Mr. Lemoncello's Library Olympics

  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.”

  Kyle, Sierra, and Andrew piled into the bookmobile and took off.

  “The park is right across the street from my uncle’s motel,” said Andrew. “Maybe he buried the squirrel books in the sandbox or something.”

  “All of them?” asked Sierra.

  “Hang on, you guys,” said Kyle as he thumb-dialed Akimi.

  “Where are you, Kyle?” said Akimi the instant she answered.

  “On our way.”

  “Well, hurry. We’re all kind of confused.”

  “Who’s with you?”

  “Miguel and one player from each of the other teams.”

  “Nice. Whose idea was that?”

  “Mine.”

  “Sweet!”

  “Yeah. I can be very diplomatic when I’m about to lose my favorite library in the whole world.”

  “So what’s up with Liberty Park? What sent you there?”

  “The medals!” said Akimi. “Stephanie Youngerman from the Mountain team is an excellent code cracker. She’s the one who figured it out.”

  “Figured what out?”

  “Okay, here’s the list of medals in the order they were given out: Gold, Olympian, Top Gun—”

  “We won that one.”

  “We also won the Olympian Researcher. After that, Marjory scored the Libris. Then came the ‘I Did It!,’ the Bendable Bookworm, Eating It Up, Rebus, Thank You, and Yertle the Turtle medallions.”

  “Are they anagrams or something?”

  “Nope. It’s another version of Mr. Lemoncello’s First Letters game. When you write down the first letter of all eleven medals, guess what it says.”

  Kyle had already scribbled out the answer on a scrap of paper: “Go to Liberty.”

  “Exactly,” said Akimi. “And you said Mr. Lemoncello never repeats himself, never uses the same kind of clue twice.”

  “Well, he didn’t. Not the exact same way.”

  “Whatever. But now that we’re over here at the park, we don’t know what we’re looking for.”

  “Books about squirrels.”

  “Wha-hut?”

  “That’s what Andrew Peckleman figured out. His uncle Woody hates squirrels, on account of all his bird feeders. So he doesn’t want anybody else in town reading about them, either.”

  “Why? Does he think that if all the squirrel books disappear, the squirrels will disappear, too?”

  “Maybe.”

  “The man is definitely nutty,” said Akimi.

  —

  Three minutes later, the bookmobile squealed to a stop outside Liberty Park, which was actually more of a playground with trees and picnic tables.

  “You guys find anything?” Kyle asked Miguel.

  “No. No signs of digging.”

  “Why are you looking for signs of digging?”

  “Buried treasure, man. Like in Treasure Island.”

  “I don’t think Mr. Peckleman would’ve buried his books over here,” said the Texan, Angus Harper. “Somebody would’ve seen him doing it.”

  “You’re right,” said Kyle. “He wouldn’t take that big of a risk.”

  “So why did Mr. Lemoncello send us here?” asked Diane Capriola, from the Southeast team.

  “Liberty Park!” said Stephanie Youngerman. “It’s another anagram!”

  Everybody whipped out their smartphones and started using the notes app to rearrange the letters.

  “Perky tribal!” shouted Miguel.

  “Library kept!” said Stephanie Youngerman. “It has ‘library’ in it!”

  While the other treasure hunters kept calling out weird word combinations, Kyle slowly rotated in place, scanning the park and the playground.

  “What’s that?” He pointed to a green humped structure with a bobble head attached to one side by a stubby neck made of coiled spring.

  “That’s for kids to climb on,” said Andrew. “It’s supposed to look like a turtle.”

  “And,” said Kyle, “when Mr. Lemoncello gave Marjory Muldauer her Yertle the Turtle medal, he said it was the ‘most important medal of all the very important medals awarded thus far.’ Come on.”

  Kyle led the way to the shell-shaped turtle toy. Pranav Pillai, from the Pacific team, scooted under it.

  “Score!” he shouted.

  “What’d you find?” asked Kyle.

  Pranav slid out from under the turtle and showed everybody what he’d found: a bright yellow envelope with “Clue” stamped on its front.

