“Yeah?” Viviani asked despite herself.
“Yes, ma’am. He puffed up large, up, up, up like a balloon, and I could tell he was about to propel a huge cloud of poisonous ink my way, so instead, I covered up his blowhole with my very own lips—”
“You put your lips on a giant poisonous squid.” Viviani placed her fist on her hip. “Don’t squid have multiple blowholes, anyways?”
“Now, listen up, Firecracker. I covered up his blowhole, and when I saw he was about to explode with ink, I blew with all my might, like he was a big ol’ trombone. You know what happened next?”
“What?” Viviani couldn’t resist asking.
“He imploded!” Papa said, in an of course tone of voice. Viviani giggled.
“Nearly died that day, I did. I couldn’t see anything in that inky water. Only found my way to the surface by following the bubbles of air up. But I lived to tell the tale.”
They moved to the next task: nailing down loose floorboards. Viviani was lost in thought as Papa stepped on the floorboards and they creaked, moaned. She had to admit they did sound ghostly.
“Papa,” Viviani said slowly, toting his heavy toolbox.
“Yeah?”
“What’s the difference between a storyteller and a liar?”
Papa laughed at first, then realized his daughter was serious. “That’s a good question. Did you know that used to be, long, long ago, the words history and story meant the same thing? Think about it: his-story. Then someone came along and thought it might be good to separate the two and distinguish fact from fiction. Probably a good thing, but just goes to show how closely related those two things really are.”
Viviani sighed. She knew the two were related. The magic they shared was quite apparent to her, thank you very much.
“Not the answer you were looking for, eh, Firecracker?” Papa said. “Let me give it some more thought.”
Viviani and her papa painted walls and fixed the pulley on a dumbwaiter and fished a clump of gum from the water fountain. The lion hanging over it was practically frowning until the drain was cleared; then, Viviani imagined, when it was fixed, he went back to sleep, purring. Viv and her papa wound the clocks, and they cleaned and polished the pneumatic tubes. Last, they unclogged toilets.
“This is worse than prison,” Viviani said, her lip curled while plunging the pot.
“Ah, but no! Let me tell you a little story about prison. It all goes back to when I was a boxer. A real palooka, I was…,” Papa replied, and he shadowboxed, throwing punches and uppercuts into thin air, wearing his rubbery work gloves and flinging toilet water about. Viviani laughed and forgot all about the smell and the stink and the ick. Papa’s stories could do that.
After a day of fix-its and storytelling, Viviani was feeling less like a fizzle and more like a flame again.
“Last chore, Firecracker,” Papa said, squeezing her in a sideways hug. “Gotta stoke the furnace.”
Viviani’s stomach lurched. “The furnace?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“The one in the basement?”
“That’s the one.”
“I’m not allowed in there.”
“You are when you’re with me.”
The two wound down, down the cold, hard staircase while Viviani’s heartbeat sped up, up. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled, and her skin grew cold and goose bumpy. “Papa, I—”
“Come on in,” he said, flinging open the door. The air was gritty, strung with shadows. The furnace hissed like a black cat, and Viviani jumped.
Papa unclicked the latch, and the door creaked open. Dry heat blasted their faces, dried out their eyes. Viviani knotted her fingers.
“The shovel, Viv?”
She shook her head. The coal shovel was in the dark corner, unseen.
Papa sighed. “Viviani. Please get the shovel.”
Viviani stayed glued to the spot. The heavy door clanged shut behind her.
Her father knelt. “Viviani,” he said. “Are you feeling scared right now?”
Viviani nodded. Her heart raced.
“I heard Merit talking to you in your room last night. Think about how scared you are right now—that’s how you purposely tried to make your friend Merit feel. You can tell stories all you want, my love. But you can’t do it with malice. You asked earlier what makes the difference between a liar and a storyteller?”
Viviani nodded slowly, tears stinging her eyes.
“I believe it’s intent. What you intend to do with your stories. If your plan all along was to scare Merit, well…” He sighed. “You’re not a liar, Viviani. But you did do something dishonest.”
Viviani couldn’t swallow past the lump in her throat.
“I owe Merit a huge apology,” Viviani said, sniffling.
Papa folded Viviani into a warm, strong hug.
The door of the furnace room pounded open. Viviani jolted and whirled toward the entrance.
There stood Mr. Green.
“John!” he said, panting. He’d obviously been running. “Come quick! The stamps—they’re missing!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Crime Scenes,
Dewey Decimal 363.25
SEE ALSO: thievery, criminal investigation
I hope you’ve never had the extreme misfortune to witness a tornado, Friend. They are swirling, dirty, dangerous things, and they pick up even the heaviest objects—cows! cars!—and toss them about willy-nilly. And once they’ve passed, they leave a trail of garbage and debris in their wake.
That is what the third-floor display room looked like at the moment.
The clear cases were shattered, shards of glass sprinkling the floor like dangerous diamonds. The cleaning crew, led by Mr. Green and a couple of librarians, were blocking off the area until the police arrived. The panic in the room pulsed like a huge, throbbing heartbeat.
“Those stamps were priceless! Priceless!” Miss O’Conner muttered, her glasses barely clinging to the tip of her nose.
“Oh, poor Mr. Smyth is going to be so upset!” another librarian said.
Viviani missed the Inverted Jenny already. It was like a friend moving away. Without saying goodbye.
“See the tape?” Mr. Leon, the daytime guard, said, pointing to the case. The glass had remnants of sticky goo smudged on it in several spots. “That clear stuff—it’s new. You don’t see that stuff everywhere. The thief knew to use it to keep the sound muffled, so no one would hear the glass breaking. And the timing. It was almost as if the thief knew Mr. Eames’s routine down to his every footfall. The person who did this? They knew exactly what they were doing and how to sneak around the library.”
