“We can see that,” said Kyle. “Somebody took out the statue.”
“Mr. Lemoncello,” said Clarence. “He wanted to ship it back to his factory in New Jersey. They have a garden.”
“Who erased his slogan?” asked Sierra.
“The new board of trustees. They don’t officially take over till sometime Monday, but they’ve already started making changes. They have a new slogan: ‘Shush!’ Now they’re inside, trying to figure out how to dismantle the hover ladders.”
“Oh, no they’re not,” said Kyle. “The hover ladders are awesome!”
Kyle stormed into the Rotunda Reading Room with Miguel, Akimi, and Sierra right behind him.
Charles Chiltington was jabbing at one of the hover ladder bases with a pointy-tipped screwdriver.
“Knock it off, Charles,” said Kyle.
“Oh, hello, Keeley. What are you doing here in mother’s library?”
“It’s not her library,” said Akimi.
“Well, it will be soon enough,” said Charles. “When I’m finished grounding these ridiculous contraptions, I’ll be heading upstairs with my wire cutters. Mummy wants me to snip the power cables to all those senseless video games.”
“That is so not going to happen,” said Miguel.
“Really? Who’s going to stop me?”
“I will!” said the holographic librarian, Lonni Gause. She didn’t seem to be flickering as much as she usually did.
“What?” laughed Charles. “I don’t mean to be rude, lady, but you’re not real.”
“That’s right. I’m a virtual librarian. That means I live up in the cloud inside a computer—a computer connected to the four hundred and ninety-eight different security cameras currently operational inside this library. I’m also linked to the Web and know exactly how to send streaming video footage of you vandalizing that expensive equipment to the local and state police. It’s amazing what you can do when you share knowledge with others.”
“You wouldn’t dare. My mother is—”
“Just another library card holder until Monday.”
“The make-believe librarian is correct, Charles,” said Mrs. Chiltington as she came out of the Book Nook Café, sipping a cup of tea with her pinky finger extended.
“I should’ve known,” gasped Mrs. Gause. “It’s you again!”
Mrs. Chiltington smiled and sipped her tea.
“Yo,” said Miguel. “No food or beverages are allowed in the library. You have to drink that in the Book Nook Café or dump it down the sink.”
Clarence and Clement strode into the Rotunda Reading Room.
“Somebody sipping tea where they shouldn’t be sipping it?” asked Clarence.
“Yes,” said the holographic librarian. “Kindly escort Mrs. Chiltington and her disruptive son out of the building. And whatever you do, don’t let that woman anywhere near the nine hundreds room!”
“There’s no need for an escort,” huffed Mrs. Chiltington. “We know the way out. Come along, Charles dear. But, Mrs. Gause?”
“Yes?”
“First thing Monday morning, I’m personally pulling your plug.”
As soon as the Chiltingtons were gone, Kyle turned to Mrs. Gause.
“We want to play the final game.”
“The book quest?”
“Yes, ma’am. We figured that if it was supposed to be the twelfth game, like Mr. Lemoncello said it was, there might be some clues to start us off.”
“I’m not aware of any new clues. Just the ones he’s already handed out.”
“What about those security cameras that caught Charles?” asked Kyle. “Did they record who took the last Flora and Ulysses off the shelf? Mr. Lemoncello said it had to be one of the Olympians. Maybe one of the losing teams did it so nobody else could win.”
“Um, Kyle?” said Akimi. “How would they know what book to take?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they hacked into Dr. Zinchenko’s computer.”
Akimi arched an eyebrow. “You’re making this up as you go, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Unfortunately,” said Mrs. Gause, “all the fiction wall cameras were not functioning from the start of the Library Olympics until ten minutes ago.”
“Look, Mrs. Gause,” said Kyle, “we need to find those missing books. Before tonight.”
“And we want you to find them,” said Mrs. Gause.
“Indeed we do,” said one of the holographic statues, which had just appeared under the Wonder Dome. Benjamin Franklin.
Now all the other nook statues came to illuminated life and started shouting. “Save this library!” “You can do it, lads and lasses!” “Your library is your paradise!”
“It’s all the famous librarians again,” said Miguel.
“The task you four are attempting is very difficult,” said Mrs. Gause. “It’s also extremely complex. It might take you and all of the other teams to unravel this particular puzzle.”