  Kyle looked at what was written on the yellow card tucked into the yellow envelope:

  41.376495

  –83.651040

  “Guess we better head back to the library,” he said with a sigh. “More Dewey decimal numbers.”

  “Whoa, hang on,” said Miguel.

  “Those are not Dewey numbers, my friend,” said Pranav Pillai.

  “There aren’t any negative numbers in Mr. Dewey’s library classification system,” explained Elliott Schilpp.

  “I believe Mr. Lemoncello is inviting us to play a geocaching game,” said Angus Harper. “Because those numbers sure look like GPS coordinates to me.”

  “What’s geocaching?” asked Sierra.

  “An outdoor recreational activity,” said Pranav Pillai, “where one uses a GPS device and other navigational techniques to hide and seek waterproof containers that each have a logbook sealed inside, where you can sign your name to indicate that you found it.”

  Kyle smiled. A lot of these library experts sounded like dictionaries.

  Angus Harper pulled out his smartphone. “And it just so happens that I have a GPS navigation app on my phone. Most fliers do. We tap in longitude 41.376495 and latitude negative 83.651040 and—BOOM!—this map shows us where to go.”

  A red pin dropped on the app’s map, indicating a spot just across the street from Liberty Park.

  “That’s near the motel!” said Miguel.

  “Looks like the mailbox out front!” said Andrew.

  “Let’s go check it out,” said Kyle.

  The group of twelve new teammates trooped down to the crosswalk, where they waited for the light to change.

  “You can’t miss the mailbox,” said Andrew. “It’s shaped like a bird.”

  The light changed.

  Kyle and Akimi led the charge across the street to the boxy blue mailbox. It had wooden wings nailed to its sides and a tail feather on its rear. To open the drop-down front, you had to tug on the bluebird’s beak.

  “Another envelope,” said Abia Sulayman when Kyle opened the mailbox.

  “Is it official USPS mail?” asked Stephanie Youngerman. “If so, it is a federal offense for us to open it.”

  “No,” said Kyle. “It’s another yellow envelope with ‘Clue’ stamped on the front.”

  “Open it,” urged Angus.

  Kyle tore open the envelope.

  “It’s a bunch of riddles,” he reported. “Three of them.”

  Diane Capriola, who had won her spot on the Southeast team by solving riddles, stepped forward.

  “Let me see that,” she said.

  Kyle was pretty good with riddles, too, but he handed the envelope over to Diane.

  “First riddle,” she said. “ ‘What has four wheels and flies?’ ”

  “An airplane!” blurted Miguel.

  “Hold that thought,” said Diane. “Second riddle: ‘You’ll find your next clue in the red stump.’ ”

  The other eleven kids started looking around the motel grounds, searching for a brightly painted tree stump.


  “And finally, riddle three: ‘Everything I do goes to waste.’ ” She closed up the envelope. “All three clues are sending us to the same place.”

  “The woods?” said Nicole Wisniewski, who was still looking for the red stump. “I’m not big on woods. I’m from Chicago.”

  “No,” said Diane. “The third riddle is a pun. The second riddle is a jumble. And the first riddle is for kindergartners.”

  “So, Kyle,” said Akimi, “that means you can probably handle it.”

  Kyle grinned. “That’s okay. I’m sure Diane knows the answer.”

  “Yep,” she said. “The Dumpster.”

  “This way,” said Andrew. “It’s behind the kitchen.”

  He led the way around the main building to a small loading dock in the back.

  “Oh, I get it,” said Miguel. “The Dumpster has four wheels and attracts flies.”

  “Also,” said Sierra, “ ‘Dumpster’ and ‘red stump’ are spelled with the same letters.”

  “Yep,” said Diane, “and everything a Dumpster does ‘goes to waste.’ ”

  “Good work,” said Kyle. “Now who wants to lift the lid?”

  Even closed, the Dumpster reeked of rotting fruit and rancid dairy products.

  “You,” said Akimi, pointing at Kyle with one hand while swatting at the foul air and buzzing flies with the other. “You’re the team captain.”

  “Of our hometown team,” said Kyle, “but not this one. This is more like one of those superhero teams in the comic books.”

