“Welcome, children, to the library of the future,” said the flickering projection. “Dr. Zinchenko will now pass out Lemoncello Library floor plans—your map and guide to all that this extraordinary building has to offer. Your new library cards will grant you access to all rooms except the master control center—the red door you passed on your way in—and, of course, Mr. Lemoncello’s private suite on the third floor.”
Charles Chiltington dangled his golden key in front of his face. “I believe you need this to enter that.”
Mrs. Tobin ignored him. She was a hologram. That made it easier.
“Security personnel are on duty twenty-four hours a day,” she continued. “During your stay, all of your actions will be recorded by video cameras, as outlined in the consent agreements you and your parents signed earlier.”
“Are we going to be on a reality TV show?” asked Haley, smiling up at a tiny camera with a blinking red light.
“It is a distinct possibility,” said Dr. Zinchenko.
“I like television,” said the ghostly image of Mrs. Tobin. “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In is my favorite program. Returning to the rules. The use of personal electronic devices is strictly prohibited at all times during the lock-in.”
The security guard, Clarence, and a guy who looked like his identical twin brother entered the rotunda, each of them carrying an aluminum attaché case.
“Kindly deposit all cell phones, iPods, and iPads in the receptacles provided by our security guards, Clarence and Clement. Your devices will be safely stored for the duration of your stay and will be returned to you at the conclusion of our activities. Also, you may use the desktop pad computers in this room to comb through our card catalog and conduct Internet research. However, these devices cannot send or receive email or text messages—whatever those might be. Remember, I retired in 1973. We still used carbon paper. And now Dr. Zinchenko will walk you through the floor plan.”
Everybody unfolded their map pamphlets.
“As you can see,” said Dr. Zinchenko, “fiction titles are located here in the reading room. The Children’s Enrichment Room, with soundproof walls, is over there. Two fully equipped community meeting rooms as well as the Book Nook Café—behind those windows where the curtains are drawn—are also located on this floor. Upstairs on two, you will find ten numbered doors, each leading into a chamber filled with books, information, and, well, displays related to its corresponding Dewey decimal category.”
Kyle raised his hand.
“Yes?”
“Where’s the Electronic Learning Center?”
Dr. Zinchenko grinned. “Upstairs on the third floor, where you will also find the Board Room, the Art and Artifacts Room, the IMAX theater, the Lemoncello-abilia Room, the—”
“Can we go upstairs and play?” asked Bridgette Wadge. “I want to try out the space shuttle simulator.”
“I want to learn how to drive a car!” said Sean Keegan. “A race car!”
“I want to conquer the world with Alexander the Great!” said Yasmeen Smith-Snyder.
Apparently, everybody was doing what Kyle had already done: checking out the “Available Educational Gameware” listed on the back of the floor plan.
“Early access to the Electronic Learning Center will be tonight’s second prize,” said Dr. Zinchenko. “To win it, you must use the library’s resources to find dessert, which we have hidden somewhere in the building. Whoever does the research and locates the goodies first will also be the first one allowed into the Electronic Learning Center. So use your wits and use your library. Go find dessert!”
Everybody raced around the room and sat down at separate desks to start tapping on the glass computer pads.
Well, everybody except Sierra Russell. She spent like two seconds swiping her fingers across a screen, wrote something down with a stubby pencil on a slip of paper, then wandered off to inspect the three-story-tall curved bookcases lining the walls at the back half of the rotunda. Kyle watched as she stepped onto a slightly elevated platform with handles like you’d see on your grandmother’s walker. It even had a basket attached to the front.
“Dr. Zinchenko?”
“Yes, Ms. Russell?”
“Is this safe? Because the book I want is all the way up at the top.”
“Yes. Just make sure your feet are securely locked in.”
Sierra wiggled her leg. Kyle heard a metallic snap.
“It’s like a ski boot,” said Sierra.
“That’s right. Now use the keypad to tell the hover ladder the call number for the book you are interested in and hang on tight.”
