The Story Collector--A New York Public Library Book

by Kristin O'Donnell Tubb

  “That camera really is something,” Viviani interrupted.

  Merit smiled at her through the throng. “Thank you, Viviani. I really love taking pictures.”

  Viviani nodded. “Because then you have all your adventures and memories saved forever.”

  Merit blinked and shook her head ever so slightly. “Yes, but that’s not why I like it. I like it because photographs capture the truth. You can’t lie on film. Not like you can in stories.”

  Viviani felt heat rise behind her cheeks. Here was Merit, calling her a liar again. And after Viviani had been so nice to her. Their classmates apparently caught that, too, because murmurs and giggles rippled through the crowd.

  And so once again, Viviani’s mouth said words before her brain had finished thinking them. “Why don’t you come to the library for a sleepover during winter break? You can bring that camera to capture a picture of Big Red. The library once had a whole exhibit on spirit photography. Maybe you can photograph our ghost.”

  “Oh,” a classmate whispered.

  “Impossible,” said another.

  “That sounds dangerous,” Eva chimed in.

  Merit smiled. “Excellent idea. If my camera caught a picture of Big Red, then I’d believe you. Photographs never lie.”

  Viviani’s heart sank. The glimmer of friendship she thought she’d seen earlier got snuffed out like a candle, and all that was left was smelly, smoky char. Just when Viviani was starting to like Merit, Merit had to go and make herself unlikable again.

  “Good, I’ll see you there.” Viviani walked off with her head held high, but her stomach knotted with worry. Winter break was only two days away. The very idea of trying to capture a photo of Big Red made her insides feel all twisty. Sure, Viviani had seen shifting shadows, felt cold shivers, and heard strange drips and thumps and bumps that could be a hammer, but a photograph couldn’t capture that. Could a ghost like Big Red even be photographed?

  Viviani knew if a ghost didn’t appear, she’d be branded a liar for sure. No one would ever listen to her stories again.

  At the sound of the school bell, Viviani cracked her knuckles and muttered to herself, “Well, I guess I’m going to have to give her something to photograph, then.”

  Eva, ever close, overheard Viviani’s mutterings. “That definitely sounds dangerous.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Journal Keeping,

  Dewey Decimal 808.02

  SEE ALSO: diary authorship

  Viviani tapped her forehead. She had a big puzzle to solve, maybe the biggest she’d ever had to figure out. How does one summon a ghost?

  Viviani did all the things that usually got her brain ticking. She paced the long aisles between stacks of musty-smelling books, running her fingers over their dusty leather spines. She zipped her fingernails over the cards in the card catalog, skipped rope in the map room, and tipped upside down into a handstand against the circulation desk, leaving footprints on the carved wooden wall. She conversed with the dozens of oil portraits hanging in the galleries: “Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth, you made up lots of stories. What do you think I should do?” “Ben, did you ever get yourself into such a pickle?” “George—I can call you that, right, General Washington? George, I could use some of that wisdom of yours right now.”

  But nothing clicked into place. She decided to visit the Inverted Jenny for inspiration, but when she got there, she wasn’t alone.

  “Viviani! How’s the story collecting going?” Mr. Hill smiled.

  Viviani scowled. “I’m quitting that.”

  Mr. Hill blinked. “I’m not so sure it’s a choice.”

  It was Viviani’s turn to blink. “What do you mean?”

  “You could argue the objects choose the collector, as much as the collector chooses the objects. Just like I can’t help but collect bad luck!”

  Viviani’s scowl deepened further still. One might even call it a pucker. “Maybe your bad luck has rubbed off on me. Lately my stories have gotten me nowhere good. I’ve decided I’m quitting stories.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” Mr. Hill shook his head. Then he brightened. “But I have just the thing!” He reached into the pocket of his terrible green coat and pulled out a book.

  “Another story? That’s not exactly what a story quitter needs, Mr. Hill.”

  Mr. Hill flipped open the book and held it out to Viviani. “Not a book. A blank book. This one’s for your story, Viviani.”

  Viviani eyed the blank pages and felt her stomach tighten. Would she even have a story worth telling? One that wouldn’t land her in a heap of trouble?

