Kyle hustled across the noisy room.
“What’s up?”
“Charlemagne needs a champion,” explained Akimi. “Someone who will defend the weak and defenseless, fight for what’s right, yadda yadda. The game is based on the ancient code of chivalry.”
“I’m kind of stuck,” said Miguel, fending off a fiery dragon with his virtual sword swishes.
“And I’m kind of bored,” said Akimi. “See you two later.”
Kyle turned to Miguel. “What are your options?”
“Slay the dragon or go feed the hungry peasants.”
“No contest. Slay the dragon.”
“You sure?”
“Definitely. If you don’t, the dragon will kill the peasants. You slay the dragon, the peasants will rejoice. Peasants always love dragon slayers.”
“Okay. If you say so.”
Miguel thrust his imaginary sword forward. His on-screen knight pierced the dragon’s hide with his steel blade.
The animated dragon fizzled out a geyser of gas and shriveled into a heap of crinkled plastic.
“Aw, man. It wasn’t a real dragon. It was a big balloon. Like in the Macy’s parade…”
A swarm of peasants armed with pitchforks stormed across the screen. They attacked Miguel’s knight.
“Why didst thou not bringeth us food?” screamed the leader of the peasant army. “Death to the selfish, unchivalrous knave!”
Kyle heard the unmistakable BLOOP-BLOOP-BLOOP sound of video-game death. Miguel’s knight took a pitchfork in the butt and wilted into a heap of pixels.
“Okay,” said Kyle. “Now that we know what not to do, we’ll play again and win.”
“Why bother? We don’t need Charlemagne to tell us we’re champions. Am I right?”
Kyle grinned. “Totally.”
Then the two of them knocked knuckles and chanted the lyrics to their favorite classic-rock tune: “We are the champions, my friend….”
On the Monday after New Year’s, Kyle stood shivering at his bus stop.
Ohio gets very cold and slushy in January.
Finally, the bus pulled up and swung open its door.
“Well, hel-lo,” said Mrs. Logan, the driver. “It’s another Lemon-cel-lo!”
Kyle shook his head. Bus drivers watched TV commercials, too.
“Good morning, Mrs. Logan,” said Kyle, climbing up the steps.
“Got a riddle for you.” Ever since his team had won the Lemoncello Library game, everybody was constantly trying to trip them up with riddles and puzzles.
“Go for it,” said Kyle.
“What two things can you never eat for breakfast?”
“Easy,” said Kyle. “Lunch and dinner.”
Mrs. Logan waved her arm at him. “Ah, go sit down.”
Kyle high-fived his way up the bus aisle to his usual seat, next to Akimi. Sierra sat behind Akimi, her nose buried in another book.
“What are you reading?” Kyle asked. “That Butter Not Nutty Buddy book?”
“Actually,” said Sierra, “I’m rereading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, because everybody keeps saying Mr. Lemoncello reminds them of Willy Wonka. But Mr. Lemoncello is much kinder.”
“And he doesn’t have Oompa-Loompas,” quipped Akimi.
“Or Augustus Gloop,” added Kyle.
“Actually,” said Akimi, “I think Charles Chiltington was our Augustus.”
“Really?” said Sierra. “He reminds me more of Veruca Salt.”
Wow. Sierra Russell cracked a joke. She had definitely loosened up since joining Team Kyle.
“So,” said Akimi after Kyle peeled off his parka, “did your grandmother give you that sweater for Christmas?”
“How’d you guess?”
“It looks like something you’d buy at a pet store. For a dog named Fluffy.”
“I think I might lose it in my locker today.”
“Good idea.”
“Um, excuse me?” said Alexa Mehlman, a sixth grader seated across the aisle from Kyle.
“Hey, Alexa,” said Kyle. “What’s up?”
“I don’t mean to bother you….”
“It’s no bother. What can I do for you?”
“Well, my uncle gave me Mr. Lemoncello’s Phenomenal Picture Word Puzzler for Chanukah and I can’t figure out this one rebus.”
“Let me see it.”
“The category is ‘famous slogans,’ ” said Alexa, passing a cardboard square to Kyle. It was filled with a jumble of letters and pictograms.