Sierra consulted the slip of paper and tapped some keys.
“The bottom of that platform you are standing on is a magnet,” said Dr. Zinchenko. “There are ribbons of electromagnetic material in the lining of the bookcases. The strength of those magnets will be modulated by our maglev computer based on the call number you input.”
Two seconds later, Sierra Russell was floating in the air, drifting up and to the left. It was absolutely awesome.
“The hover ladder must use advanced magnetic levitation technology,” said Miguel, seated at the desk to Kyle’s right. “Just like the maglev bullet trains in Japan.”
“Cool,” mumbled Kyle.
And for the first time in his life, Kyle Keeley wanted to check out a library book more than anything in the world.
“How about we work together?” said Akimi when she sat down at Kyle’s table.
“Hmmm?”
Kyle couldn’t take his eyes off Sierra Russell. She had drifted up about twenty-five feet and was leaning against the railings of her floating platform, completely lost in a new book.
“Hello? Earth to Kyle? Do you want somebody else to get first dibs on the Electronic Learning Center?”
“No.”
“Then focus.”
“Okay. So how do we use our wits and the library to find dessert?”
Akimi nodded toward Miguel, whose fingers were dancing across the screen of his desktop’s tablet computer.
“I think he’s doing a search in the card catalog,” whispered Akimi.
“Why?”
“It’s how you find stuff in a library, Kyle.”
“I know that. But we’re not looking for books about dessert. We need to find actual food.”
Andrew Peckleman stood up from his desk and sprinted up a wrought-iron spiral staircase leading to the second floor. Two seconds later, Charles Chiltington was sprinting up the staircase behind him.
All the other players soon followed. Everybody was headed to the second floor and the Dewey decimal rooms. Miguel finally popped up from his desk and made a mad dash for the nearest staircase.
“It’s got to be up in the six hundreds, you guys,” he called out to Kyle and Akimi.
“Thanks,” said Kyle. But he still didn’t budge from his seat.
“I guess the six hundreds is the Dewey decimal category where you find books about desserts,” said Akimi. “Maybe we should …”
“Wait a second,” said Kyle.
“Um, Kyle, in case you haven’t noticed, you, me, and glider girl Sierra are the only ones still on this floor, and Sierra isn’t really on the floor because she’s floating.”
“Hang on, Akimi. I have an idea.” Kyle pulled out his floor plan. “Dessert is probably hiding in plain sight. Just like the bonus codes in Squirrel Squad. Follow me.”
“Where to?”
“The Book Nook Café. The one room in the library where, according to what Dr. Zinchenko told us back at the hotel, food and drinks are actually allowed.”
They strolled into the cozy café.
“Whoo-hoo!” shouted Akimi.
The walls were decorated with shelves of cookbooks but several tables were loaded down with trays of cookies, cakes, ice cream, and fruit!
“That’s why the curtains were closed behind the windows into the rotunda,” said Akimi. “So we couldn’t see all this food. Way to go, Kyle.”
Kyle did his best imitation of Charles Chiltington: “I’m a Keeley, Akimi. We never lose. Except, of course, when we don’t win.”
After everyone had dessert, Kyle and Akimi were the first ones allowed to enter the Electronic Learning Center.
Kyle flew the space shuttle, making an excellent landing on Mars before crashing into one of Saturn’s moons. Akimi rode a horse with Paul Revere. Then Kyle learned how to drive a stick-shift stock car on the Talladega racetrack while Akimi climbed into a tiny submarine to swim with sharks, dolphins, and sea turtles—all of which were projected on the glass walls of her undersea simulator.
All the educational video games had 3-D visuals, digital surround sound, and something new that Mr. Lemoncello was developing for his video games: smell-a-vision. When you sacked Rome with the Visigoths, you could smell the smoky scent of the burning city as well as the barbarians’ b.o.
