Then I thought about my list of THINGS LEGENDS NEED and that I had failed at many of them. I did not have a fair maiden anymore, and I had hurt Gert and the tribe.
“Why the long face?” Carol asked.
“Nothing.”
“If it’s guy troubles with what’s-his-name who used to come here, I think you’re better off without him.”
I did not know what to say, so I went to get the cart to roll around the library, looking to shelve books.
There were many books around the library, which means the person who worked the previous shift did not do a very good job. I looked and it was a new person named Olga who I had not met. I decided I would make the library perfect to show her how to do it properly.
I went around, collecting the books and putting them on my cart according to the numbers on the spines. When I looked up near the Sports section my heart jumped because there was someone sitting where Hendo usually sat.
“Holy crap,” I said out loud, and realized that it was not Hendo sitting in the spot, but another villain.
“You’re not going to piss yourself again, are you?” Toucan asked.
He was reading a National Geographic with his feet on one of the chairs. My knees felt noodly again and I held on to the cart to make sure I didn’t fall down.
I felt my pocket for my Viking sword, but since it was in my backpack, I was defenseless.
“Why are you here?” I asked, trying to stand straight and powerful.
“I’m just reading.” He held up the magazine. “Isn’t this what your boyfriend used to do?”
At first I did not know who he was talking about. Marxy did not like National Geographic magazines at all. Then I realized he was talking about Hendo. I took a deep breath and squeezed the handles of the cart.
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
Toucan turned the page of the magazine. “I love these things. Mantis shrimps?” He showed me a picture of an animal from the sea that looked like a shrimp and crab covered in a rainbow. “They can attack so fast, like a bullet.” Toucan punched the air really quickly. “And their eyes. They can see what we can’t see. Like me. I see things other people can’t.”
One of the things Carol taught me is that when dealing with angry library patrons, or people who are being disruptive, you must always remain calm as a librarian and repeat the rules very clearly.
“Okay,” I said. “Please take your feet off the chair.”
He laughed and then turned until his feet were back on the ground and showed me his hands like he was surrendering. Then he closed the magazine and smiled in a way I did not like. “You know, Zelda, I think that you act stupid, because you like having people do things for you. I’ve seen it a million times before. Right? Making people feel sorry for you, so you don’t have to do shit. Correct me if I’m wrong here.”
My mouth opened and I wanted to shout, only nothing came out, not even air. Toucan waited and then shook his head again and laughed into his magazine. He put it down, got up, and started walking toward me. I stepped back and went behind the cart, using it like a shield in case he planned to attack. From there I repeated a very important library rule.
“If you are done reading that magazine,” I said, pointing to the National Geographic, “then I will reshelve it.”
Toucan came even closer and said that he knew that I was having sex with Hendo, and that I might have fooled Gert, but I did not fool him. He called me a whore and made a noise with his mouth I did not like.
“Stop making that noise,” I said, not as loud as I wanted.
“What? Excuse me?” Toucan put his hand to his ear. “Does Gert know all the disgusting things you’ve done, Zelda?”
Now some other people in the library started looking at us. I looked down at the cart and the book about cooking that was on the top. I closed my eyes and tried not to look at him.
He laughed again, like a Grendel laughs, and did not shut up.
“That’s what I thought,” Toucan said. “I’d like it a lot if you could tell your boyfriend to give me a call. You may have your brother and whoever else fooled, but not me.”
That was when I shouted that he was a fuck-dick, which made people in the library look up from their books. I looked around for Carol, but she was on her break.
The security guard for the day, Larry, came over and asked if there was a problem. Toucan suddenly became happy and held up the magazine. “I was just reading. But I think we’re done chatting. Say hi to your other friend for me,” he told me.
“Come on, now,” Larry said, pulling up the waist of his pants. “Let’s lower our voices.”
“The one at the Community Center,” Toucan said. “What’s his name? Max?” He snapped his fingers. “Marxy. That’s it. The retarded kid.”
I froze and could not think of anything to say.
He tossed the magazine on my cart and walked away, and Larry asked me to keep my voice down in the future.
“You know the rules,” he said.
I watched Toucan as he walked out of the library, my stomach twisting. He stood by the book return for a second, and then his red car pulled up and the Fat Man got out of the driver’s seat and went into the passenger side, so that Toucan could get in and drive away.
I got my phone and texted Marxy. My hands shook.
Are you okay?
A few seconds later my phone buzzed and he replied.
Yes! We still have cake where are you?
My heart stopped pounding.
* * *
I went back to the computer to calm down. I opened my e-mail and clicked REFRESH to see if Dr. Kepple had responded. Normally we were not allowed to use our personal e-mail accounts on the work computers unless it was very important, but I decided something very important had just happened.