  Mr. Hill seemed to understand her hesitation. “Think of it like a diary.”

  “Me? Keep a diary? Not this girl.”

  “I see. It’s your captain’s log in that case.”

  “Captain’s log?” Viviani’s interest piqued.

  Mr. Hill held it out further. “This is simply where you record your thoughts, Viviani. Your days. It’s not supposed to be perfect. It’s supposed to be you.”

  “Well, that’s good. I’m kinda far from perfect.”

  Viviani took the book. The cover was smooth brown leather, soft like buttery velvet. It even had a long leather cord to bind it shut. And the pages! Creamy, thick, and empty. Viviani’s fingers suddenly itched to put her pen nib to this page, to create stories that would sing and dance and kick and tumble and juggle. She’d make this her word playground, a playground safe from name-calling and whispers and hurt.

  Her eyes stung. “Are you sure this is for me?”

  “It’s just an old journal I had lying around.” Mr. Hill waved her off. “Don’t you worry about that. I can’t stand the thought of your stories coming to The End.”

  * * *

  Later that night, after everyone was asleep, Viviani snuggled into her covers and brought out the book and her favorite ink pen. She licked the pen and began to write.

  Dear

  Viviani paused. She didn’t like the idea of Dear Diary, not one bit. So sappy. But Dear Captain’s Log sounded silly, too, and all storytellers know the importance of choosing the right word. At last, she decided:

  Dear Friend,

  My name is Viviani Joffre Fedeler, and I have an antagonist. But here’s the thing. She’s not a mustache-twirling, head-thrown-back-with-laughter kind of villain like Shere Khan or Dracula. No, this one … well, I’d like her as a friend if she wasn’t so darn aggravating! Merit likes photography and she’s owned camels and she even has pierced ears! And now, now, I’ve promised to show her a ghost. How am I supposed to do that, Friend? How will this story end? (Foreshadowing: it doesn’t look good.…)

  Viviani chewed on her pen, leaving ink smudges on her cheeks. What she needed were some good, scary ideas. The writer Geoffrey Crayon leapt to mind. Mr. Crayon was, of course, actually the pen name of Washington Irving, who knew all about chilling things like Rip Van Winkle and the Headless Horseman. He’d created quite a bit of heart-pounding terror with his stories.

  She wrote down her favorite quote from him:

  I am always at a loss to know how much to believe of my own stories.

  Viviani tapped the smooth paper with her pen nib, leaving behind small splashes of ink that looked like spiders. “Me, too, Mr. Crayon. Me, too.”

  Big Red was real, Viv was sure of it. But how would Merit believe it without seeing it? She had to see it. Viv kept writing:

  HOW TO SEE A GHOST:

  —Invent special ghost-seeing glasses.

  —Coat it in flour to see it.

  —Summon it with a séance?!

  (No way Eva will do this.…)

  —Lure it with candy.

  —Make one up.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Stage Presentations,

  Dewey Decimal 792.02

  SEE ALSO: theater, juvenile; musicals, juvenile

  Make one up! That’s it! It was an aha moment for Viviani. She was excellent at making things up. Viviani couldn’t guarantee that t
he real Big Red would show up on the night of the sleepover, but she could give Merit the experience nonetheless.

  First things first: The next morning, Viviani ran to Mama, who was wringing laundry through the hand-cranked iron washer. She helped pin three pieces of clothes on the line that hung down the length of their apartment hallway before she asked, “Mama, can I have a sleepover Sunday night?”

  “Ah, I knew I wasn’t getting your help for nothing,” Mama said. “Red, you’re just barely on the other side of the last time you got in trouble.”

  “But I am on the other side, Mama! I’m free—I made it!” Viviani stretched out her arms, palms up, and her mother laughed.

  “It’s this girl at school,” Viviani continued. “Merit. She’s new to America, and I promised I’d show her around the libr—”

  “Yes,” Viv’s mother said, huffing a curl off her forehead. “Of course.” If there was one thing Cornelia Fedeler understood, it was coming to America friendless. She’d been that very girl herself years before. Viviani had heard Mama’s stories of arriving from Colombia not knowing a soul.