After an hour, Dr. Zinchenko ushered everybody else into the Electronic Learning Center. They’d been watching George Washington debate George W. Bush (both were audio-animatronic dummies) in the “town square” at the center of the 900s room.
At ten p.m. they all tromped into the IMAX theater, also on the third floor, to see a jukebox concert. 3-D images of the world’s best musicians (living and dead) performed their hits “live.” The best part was Mozart jamming with Metallica.
Finally, around three in the morning, Clarence and his twin brother, Clement, came to escort the kids to their sleeping quarters. The boys would roll out their sleeping bags in the Children’s Room, just off the rotunda; the girls would be upstairs on the third floor in the Board Room. Charles Chiltington would be luxuriating all alone in Mr. Lemoncello’s private suite.
Exhausted from the excitement of the day—and crashing after eating way too much sugar—Kyle slept like a baby.
He only woke up because he heard music.
Loud, blaring music.
The theme song from that boxing movie Rocky, his brother Mike’s favorite.
“Whazzat?” he mumbled, crawling out of his sleeping bag.
Kyle glanced at his watch. It was eleven a.m. He figured the library lock-in was officially over and this was the group’s wake-up call.
The music kept blaring.
“This is how they wake up astronauts,” groaned Miguel.
“Turn it off!” moaned Andrew Peckleman.
Kyle slipped on his jeans and sneakers and staggered out into the giant reading room.
“Dr. Zinchenko?”
His voice echoed off the dome. No answer.
“Clarence? Clement?”
Nothing.
The Rocky music got louder.
Akimi leaned in from the third-floor balcony.
“What’s going on down there?”
“I think they’re trying to wake up astronauts,” said Kyle. “On the moon.”
He made his way to the front door and reached for the handle.
It wouldn’t budge.
He jiggled it.
Nothing.
He jiggled harder.
Still nothing.
Kyle realized that the library lock-in might be over but they were still locked in the library.
“Everybody, please take your seats,” Dr. Zinchenko said to the parents gathered in a conference room at the Parker House Hotel.
“When do our kids come home?” asked one of the mothers.
“Rose has soccer at two,” said another.
The librarian nodded. “Mr. Lemoncello will—”
Just then, an accordion-panel door at the far end of the room flew open, revealing the eccentric billionaire dressed in a bright purple tracksuit and a plumed pirate hat. He was eating a slice of seven-layer birthday cake.
“Good morning or, as they’re currently saying in Reykjavik, gott síodegi, which means ‘good afternoon,’ because there is a four-hour time difference between Ohio and Iceland, a fact I first learned spinning a globe in my local library.”
Mr. Lemoncello, his banana shoes burp-squeaking, stepped out of a room filled with dozens of black-and-white television monitors—the kind security guards watch at their workstations.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us on this grand and auspicious day. Today I am pleased to announce the most marvelously stupendous game ever created: Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library! The entire library will be the game board. Your children will be the game pieces. The winner will become famous all over the world.”
“How?” asked one of the fathers.
“By starring in all of my commercials this holiday season. TV. Radio. Print. Billboards. Cardboard cutouts in toy stores. His or her face will be everywhere.”
Mrs. Daley raised her hand. “Will they get paid?”
“Oh, yes. In fact, you’ll probably want to call me The Giver.”
“And what exactly does Haley have to do to win?”
“Escape! From the library. I thought the game’s title more or less gave that bit away.” Mr. Lemoncello tapped a button in his pirate hat and an animated version of the library’s floor plan was instantly displayed on the conference room’s plasma-screen TVs.
“Whoever is the first to use what they find in the library to find their way out of the library will be crowned the winner. Now then, the children cannot use the front door or the fire exits or set off any alarms. They cannot go out the way they went in. They can only use their wits, cunning, and intelligence to decipher clues and solve riddles that will eventually lead them to the location of the library’s super-secret alternate exit. And, ladies and gentlemen, I assure you, such an alternate exit does indeed exist.”
The parents around the table started buzzing with excitement.