“The first word is ‘librarians,’ ” said Akimi. “L-I plus B-R-A-I-N minus I-N gives you L-I-B-R-A. Then you add P-I-A-N-O, but make the ‘P’ an ‘R’ and the ‘O’ an ‘S,’ so you end up with L-I-B-R-A, R-I-A-N-S, or, you know, ‘librarians.’ ”
“Wow,” said Alexa. “You guys are amazing.”
“Not me,” said Sierra. “I’m not very good at games.” She dove back into her book.
The bus bounced over a speed bump and pulled into the school parking lot.
“You have ten seconds to finish the puzzle, Mr. Keeley,” said Akimi. “Go!”
Kyle studied the card again and handed it back to Alexa. “ ‘Librarians are intellectual freedom fighters.’ ”
“Awesome!” said Alexa. “I kept getting stuck on the bottle. I thought it was perfume, not ink. You’re my hero, Kyle Keeley!”
Kyle smiled. It was good to be someone’s hero.
Especially when all he had to do was play a game.
“You guys?”
Miguel was waiting for Kyle, Akimi, and Sierra when they walked through the school’s front doors.
“You have got to see what I found!” He led them down the hall to the library. Miguel Fernandez was super enthusiastic about everything, especially libraries. That’s why he’d been president of the Library Aide Society for three years straight.
“What is it?” asked Kyle as they entered the media center. “A new Dewey decimal number or something?”
“No. A whole bunch of book lovers all across America who don’t like us.”
“What?” said Akimi. “What’s not to like? We’re very likable people.”
“They’re wondering how come they didn’t get to play Mr. Lemoncello’s library game.”
“Um, because they don’t live here in Alexandriaville?” said Akimi.
“Only seventh graders at this school were eligible to enter the essay contest to win a spot at the library lock-in,” added Sierra.
For the first twelve years of the Alexandriaville seventh graders’ lives, school media centers were the only libraries they had ever known. The old public library, the one Mr. Lemoncello had loved when he was a boy growing up in the small Ohio town, had been bulldozed to make way for a multilevel concrete parking structure.
“They just wish they could be us,” said Kyle. “You can’t really blame ’em.”
“It’s worse,” said Miguel. “They think they could’ve beaten us.”
Miguel waved for his friends to follow him to the rows of computer terminals.
“I was Googling us again this morning, and all these blogs and posts started popping up. None of them are very nice.”
“Greetings, heroes!” called Mrs. Yunghans, the middle school librarian, who absolutely loved having the most famous library card holders in America checking out books in her library. “Don’t believe all those nasty things people are writing about you kids on the Web. They’re just jealous.”
Kyle and his teammates huddled around a monitor while Miguel clacked the keyboard.
“Check it out.”
They scrolled through the top search results for “Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library.”
“It took them a whole day to find their way out of the library?” wrote one blogger.
“I could’ve done it in half a day,” commented another.
“I demand a rematch,” said more.
“This isn’t fair, Mr. Lemoncello.”
“We demand a chance!”
/>
“Put us in that library. We could beat Team Kyle with one 612.97 tied behind our back.”
“That’s the closest Dewey decimal number for hand,” explained Miguel. “Actually, it refers to regional physiology of the upper extremities.”
“Wow,” said Kyle. “What a bunch of library nerds.”
Miguel cleared his throat, prompting Kyle to quickly add, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
“Ouch,” said Akimi. “Listen to this one.”
She clicked open a post with even the subject line screaming in all caps.
“ ‘KEELEY’S TEAM ONLY WON BECAUSE THEY CHEATED!’ ” she read aloud. “ ‘MR. LEMONCELLO IS BLATANTLY LYING TO THE WORLD ABOUT WHAT REALLY HAPPENED ON THAT DREADFUL, GHASTLY, AND ABOMINABLE DAY LAST SUMMER. HE SHOULD BE TARRED AND FEATHERED AND RUN OUT OF TOWN ON A RAIL.’ ”
“That’s horrible,” said Sierra.
“Of course it is,” said Akimi. “Look who wrote it.”