Because I needed his voice, I took a lunch break and listened to the excerpts from Kepple’s Guide to the Vikings on audiobook that were on his website. Dr. Kepple was talking about Beowulf, the hero who defeats Grendel, and about how after slaying Grendel’s mother, who is even more powerful than Grendel, Beowulf becomes King of his tribe. Fifty years later, one of his people steals something from a dragon, who gets angry and starts destroying Beowulf’s tribe.
Beowulf, who is now very old and not as mighty, decides to save his people and confront the dragon alone. Even though he was not the person to steal the dragon’s gold, he takes responsibility for the people in his tribe who did.
His warriors want to help him, but Beowulf is the hero and in order to complete his legend fights the dragon alone. I shut off the audiobook.
Hendo had stolen the gold and Toucan was the dragon who had hurt Gert. I thought about what the Viking warrior from the grave would do. I would have to find Hendo to make him give Toucan back whatever he stole.
I decided to write Dr. Kepple one final letter.
Dear Dr. Kepple,
This might be the final letter I can send you, because I have come up with a plan that will help me become a hero again. I am going on a journey to defeat the villain of my legend. I believe I have honed my combat skills and am ready to face him.
I have not told anyone about this final battle because, even though Vikings have wise men who tell them what to do, sometimes heroes need to follow their own hearts and believe in themselves.
Wish me skál!
Skál,
Zelda
I clicked SEND and took a deep breath. It was time.
Even though it is against the rules to use patron information for personal purposes, sometimes Vikings need to break rules in order to save the tribe.
I went to the computer and searched until I found Hendo’s library account, then I put his address into Google Maps and pressed PRINT.
chapter thirty
I did not go home after my shift at the library. Instead of getting on my usual bus, I crossed the street, walked two blocks, and got on another one.
Hendo’s house was not very hard to get to by bus, and when I
got off the bus I recognized the neighborhood and took a picture of the bus stop so I could remember what it looked like.
Google Maps showed me where to go until I found the address I was looking for. It was not an apartment building but a brown box attached to another brown box and another one. The windows had boards over them instead of glass, which had been broken and still stuck out pointy like teeth.
I took a deep breath and knocked on his door.
There was no answer. I noticed the door had yellow gunk and eggshells on it.
“He’s not here,” someone said. I turned. A man without a shirt was standing on the other side of the fence. He had a very large dog on a leash that stared at me.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“Fucked if I know,” he said. “One minute they were there, the next they were gone. Didn’t even lock the door. You can probably go in if you want, but there’s a good chance there’s some squatters living in there and some busted glass.”
He walked his dog away. This was an important warning that any Viking would heed.
I removed my Viking sword from my backpack, in case any of the squatters inside were villains.
Like the man said, the door was not locked. The house smelled like a toilet and also cigarette smoke.
I called Hendo’s name. Nobody answered. I also called Artem’s name, then remembered that if Artem was there, he was a baby and would not answer.
None of the lights were on. I held my Viking sword in front of me and used the light from my cell phone to shine inside. Empty plastic Oreo containers, baby food jars, and pizza boxes were piled on the floor. When I walked it was through an ocean of wrappers and other gross things.
Someone had spray-painted NIGGER on the wall and drawn a picture of a man having sex with a woman. The woman had a face with pain in it, the eyes closed in Xs and the mouth open with the tongue sticking out. It was not the way sex was supposed to be. I shivered.
In one of the rooms I found a bed that smelled like pee and puke. I did not stay in the room very long. None of the lights worked when I tried to turn them on.
I was very afraid but I knew that was part of being a legend. Without fear there can be no bravery.
The house did not have anyone in it, not even squatters. I checked all the rooms. As I was leaving I saw some books in the corner. They were library books. Since I was a Viking and a librarian, I put them in a pile and took them with me. Hendo still had the train book I had found him for Artem, and the train book was not there, which meant Hendo took the train book with him and would have to pay for late fines after he paid for all the other villainous things he had done.
When I came outside I had the books under my arms. There were so many that I had trouble carrying them, and almost dropped some on the dirty ground. I was even madder at Hendo now, because all of those books would have late fees, and people might have wanted to read them and now couldn’t, since they were missing. I wondered if Carol had already entered them into the system as lost and had already ordered replacement copies. Some of the books were older, so they would not be able to get reordered.
I was thinking about which of the books were too old to be replaced, like the one with the picture of Elvis Presley on the cover, and almost walked right into a police officer on the sidewalk. Behind her was a police car.
“Crap,” I said, bending over to pick the books up, and the police officer helped too.
“Didn’t mean to frighten you,” she said, handing me two of the books, which I put on top of the other books I was holding.
“That’s okay,” I said. “I have to go now.”
She walked with me and said she was wondering if we could have a little chat. “It’s technically trespassing, going into a place that isn’t yours,” she said.
I pretended I didn’t hear and started walking faster toward the bus stop. I said to my legs, which felt heavy, stay strong.
The policewoman followed me up the sidewalk. “Where are you headed?”
“Nowhere.”
“For someone going nowhere, you’re sure going there fast.”
