiling so he could try to grab one of the pairs of banana shoes dangling off the upside-down flamingo chandelier.

  “Excuse me, I need something in the kitchen,” said Mr. Lemoncello, sliding his feet into a pair of fuzzy slippers, which were fashioned after the fluffy frazzled birds from his video game sensation Rampaging Robin Rage.

  He clicked his heels together three times and said, “To the kitchen, please!”

  Four pairs of propellers twirled at the tips and heels of the slippers. Five seconds later Mr. Lemoncello rose off the floor and drifted across the room. He ducked his head under a doorjamb and disappeared.

  “I have to see his kitchen!” exclaimed Kyle’s mom.

  “I have to have those drone slippers!” said Kyle.

  They both hurried as best they could across the wobbly living room floor and into the kitchen, where they saw Mr. Lemoncello float up to retrieve a punch bowl from the highest shelf in the thirty-foot-tall pantry.

  “It’s just like the hover ladders in the library,” said Kyle’s mom.

  “Except drone slippers are even better!” said Kyle.

  “I want a pair,” said Miguel, who was already in the kitchen with his dad, both of them gawking at all the food being prepared by a team of chefs.

  The kitchen’s center island (which was shaped like Sicily) was piled high with pizza, hamburgers, hot dogs, french fries, chicken fingers, macaroni and cheese, and Hot Pockets. There was also a vegetable platter, plus a hollowed-out watermelon filled with all sorts of fruit nibbles.

  Mr. Lemoncello led the team of chefs and servers into the dining room, where the legs of the massive banquet table were carved to look like the legs on a Dr. Seuss creature. Kyle’s mom sat at the separate grown-ups’ table (it was shorter than the one for the board of trustees). Kyle found a seat next to a girl he vaguely remembered from the Olympics. Katherine Something.

  “I’m Kyle Keeley,” he said, extending his hand. “I live here in Ohio.”

  The girl shook his hand and smiled. “I’m Katherine Kelly. From Kansas City, Missouri.”

  “Funny,” said Kyle. “Our last names are kind of similar—so we have the same initials: KK!”

  The girl laughed. “Yeah. We have something else in common, too.”

  “What?”

  “Famous game makers live in our hometowns. You have Mr. Lemoncello; I have the Krinkle brothers!”

  “Dinner was delicious, wouldn’t you agree?” said Mr. Lemoncello, standing at the head of the very long table.

  The forty or fifty kids and parents in the dining room applauded. The chefs and serving staff took a bow.

  “All right,” said Mr. Lemoncello. “Parents and guardians? Our security guards, Clarence and Clement, will escort you next door to the Retro Arcade, where you may play Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, and all the games of your youth for free in a game center that looks—and, more important, smells—exactly like the mall arcades you grew up in!”

  “Yee-haw!” hollered Angus Harper’s father as he led the stampede of adults out of the dining room.

  After they were gone, Mr. Lemoncello addressed his young trustees.

  “I hereby declare this meeting of the Lemoncello Library board of trustees officially open. I also do declare,” he added in a genteel Southern accent, “that I loved that lemon chiffon pie! Now then, as you may have noticed, Julie of the Wolves isn’t here tonight, and neither is Dr. Zinchenko. Julie is on a shelf at the library and Dr. Z is in Domodedovo, Russia, where she is celebrating her mother’s birthday with pickled fish, fried cabbage dumplings, and birthday pie.”

  Kyle looked around the table. His friends from school—Akimi, Sierra, Miguel, and Andrew—were ther
e, of course. But not all the members of the board of trustees could fly to Ohio for every meeting. It looked like maybe twenty other Library Olympians had made the trip, including Abia Sulayman, a very serious girl wearing a hijab, who never thought Kyle was all that funny. He also saw Diane Capriola from Georgia, Stephanie Youngerman from Idaho, and Pranav Pillai from California.

  Kyle looked back to Mr. Lemoncello. He couldn’t wait to hear the big announcement. He hoped it was a new game. Something as exciting as the Olympics or the escape game!

  “Marjory Muldauer sends her regrets,” Mr. Lemoncello said, making Kyle wait even longer to hear the big announcement. “Apparently, they needed her help organizing the magazine racks at the Library of Congress. Speaking of tidying things up, I would like to personally commend local board members Miguel Fernandez and Andrew Peckleman, who earlier this week helped us with some archival items in the library’s basement.”

  More applause.

  “What’d you guys organize down there?” Kyle asked Miguel, who was sitting next to him.

  “Just some papers and junk from the early days of Mr. Lemoncello’s business career,” said Miguel.

  “And now for the first item on my agenda and also in my hands.” Mr. Lemoncello held up what looked like a shiny black shoebox. A cluster of stubby antennas and strobing LEDs were arrayed along the top. Several gyrating satellite dishes the size of quarters rotated on the sides.

  “For those of you joining us from out of town who did not witness last week’s stunning demonstration at the library, I wanted to quickly introduce you to our newest funification device: the Nonfictionator! Chet? Tell them how it works!”

  Mr. Raymo, the newly appointed chief imagineer, stood up.

  “The box Mr. Lemoncello is currently holding in his hands is, of course, a portable, less powerful unit than the Nonfictionator at the library, which is supported by a massive network of mainframe computers.”

  “The box also operates as a universal remote!” said Mr. Lemoncello, tapping a red button on its side. The lights dimmed. He thumbed a scroll wheel. Violin music wafted out of the ceiling speakers. He scrolled again and somewhere a popcorn popper started popping. “It can control every electronic device in the house!”