She pointed to the semi-anonymous signature: “C.C.”
Charles Chiltington.
Dr. Yanina Zinchenko, the world-famous librarian, dragged a lumpy mail sack to the far end of the Rotunda Reading Room, where her boss, Luigi Lemoncello, was flying up and down in front of the three-story-tall fiction bookcases.
“I’m looking for a good book,” said Mr. Lemoncello as his hover ladder jerked vertically, then skittered sideways. “But I’m not exactly sure what I’m looking for.”
The hover ladders were floating platforms with handrails, book baskets, and ski-boot safety locks that allowed you to float up to retrieve any book you wanted simply by entering the book’s call number into a computerized keypad. The system worked with the same magnetic levitation technology used in Germany and Japan to propel bullet trains with magnets instead of wheels.
“Perhaps I can be of assistance,” said Dr. Zinchenko in her thick Russian accent. “Do you have the call number?”
“No need,” Mr. Lemoncello said, laughing. “I wanted to test-drive our new ‘browse’ function.”
After several patrons had complained that the hover ladders’ demand for a specific book code eliminated the ability for patrons to leisurely peruse the shelves, the imagineers at Mr. Lemoncello’s game company had come up with the new and improved hover ladders, which featured a browse button.
Once you pushed it, the hover ladder randomly flitted in front of the shelves, using advanced biofeedback technology, heart-rate monitors, and complex algorithms to figure out what sort of story you might be interested in.
“But we have a very important matter to discuss.” Dr. Zinchenko pointed to the mail sack. It was the size of an overstuffed duffel bag.
“Oh, dear. A V.I.M.? I don’t know if I have the vigor for a V.I.M.”
“We also have visitors….”
“Visitors and a V.I.M.? I’ll deal with both as soon as I finish browsing.”
“Mr. Lemoncello?” bellowed a voice below.
He glanced down and saw a very properly dressed lady flanked by six other very properly dressed ladies and one properly dressed man in a bow tie.
“I’ll be right with you!” shouted Mr. Lemoncello as his hover ladder caromed across the wall of books like an out-of-control Ping-Pong ball. “I’m busy browsing.”
“My name is Susana Chiltington,” the lady said operatically. “Mrs. Susana Willoughby Chiltington.”
“Hello, Susana. Don’t you cry for me. The doctors say they can easily remove the banjo on my knee.”
Mrs. Chiltington wasn’t amused.
“Perhaps you’ve heard of my brother?” she said. “The head librarian for the Library of Congress? James F. Willoughby the third?”
“What happened to the first two?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Never mind. I am finished browsing. Pull me down, Captain Underpants.”
The hover ladder gently lowered the happy billionaire to the floor.
“Now then, how may I help you, Duchess Susana Willoughby Chiltington the third, Esquire, PhD?”
“I’m not a…Oh, never mind. My colleagues and I represent the recently formed League of Concerned Library Lovers. Winthrop?”
The gentleman in the bow tie opened a leather briefcase. “As a public library, Mr. Lemoncello, this institution needs a board of trustees to oversee its finances and champion its mission.”
Mrs. Chiltington snorted a little. “It is quite customary.”
“So is pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving, but I prefer pineapple rhubarb,” said Mr. Lemoncello.
“As concerned library lovers,” said the gentleman, brandishing a thick document, “we are here today to volunteer our services.”
Mr. Lemoncello ignored the man and focused on Mrs. Chiltington.
“You’re Charles’s mother, aren’t you?”
“Indeed.” She snuffled and adjusted her clothes to make certain all the seams were lined up precisely the way they were supposed to be.
“Might I humbly suggest, Mrs. Chiltington, that your considerable concern might be better spent on your son instead of my library? Now then, Dr. Zinchenko, I believe we have a very important matter to discuss?”
“Yes, sir.”
Mr. Lemoncello walked over to the wall of bookshelves and tilted back the head on a marble bust of Andrew Carnegie, revealing a red button hidden in his neck.
“Mr. Lemoncello?” trilled Mrs. Chiltington. “A public library requires public oversight—guardians who will safeguard the institution’s well-being and stability.”