  Next, Viv knew she needed help to carry out her plan. She set off in search of reinforcements.

  “Please please please, Eva? I don’t want to have a sleepover without you.”

  Eva sighed. “It’ll never work. No way.”

  “Please please please, Edouard? Nobody can come up with a plan like you.”

  He eventually put down his book and declared, “It’ll work, with the right preparation.”

  “Please please please, John? Nobody knows this library at night like you.”

  John Jr. grinned. “It’ll work, but I’m bringing Carroll, too.”

  It was decided that they needed a headquarters where they could discuss their plan. So after school, all three Fedeler children plus one reluctant Eva followed Carroll down West Forty-Fourth to his home in the Algonquin Hotel, where his father was head chef. They passed under the green awnings outside and through the double glass doors into the elaborate lobby, stuffed with couches and mirrors and dark wood and tall palm trees in planters. They weaved through the dining area, where one table of guests still sat, despite the empty plates and glasses and dirty napkins that indicated their meal had ended hours before.

  “Carroll!” the guests called in unison, jovial and smiling, raising their glasses. One woman with dark bobbed hair, a pearl necklace, and a grin like a blade slice waved them over. “Join us!”

  Viviani knew, from events at the library and from Carroll’s stories, that this group of people was the Algonquin Round Table, some of America’s finest novelists, playwrights, and theater critics. They met here every day to brainstorm, laugh, and talk about art. Normally, Viviani would leap at a chance to be so close to such famous storytellers. But today, she was on a mission to craft her own story.

  Carroll waved. “Can’t today, Mrs. Parker. My friends and I are working on a project. For, uh, school.”

  “See there, Dorothy,” one man said, laying a hand on Mrs. Parker’s shoulder. “You’re so far gone, innocence won’t even rub elbows with you.” The woman playfully shoved the fellow while the rest of the table howled with laughter.

  Carroll laughed and kept walking. As Viv turned to follow, she heard the woman pick up the previous conversation: “As I was saying, ridicule may be a shield, but it is not a weapon.”

  “It is in a schoolyard,” Viviani said, before her brain could stop her. If she hadn’t been stabbed by Merit’s accusation, she doubted she’d be here, cooking up an elaborate scheme to produce a ghost.

  Dorothy Parker’s eyes shone. “Touché! All the niceties of society disappear in a schoolyard. Here’s to you surviving that barbarism, kids. Total anarchy.” She raised a glass to toast Viviani, who smiled and tipped her own imaginary glass.

  The group swung through the huge kitchen on their route through the hotel and waved hello to Carroll’s father. Carroll plucked a tray of petit fours from a tabletop, spun, and swooped up a tray of tiny biscuits topped with salmon, cream cheese, and chives.

  John Jr.’s eyes widened. “Nobody has better snacks than Carroll.”

  They swung through doors on the other side of the kitchen, down a narrow back hallway, and into a meeting room. It was windowless and quiet, with a massive mahogany table and loads of spinning, wheeled chairs. It was the perfect place to hatch their plan. This would be a production of sorts, just like the playwright Edna Ferber, outside right now at that lunch table, might create. At least, that’s what Viviani told herself.

  Viviani opened her captain’s log to her plan and smoothed the page:

  CREATING A GHOST:

  —Practice spooky moans

  —Come up with a disguise—red beard?! Sheet? COVERALLS!

  —Find a hammer

  —Get a flashlight

  —Smoke—maybe from cigarettes?

  (Eva crossed that one off right away.)

  —Smoke—maybe from cigarettes?

  —Remember to turn down furnace that afternoon so it’s COLD! BRRRRRR!

  Viviani had also drawn a map of the basement, which was the creepiest place in the library and where they had last seen the ghost. It also helped that it was the spot farthest away from where her parents might be.

  As soon as Viviani shared her ideas, John Jr. took charge. He grabbed the list and scrawled firecrackers! at the bottom, which Viviani promptly crossed out. “Are you a complete knucklehead?”

  “Aw shucks, Red. I’d never actually do it. But, boy, have I ever wanted to. Can you imagine the bang in that big, hollow space?”

  He and Carroll shared a devious look.

  “Slap me some skin,” Carroll said, just like Al Jolson did in his movies. John Jr. slid his palm over Carroll’s.