  “We could be the Justice League of Libraries,” said Pranav Pillai eagerly.

  The guy sounded like he really liked comic books.

  “All in favor of Kyle Keeley being our captain, no matter what our team is called, please raise your right hand,” said Akimi.

  Everybody, including Andrew Peckleman, shot one hand into the air. They were using their other hands to hold their noses or fan the air in front of their faces.

  The vote was unanimous.

  Kyle was elected captain. He would open the Dumpster.

  He might also need to climb inside it.

  Even though he was lifting a lid on a fly factory, Kyle was feeling pretty pumped.

  This new team of super library geeks seemed invincible. They were Mr. Lemoncello’s Champion Crusaders, standing up for what was right in a world gone wrong. Sharing knowledge to boldly conquer the unknown.

  Or something like that.

  Kyle watched a lot of movie trailers.

  A warm blast of sour-milk-rotten-lettuce-dirty-diaper air made Kyle’s eyes water as he raised the rubbery lid on the Dumpster.

  Fortunately, a plastic-wrapped envelope labeled “Clue,” with something rectangular in it, was attached to the lid’s underside. There would be no need for Dumpster diving.

  Kyle tugged the envelope free and heard the unmistakable sound of Velcro strips separating. He tossed the package, which felt like a wrapped-up book, to Andrew. Kyle let go of the lid and the Dumpster’s rubber cover slammed.

  “Can we go somewhere a little less rank to open it?” asked Akimi, trying to breathe only through her mouth.

  “Definitely,” said Kyle.

  The whole team scurried away from the loading dock and back to the parking lot outside the motel lobby.

  “Where’s your boss?” Akimi asked Andrew.

  “He must be running errands. His truck is gone.”

  “Open it,” Kyle said to Andrew.

  Andrew tore at the tape and plastic bag protecting the thick yellow envelope with “Clue” inked on the front. Inside, he found a book.

  He read the title out loud: “ ‘Louie the Locksmith’s Big Book of Padlocks, Dead Bolts, and Tumblers’?”

  Pranav Pillai smiled at the book. “And so, old friend, we meet again.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Akimi.

  “To earn my place on the Pacific team,” said Pranav, “I had to use the Dewey decimal code on this very book.”

  He flipped the book sideways and read its spine.

  “Oh, my. This is incorrect.”

  “I’ll say,” said Abia Sulayman. “It should be in the six hundreds with books about technology, not the nine hundreds with history and geography.”

  “What’s the call number?” asked Andrew.

  Pranav read it off: “Nine-four-three-point-seven.”

  “That is soooo wrong,” said Andrew.

  “True,” said Pranav. “But it could be wrong on purpose. You see, when I played the escape game in Silicon Valley, the Dewey decimal number for the locksmith book was also the combination for the lock on the library door.”

  “So whatever lock we’re looking for,” said Sierra, “couldn’t have the same combination as that one.”

  Andrew slapped his hand to his forehead, nearly smashing his goggle-sized glasses.

  “The storage locker! I’m sorry, you guys. I should’ve thought of this sooner.”

  “That’s okay, Andrew,” said Sierra. “You thought of it now. Go on.”

  “Well, my uncle Woody has this humongous safe. The vault door is the size of a motel room door. It’s hidden behind a sliding panel in the front office.”

  “Then this is most likely the combination,” said Pranav.

  “The office looks empty,” reported Nicole Wisniewski, peering through the windows. “We should go check it out.”

  “All of us?” asked Elliott Schilpp.

  “Yep,” said Kyle. “There’s strength in numbers.”

  “Kyle’s right,” said Akimi. “If Andrew’s creepy uncle…No offense, Andrew….”

  Andrew held up his hand. “None taken.”

  Akimi continued: “If the birdman of Alexandriaville comes back, a dozen kids should be able to hold him at bay.”

  “We could tell him we just spotted an ivory-billed woodpecker or a blue-throated hummingbird,” said Abia Sulayman.

  “Huh?” said Akimi.

  “Both species are very high on every birdwatcher’s ‘must see’ list. I am something of a birder myself.”