“I know! I’ve been thinking about that very fact for months. I’ve also been thinking about lunch for at least fifteen minutes. I thank you for your time and concern.”
He bopped the red button.
A door-sized segment of bookshelves swished sideways. Mr. Lemoncello and Dr. Zinchenko disappeared with the mailbag down a dimly lit corridor. The bookcase slammed shut behind them.
“Mr. Lemoncello?” Mrs. Chiltington called after them. “Dr. Zinchenko?”
She banged on a row of books as if she were knocking on a door.
“Mr. Lemoncello!”
A burly security guard—maybe six four, 250 pounds, his hair in long, ropy dreadlocks—came up behind her.
“Ma’am? I’m going to have to ask you to leave the library if you keep punching the books.”
Mrs. Chiltington swung around.
“I’m not…Oh, never mind.”
She glanced at the guard’s name tag.
“Clarence?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, Clarence, don’t worry. We’re leaving. But kindly inform Mr. Lemoncello that we shall return.”
“Wonderful,” said Clarence. “Mr. Lemoncello loves it when people come back to visit his library.”
Mrs. Chiltington gave Clarence a frosty smile.
“I’m sure he does. And next time, there will be more of us!”
Early in the second week of January, each member of Team Kyle received a thick envelope in the mail.
When they opened it, they found an engraved invitation:
—
Friday evening, Kyle and his family piled into their minivan and drove downtown to the library.
“Isn’t this exciting?” said Kyle’s mother. “I should’ve baked a cake.”
“Any idea what the big announcement is?” asked his dad.
“Not a clue,” said Kyle. “But we’re hoping Mr. Lemoncello is going to ask us to star in more TV commercials.”
“Please, no,” moaned Kyle’s brother Mike. “Your head’s big enough already.”
Snowflakes swirled in the misty beams of light flooding the front of the domed building that used to be a bank until Mr. Lemoncello turned it into a library. Kyle noticed several TV news satellite trucks taking up the parking spaces along the curb.
“You better get in there, Kyle,” said his dad. “We’ll go find a place to park.”
“Have fun!” added his mom.
Kyle dashed u
p the marble steps and into the library’s lobby.
Miguel and Sierra were waiting for him near the life-size statue of Mr. Lemoncello perched atop a lily pad in a reflecting pool. The statue’s head was tilted back so the bronze Mr. Lemoncello could squirt an arc of water out of his mouth like he was a human drinking fountain. His motto was chiseled into the statue’s pedestal:
KNOWLEDGE NOT SHARED REMAINS UNKNOWN.
—LUIGI L. LEMONCELLO
“Hey, Kyle!” exclaimed Miguel. “The place is packed. Everybody was invited! All twelve of the original players.”
“Including Charles Chiltington?” asked Kyle.
“He’s a no-show.”
“I hope Andrew Peckleman doesn’t show up, either,” said Sierra with a slight shiver. Peckleman had been Chiltington’s ally in the escape game and had tricked Sierra out of her library card so he could spy on Team Kyle.
“He was definitely invited,” said Miguel. “But he won’t be coming. Ever since he got kicked out of the game, Andrew doesn’t really like libraries. He even quit being a library aide at school.”
“That’s sad,” said Sierra.
“You guys,” said Akimi, coming in from the Rotunda Reading Room, “there’s all sorts of TV news crews inside. Including that reporter from CNN.”
“Which one?”
“The guy with the hair.”
“And there’s food in the Book Nook Café,” said Miguel. “Tons of it.”
“So why are we hanging out here?” said Kyle. “Let’s go.”
The four friends hurried under the arch that led into the vast Rotunda Reading Room. The rotunda was packed. Clusters of brightly colored balloons were tethered to the green-shaded lamps on the reading desks. Hidden surround-sound speakers blasted a brassy, heroic fanfare.
Overhead, the Wonder Dome was a fluttering display of fifty state flags flapping against a cloudless blue sky, where, for whatever reason, a very muscular couple in ancient robes rode a chariot back and forth across the curved ceiling like it was a horse-drawn comet. They reminded Kyle of a Greek god and goddess straight out of the Percy Jackson books.