“Participation, of course, will be purely optional and voluntary,” said Mr. Lemoncello, clasping his hands behind his back and stalking around the room.
Several parents pulled out cell phones.
“And please—do not attempt to phone, email, text, fax, or send smoke signals to your children, encouraging them to enter the competition. We have blocked all communication into and out of the library. Only those who truly wish to stay and play shall stay and play. Anyone who chooses to leave the library will go home with lovely parting gifts and a souvenir pirate hat very similar to mine. They’ll also be invited to my birthday party tomorrow afternoon.” He held up his crumb-filled plate. “I’ve been sampling potential cake candidates for breakfast.”
Mrs. Keegan crossed her arms over her chest. “Will this game be dangerous?”
“No,” said Mr. Lemoncello. “Your children will be under constant video surveillance by security personnel in the library’s control center. Dr. Zinchenko and I will also be monitoring their progress here in my private video-viewing suite. Should anything go wrong, we have paramedics, firefighters, and a team of former Navy SEALs—each with the heart of a samurai—standing by to swoop in and rescue your children. It’ll be like The Hunger Games but with lots of food and no bows or arrows.”
“Why not just have the kids play one of your other games?” a parent suggested. “Why all this fuss?”
“Because, my dear friends, these twelve children have lived their entire lives without a public library. As a result, they have no idea how extraordinarily useful, helpful, and funful—a word I recently invented—a library can be. This is their chance to discover that a library is more than a collection of dusty old books. It is a place to learn, explore, and grow!”
“Mr. Lemoncello, I think what you’re doing is fantastic,” said one of the mothers.
“Thank you,” said Mr. Lemoncello, bowing and clicking his heels (which made them bruck like a chicken).
“If any of you would like to check up on your children,” announced Dr. Zinchenko, “please join us in the adjoining room.”
“Oh, they’re a lot of fun to watch,” said Mr. Lemoncello. “However, Mr. and Mrs. Keeley, I’m afraid your son Kyle does not enjoy the theme song from Rocky quite as much as I do!”
Rocky
had done its job.
Kyle—and everybody else locked inside the library—was definitely awake.
Even Charles Chiltington had come down to the Rotunda Reading Room from Mr. Lemoncello’s private suite. The only essay writer not with the group was Sierra Russell, who, Kyle figured, was off looking for another book to read.
“We’re still locked in?” squealed Haley Daley.
“This is so lame,” added Sean Keegan. “It’s like eleven-thirty. I’ve got things to do. Places to be.”
“Look, you guys,” said Kyle, “they’ll probably open the front door right after we eat or something.”
“Well, where’s that ridiculous librarian?” said Charles Chiltington, who was never very nice when there weren’t any adults in the room.
“Yeah,” said Rose Vermette. “I can’t stay in here all day. I have a soccer game at two.”
“And, dudes,” said Sean Keegan, “I have a life.”
“Do you children require assistance?” said a soft, motherly voice.
It was the semi-transparent holographic image of Mrs. Tobin, the librarian from the 1960s. She was hovering a few inches off the ground in front of the center desk.
“Yes,” said Kayla Corson. “How do we get out of here?”
The librarian blinked, the way a secondhand calculator (the one your oldest brother dropped on the floor a billion times) does when it’s figuring out a square root.
“I’m sorry,” said the robotic librarian. “I have not been provided with the answer to that question.”
“Will we be doing brunch here this morning?” Chiltington asked politely. “I’m not hungry, but some of my chums sure are. After all, it is eleven-thirty.”
“The kitchen staff recently placed fresh food in the Book Nook Café.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Tobin,” said Chiltington. “Would you like anything? A bowl of oatmeal, perhaps.”
“No. Thank you, CHARLES. I am a hologram. I do not eat food.”
“I guess that’s how you stay so super skinny.”
Kyle shook his head. The smarmy guy was oilier than a soggy sack of fries. He was even sucking up to a hologram.