“Everybody’s still at the motel,” said Akimi, “because Dr. Z is handing out those scholarships tonight at the closing ceremonies.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Gause, “you don’t really need all of them. Just the winners. The ones who received medals?” Then she winked. Several times.
“The medals!” said Kyle. “Of course. All those goofy names. They’re clues. Mr. Lemoncello said he’d been handing clues out right and left. He’s been setting us up for this final game since the first day of the Library Olympics.”
Suddenly, the Wonder Dome was filled with an “instant replay” video collage of Mr. Lemoncello handing out eleven different medals.
“So,” said Miguel, “anybody remember what all those different medals were called?”
“Sorry,” said Sierra. “I guess we should’ve taken notes.”
“Come on, you guys,” said Kyle. “We’re going back to Olympia Village. We have some medals to inspect.”
“What are we going to learn from all the medals?” asked Sierra as the bookmobile raced back to Olympia Village.
“I don’t know,” said Kyle.
“Maybe there’s something etched on the back,” suggested Miguel. “Maybe parts of a map, like in that movie National Treasure. And if you arrange all the medals correctly, it’ll make a treasure map that will lead us to the secret hiding place for the missing books!”
“Seriously?” said Akimi.
“Hey,” said Kyle. “It’s a possibility. We have to consider every angle.”
“Even the screwy ones?”
“Yo,” said Miguel, “we’re talking about Luigi Lemoncello. Screwy is usually his first choice.”
“Do you think Marjory Muldauer is going to let us even look at the four medals she won?” asked Sierra.
“No way,” said Akimi. “If she finds out we’re trying to win the twelfth game, even though there isn’t any prize…”
“Except saving Mr. Lemoncello’s library,” said Kyle.
“A library that, by the way, Marjory Muldauer despises,” added Miguel.
“My point exactly,” said Akimi. “She isn’t going to play along with us, Kyle.”
“Well, we have to try. Mr. Lemoncello said we might need Marjory to ‘win’ this round. Not that we’re actually going to win anything.”
—
When they reached Olympia Village, most of the other teams were hanging out in the dining area, scarfing down bacon and playing with the waffle machines.
“Um, you guys,” said Kyle, standing near the fireplace at one end of the room, “don’t mean to interrupt your breakfasts, but we sort of need your help.”
“What for?” asked Elliott Schilpp, the kid from Maryland, who seemed to enjoy bacon as much as he enjoyed pizza.
“Someone has been taking books out of the Lemoncello Library,” said Akimi, “and not bringing them back.”
“Finding the missing books was supposed to be the twelfth game in the Library Olympics,” explained Kyle.
“So do we win an extra prize if we help you
folks figure this thing out?” asked Angus Harper from Texas.
“Not really,” said Akimi. “Neither will we. Mr. Lemoncello’s basically canceled the whole Library Olympics dealio.”
“But we need to find them anyway,” said Kyle. “Otherwise, Mr. Lemoncello is going to leave town and his awesomely incredible library will get turned into Mrs. Borington’s Snoozeville Book Depository.”
“They’ll bring in old-fashioned librarians to shush people,” added Miguel.
“Well, if we don’t win anything extra by helping you guys,” groused the guy from New York City, “why should we help? We’ve already scored our college scholarships.”
“Actually,” said Kyle, “you will win something else if you help us do this thing.”
“Yeah? What?”
“You’ll all get to come back to Alexandriaville as often as you like and have fun doing research or learning junk about flying prehistoric reptiles or talking to famous holograms, like this amazing rocket scientist we met, or just reading a good book you found while you were floating along and browsing the fiction wall in Mr. Lemoncello’s amazingly incredible library.”
The whole room was quiet. There wasn’t even a fork clink or a milk slurp.
Finally, Angus stood up. “Sounds good to me.”
Stephanie Youngerman from the Mountain team was on her feet next. “What do you guys need?”
“Ah, what the hey,” said the kid from New York. “Sign me up.”
“Me too!” said Elliott Schilpp, his mouth full of bacon.
“Thanks, you guys,” said Kyle. “First we need to see everybody’s medals. Including the ones the Midwest team won.”
“Oh, you mean the ones Marjory Muldauer said she won all by herself?” said a girl in a Wisconsin Badgers baseball cap.
“Don’t worry,” said Margaret Miles, a chaperone for the Midwest team. “I made Marjory turn them over to me.”