  John Jr. then gave everyone a role, told them where they were supposed to be and when, what to say and what to wear—he was a real pro.

  “It’s almost like you’ve tricked someone like this before, John,” said Edouard, his eyes narrowing.

  John winked and pretended to twirl a mustache. “Leave it to me. We’ll give Merit a bit of a scare. Nothing wrong with a harmless little trick.”

  “Not a trick!” Viviani said quickly, spinning in her meeting-room chair. “Eva won’t play along if it’s tricking.”

  Eva nodded vigorously and shot a look at the rest of the group.

  “It’s not tricking—” Viviani searched for the right word. “It’s—”

  “Duping.” Carroll grinned.

  “Fooling!” John Jr. added.

  “Conning,” Edouard said.

  “Performing!” Viviani said. “Just like a play.”

  But Viviani was too late. Eva was already gathering her schoolbag and headed out the door.

  “It’s not nice, whatever name you call it.” Eva looked at Viviani with shining eyes. “Viv, count me out. You’re going to have to do this one without me.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Carousels,

  Dewey Decimal 745.592

  SEE ALSO: merry-go-rounds, amusement parks

  Dear Friend,

  Never in all my cockamamie ideas has Eva said, “Do this without me.” I’ve never done anything without her by my side. We’re not tricking Merit; we’re just opening her world—how sad, to dismiss all stories as lies. Merit sees everything as stacks of atoms and molecules, something you can capture in a photograph. I see the world as stacks of words and stories, something that can never fully be captured. Not everything has to be proved to be believed! I can understand why her world works that way. It makes sense—it’s orderly and organized. But why can’t she understand my world, too?

  * * *

  The following day after school, instead of walking home, Viviani was determined to make Eva smile. Their last conversation at the hotel had been as uncomfortable as sand in swim clothes, and Viv wanted Eva to see the sunshine of the situation instead. She tugged Eva to the trolley stop at Third and Forty-Second. “Come on,” she said. “We’re off
icially on winter break! Let’s go to Central Park and celebrate.”

  The trolley clanged to a stop in front of them, its metal wheels screeching on the tracks embedded in the road. The trolley was a box on wheels, essentially, with wide, low windows. It was propelled by swaying, zippy electrical lines overhead. Viv and Eva hauled themselves up the metal stairs. Viv dropped two nickels into the box near the trolley driver, and he swung the iron cage door shut behind them with the huge lever at his side. The streetcar moved slowly, humans and automobiles dashing ahead, New York City propelled by a zippiness all its own.

  The air was cold and crisp, but the sun was shining, and Viviani and Eva clung to the trolley with one hand, hanging off the back side, casting long, wintry shadows on the street. Viviani stretched farther and farther out over the tracks, hanging on with just one hand.

  “Viv, stop!” Eva said.

  Viviani grinned at her. “Can’t. I’m training to grab the brass ring.” It was rather like saying, I’m training for the Boston Marathon or I’m training to spend all the money my rich, estranged uncle will bequeath me when he dies. Sure, those things sometimes happen to regular people, but c’mon! The brass ring! It was part of a carousel game, and it was small, not even as big as a bracelet, and hung off a metal arm jutting from a pole. Carousel riders on the outer horses tried to grab the ring while spinning past, and it was always, always juuuuuust out of reach.

  “Yeah, okay,” Eva said, rolling her eyes. “Nobody grabs the brass ring. My dad says he thinks it’s nailed on its hook.”

  The trolley jerked, clanged its bell, and followed the tracks and wires all the way up to Columbus Circle. There, Viv and Eva hopped off before the trolley had completely stopped, much to the driver’s dismay.

  Central Park looked magical in winter: the bare tree limbs draped themselves in shimmery ice crystals, the snow piled like puffy clouds around trunks and rocks and statues. Viv and Eva wandered past the reservoir and the sheep meadow. (“Baaaaa!” shouted Viviani; “Baaaaa!” answered a sheep.) Past Umpire Rock and the sand garden, over and swish! down a spiral slide on the playground, and around the casino that John Jr. called a “whoopee joint.” They made their way to the carousel.