  “Come on,” said Kyle. “Let’s go crack open that safe.”

  The twelve treasure hunters made their way through the lobby and into the motel office.

  “That’s the wall,” said Andrew, pointing to the sheet of paneling sporting a framed portrait of two bluebirds.

  “Which way does it slide?” asked Kyle.

  “To the right,” said Andrew.

  He and Kyle put their hands on the wall and shoved it sideways.

  The panel rolled away and revealed a tall steel door with a combination lock right above a thick metal handle.

  “Okay, Pranav,” said Kyle, “you’re on.”

  Pranav Pillai stepped forward and spun the dial three times to clear it. Then he worked the combination.

  “Right to nine. Left to four. Right to three. Left to seven.”

  He pressed down on the handle.

  It didn’t budge.

  “Try it again,” suggested Kyle. “But reverse it.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Pranav. “An excellent suggestion.”

  He spun the dial to clear it, then worked the new combination.

  “Left to nine. Right to four. Left to three. Right to seven.”

  Something clicked.

  Pranav pressed down on the handle.

  The door to the vault swung open.

  The motel safe was huge, the size of a whole room, which was what it probably had been until Mr. Peckleman converted it into a steel-walled high-security vault.

  It was also empty except for a couple of stacks of birdseed sacks. Kyle couldn’t believe it.

  “There’s nothing in here,” he said.

  “But it looks like there used to be,” said Angus Harper. “Check out those marks on the carpet.” He pointed to the floor.

  “Indentations that might’ve been made by heavy boxes,” said Elliott Schilpp.

  “Book boxes,” added Sierra.

  “No!” somebody screame
d outside the motel. “You can’t do it!”

  “That sounds like Marjory,” said Nicole Wisniewski. “She screamed at us all the time.”

  “Come on!” said Kyle.

  The twelve treasure hunters tore out of the office, raced across the lobby, and headed out to the patio, where all the other Library Olympians and their chaperones were standing in a circle, staring at something that was making their jaws drop.

  Kyle heard a crackle and a pop.

  He pushed his way through the crowd.

  Mr. Peckleman stood next to the blazing fire pit, laughing hysterically.

  Marjory was there, too. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

  “I’m begging you, sir,” Marjory said. “Don’t do this.”

  “What’s going on?” demanded one of the chaperones.

  “We’re going to get rid of these wretched squirrel books, once and for all,” cackled Mr. Peckleman.

  “Oh, no you are not,” said Akimi, shoving her way to the front of the crowd to join Kyle near the roaring fire pit.

  Kyle could see garden carts, a little red wagon, and a wheelbarrow loaded down with books. On top of the pile closest to him was Flora and Ulysses.

  “Marjory told me all about how you tricked her into stealing that book,” said a man in a priest collar, who Kyle figured had to be Father Mike, chaperone for the Midwest team. “I’m going to call the police.”

  “Try it, Padre,” snapped Mr. Peckleman, “and I start tossing books on the bonfire the second your finger touches your phone. I figure I can burn through most of ’em before the police even show up. They’re very busy this afternoon down at the Lemoncello Library. It seems an anonymous tipster just phoned in a report of a major book burglary.”

  “That was you!” whined Andrew. “How can you do this, Uncle Woody?”

  “Easy. You see, I agree with that lunatic Lemoncello: ‘Knowledge not shared remains unknown.’ Well, if I destroy this so-called knowledge about squirrels, no one will ever know it existed.” He held up a copy of Flora and Ulysses. “A squirrel who writes poetry? Pah! Squirrels are nothing but thieving rodents. Rats with fluffy tails! They’re bullies who steal food from innocent birds.”

  “Look, Mr. Peckleman,” said Kyle, “just because you don’t like books about squirrels…”

  “Nobody else should, either! Don’t you see, Mr. Keeley? I’m trying to protect you children. You shouldn’t be forced to read lies about a squirrel named Earl who wears a red scarf and can’t find his own acorn. Your young eyes should not be exposed to videos about a flying squirrel who shares his home with a talking moose.”