“Is Marjory around?” asked Kyle.
“She went for a walk with our other chaperone,” said Ms. Miles. “Father Mike from Regis Catholic Middle School in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. They should be back soon.”
That’s when Andrew Peckleman stepped into the dining room.
“Kyle?” he said. “We need to talk.”
“We’re kind of in the middle of something, Andrew,” Kyle said politely.
Andrew put his hand alongside his mouth and whispered, “I know who grabbed that last copy of Flora and Ulysses.”
Kyle motioned for Andrew to step out of the room with him.
“First off,” said Kyle, “I’m really sorry about that garbage man crack I made the other day.”
“You were under a lot of pressure. I know how that feels. When we played the escape game, Charles Chiltington put so much pressure on me I thought I might turn into a diamond.”
Kyle must’ve looked confused.
“You know,” said Andrew. “The way Superman can squeeze a lump of coal so hard that it turns into a diamond?”
“Riiight,” said Kyle. “So, who swiped the book off the shelf?”
Andrew took a moment. “Marjory Muldauer. That’s why she’s with the priest. I think she feels bad and is giving him her full confession!”
“But why would she take the book?”
“Because my uncle Woody told her to.”
Is that why Mr. Peckleman offered cheat cards to Miguel and Sierra? Kyle wondered. Maybe he wasn’t working for Mr. Lemoncello but against him!
“Late last night,” said Andrew, “I heard them both talking with Mrs. Chiltington about taking the book off the shelf. Uncle Woody had already checked out the other thirty-five copies, and he probably would’ve checked out the last one, too, except regular people weren’t allowed in the library for a whole week while they fixed up the place for the Olympics.”
Now Kyle wondered if this was why Marjory had blocked him instead of going for the book during the hover ladder race.
She had known the last copy of Flora and Ulysses wouldn’t be on the shelf, because she’d already removed it. She probably didn’t think she was a good enough actress to be the one who found the empty slot. But she didn’t want Kyle finding it, either, because she assumed Mr. Lemoncello would give a medal to whoever found the spot where the book was supposed to be.
“Okay. So why did your uncle want the last copy of Flora and Ulysses?”
“I’m not sure,” said Andrew. “But I am formulating a theory. It has to do with all those other books and encyclopedias you guys say are missing from the library. Do you have a complete list?”
Kyle shook his head. He should’ve thought of that.
How were they going to return all the missing books if they didn’t even know what books were missing?
Then it hit him.
“Clarence does!”
“Who?”
“The head of security. Come on.”
Kyle and Andrew went back into the dining area.
“You guys?” said Kyle.
“What’s up?” asked Akimi.
“Andrew and I need to head back downtown. Sierra? Can you come with us?”
Sierra looked at Andrew, the boy who had stolen her library card during the escape game.
“I never really wanted to steal your library card,” said Andrew. “Honestly. Charles made me do it.”
“I know,” said Sierra. Then she took a deep breath. “Should I tell the driver to fire up the bookmobile?”
“Definitely,” said Kyle. “Go with Sierra, Andrew. I’ll meet you guys out front.”
“What’s up?” asked Miguel.
“We have a lead on who might’ve checked out all those books.”
“So what do you need the rest of us to do while you guys are gone?” asked Akimi.
“Round up all the medals. Make a list. See if there is some kind of pattern or hidden code.”
“Or a treasure map etched on their backs!” said Miguel.
“Riiight. Or that. You guys have your phones?”
“Totally,” said Akimi.
“Cool. Whoever finds out something first—”
“Calls the other ones.”
—
Clarence met Kyle, Sierra, and Andrew in the lobby.
“We’re looking for the missing books,” said Kyle.
“Well, not to bust your chops, Mr. Keeley,” said Clarence, “but I think you’re looking in the wrong place. The books aren’t here in the library. If they were, they wouldn’t be missing.”
“We know,” said Kyle. “But we need to see your list.”
“Why?”
“I have a theory,” said Andrew.
Clarence gestured for the three treasure hunters to follow him through the red door into the control room.
“Here’s the list. Hope it helps. I’ll be out in the lobby if you need anything else.”
Clarence left. Andrew and Sierra studied the pages.
“Aha!” said Andrew. “I was right.”
“Good going, Andrew,” said Sierra. “It’s so obvious.”
Kyle looked down at the list.
He had no idea what they were talking about.
“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.”