I started walking even faster and the policewoman said for me to wait up. I did not want to wait up, and also inside of me I had so much going on that if I stopped to talk I might accidentally let out all the things I had been holding in—about Gert and Hendo and Toucan.
So I started running. I dropped the library books to run faster, which was a very cowardly thing to do as a librarian, and tried to run behind some of the houses.
But the policewoman was faster than me and caught up and grabbed my arm.
“Hey, easy,” the policewoman said. “Slow down. We just want to talk.”
She did not hold my arm very tight and I pulled it away and said she would need to take me by force, even though I wasn’t sure that fighting the police was something a legend would do. The policewoman did not get angry and attack like I thought she would. Instead she said she wanted to talk to me about a friend of mine.
“The one whose house you were in,” she said. “I thought maybe we could work together to find him, that’s all.”
“I don’t have a friend who lives in any house,” I said.
“So you were breaking and entering? Because that’s a crime.”
I swallowed and tried not to look at her eyes, since I am not very good at staring contests.
“Relax. I just want to talk. Okay?” That was when she held up the Viking sword. “And you dropped this. Which I think qualifies as a weapon. So we could arrest you if we wanted to.”
* * *
They said they would give me a ride wherever I had to go, so I didn’t need to take the bus. Since I had the library books with me, I said to take me to the library. I made sure not to say anything about Gert or Hendo or Toucan. I held the books tight to my chest and tried to decide what I would do if they asked me serious questions while shining a bright light on me, the way they did in movies, and what I would do if I got so thirsty from the hot light that I asked for a drink of water and they wouldn’t give me one unless I confessed everything.
“Everything okay back there?” the policewoman said.
“I will say nothing,” I said.
“Sure. You’re just shaking a little bit.”
“So you wanted to get the library books back,” the other police officer said. He was driving.
“The patron’s address was in the computer system,” I said.
“You’re the most dedicated librarian I’ve ever met,” the woman said. “Do you have any siblings?”
I stared straight ahead.
“Zelda?” the other officer said. “Because I think we might know your brother. Gert?”
I did not say anything. My throat was already getting like a desert and they weren’t even shining a bright light on me.
They pulled up in front of the library. The woman police officer got out and came around and opened the door for me. I got out of the car.
“If you do ever want to talk…” She handed me a card, and my Viking sword, which she had taken.
I said thank you, taking Hendo’s library books and putting them into the return bin on the way inside.
chapter thirty-one
I did not tell anyone about the police, not even AK47, or Dr. Laird. I hid the card that the police officer had given me in my Word of Today book, with an old word for August 14, proliferate, which means to make a lot of things and expand and reproduce.
I felt like inside of me the things I had to keep inside of me were proliferating. I did not like having to keep secrets from people, especially not AK47, and those secrets were expanding and reproducing.
After one of my shifts at the library, AK47 and I went grocery shopping for Gert and brought the groceries to the apartment as a surprise. AK47 was parking the car and I went to open the door.
Alf was in front of the apartment building, smoking. We had not seen each other for a long time. He waved and I waved and started to go in. That was when he said he wanted t
o talk.
“I know you don’t like me,” he said. “And I know Annie doesn’t like me either.”
He sucked the last bit of smoke out of his cigarette before putting it out on the sidewalk, under his foot.
“You want to steal her from Gert,” I said. “You are his enemy and also my enemy.”
“Yeah,” Alf said. “I’m such a stupid asshole that I got a black eye from trying to stop him from beating her.”
“He wasn’t going to beat her. Shut up.”
That was when AK47 arrived, holding bags of groceries, and Alf tried to help her. She did not want his help and pulled the bags away from him when he tried to grab them.
“I got it,” she said.
“Well, let me get the door at least,” he said.
He jogged in front of AK47 and opened the door for her, into the part of the apartment building with the mailboxes and the intercom. “I was just telling Zelda here that even though you don’t like me, I’m always looking out for her.”
AK47 put the wrong key into the door and swore to herself, not listening to Alf. He had his key ready and when she took the wrong key out of the lock, he stuck his in and opened it.
“Because that doesn’t sound creepy at all,” AK47 said, and walked quickly inside while Alf held the door.
Alf held the door for me and I walked by and shrugged. I knew that Alf wanted her to stop and we both knew that if AK47 did not want to stop, there was going to be no stopping her.
She was already pressing the button on the elevator.
“Can I just say something?” Alf asked.
“Not now,” AK47 said. “Let’s go, Zee.”
The doors of the elevator opened. All three of us got in. Alf stood on one side of the elevator and AK47 stood on the other. I was in between them and it felt weird, since usually it is Gert on one side and AK47 on the other. The elevator shook and started going up.
But Alf held the button of the elevator.
“I’ll mace the shit out of you,” AK47 said, and pressed the button for the elevator to start up again. The walls made a groan and it started moving again.
When We Were Vikings Page 24