Mr. Green’s gaze shifted onto Viviani. He’d caught her doing exactly that just hours ago. She gulped.
Miss O’Conner stood nearby, toe tapping. “Missing, just like those picture books. Someone is having a time in this library, indeed.”
Viviani couldn’t help but think the comment was directed at her.
Mr. Leon coughed. “A couple of missing picture books hardly compares to these stamps, Miss O’Conner.”
Her eyes went wide behind her spectacles. “Is that so? Perhaps monetarily they differ. But picture books build readers, Mr. Leon. Two missing books from our collection is like two missing bricks from a cathedral.” She crammed those glasses up the bridge of her nose so hard, Viviani thought surely she’d embedded them in her flesh permanently.
Mr. Eames, Viviani’s night guard friend, the keeper of the Master Thief tally, paced the room, knotting and unknotting his fingers. “I didn’t hear a thing,” he muttered. “I didn’t see anything, I didn’t hear anything.…”
Viviani crossed over to him. “Mr. Eames?” He stopped pacing and smiled weakly at her. Today’s bow tie was a cheery red plaid. “Are you okay?”
“I think … I think I’m going to lose my job, Viviani.”
Viviani’s heart twisted. Mr. Eames had a wife, two kids, and three grandkids at home. He needed every penny of his salary!
> Mr. Leon circled the wreckage, looking at the ceiling, the doors, shining a weak flashlight beam everywhere, even though sunshine streamed through the windows. “Yes, the burglar knew exactly where to go. Whoever knows how to wander the building like this at night is most certainly the thief.”
Viviani’s head swirled like the tornado of chaos she saw in front of her.
And by the way Mr. Green glared at her, she knew he thought she was responsible.
Dear Friend,
The stamps are missing—gone!—and my terrible day just got terribler and terribler. After talking to Mr. Green, Dr. Anderson marched up to Papa and said, “Would your children know anything about this, Fedeler?”
There were some mumblings, some head nods—the kinds of things adults do when they don’t want kids to hear. But I did catch Dr. Anderson telling Papa, “If you find out your children are involved in any way, Fedeler, you’ll lose your job, you know.”
Papa straightened and nodded. “I know.”
Friend, if a person could fly just by blinking, I’d be in China after that; I blinked back that many tears overhearing those words.
Our dinner tonight was question after question after question, and John Jr., Edouard, and I told them everything we knew. We even brought them to the spot where we heard the moaning the night before (yes, I trembled like a malt machine, but I did it). We found nothing.
Nothing.
Mr. Eames might lose his job.
Papa might lose his job.
Papa losing his job is worse than him being out of work.
Papa losing his job means that we’ll lose our home.
I’ll lose the library.
I have to find out what happened.
I’m going to find out who—or WHAT—took those stamps.
I just hope Big Red stays out of our way.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Suspects,
Dewey Decimal 364.15
SEE ALSO: accused, guilty, criminal behavior
A LIST OF SUSPECTS by Viviani Joffre Fedeler
1. MR. EAMES. He does have access, but nah—far too nice. Although he does seem to know a lot about Master Thief …
2. MR. LEON? Mr. Eames once told me the night shift makes more money than the day shift. Could he be after Mr. Eames’s job?
3. THE DOUGHNUT SISTERS! Hoo boy, those ladies hate those stamps!
4. MR. SMYTH? Papa told a story once where the owner “stole” his own stuff to get “insurance money.” (Note to self: ask what this is.)
5. DR. ANDERSON. He sure seemed to know exactly how much money those stamps were worth and seemed awfully impressed by it.
6. ANY. Mr. Wilburforce, maybe. Or that Miss O’Conner. No one ever suspects a librarian.
7. JAKE JOSEPH. Only kidding, of course. Still mad at him for that whole snowball thing.
8. CARROLL CASE? It’s ridiculous, but he’s the only one of us who is not family and who wasn’t with me the whole time. Because it couldn’t be …
9. EVA OR MERIT? Eva, impossible. IMPOSSIBLE. Even less likely than Mr. Eames. But Merit … maybe she wanted to get back at me? She went to the restroom once, but was it long enough to steal the stamps? Highly doubtful.
10. BIG RED?!?!?!
11. MR. GREEN. *** MOST LIKELY SUSPECT #1!!! HIM telling on US is a great cover-up. Plus no one ever hears him, and he’s up to something with that locked closet of his. Just watch, Friend. It’s time to catch a thief.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Negotiation,
Dewey Decimal 303.69
SEE ALSO: conflict management, conflict resolutions
As the daughter of the library superintendent, Viviani had seen things get fixed her whole life: a burned-out bulb? Screw in a new one. A fizzled fuse? Replace it. A loose bolt? Tighten it.
Fix. Repair. Strengthen.
And so, Viviani Joffre Fedeler knew that this situation—the missing stamps, the furious friends—needed fixing. But she couldn’t do it alone. She needed help. And the more she thought about it, she knew she needed the help of someone as brave and as fearless as herself.
She needed Merit.
* * *
Eva told Viviani that Merit’s apartment was a block and a half past the school and several blocks down First Avenue. The low gray sky was spitting snow, and the ice pellets stung Viviani’s cheeks as she walked the cold, wide sidewalks. She huddled into the prickly fox fur collar on her coat. As Viviani got closer to Merit’s building, her skin felt electrified with the constant hum of the Edison power plants lined up like soldiers along the East River. Black coal smoke churned into the air, and she soon felt covered in grit.
Merit’s apartment was located between a house sporting a sign that read RUSSIAN & TURKISH BATHS & HEALTH CLUB SINCE 1892 (Viv could hear Mama gasp from here) and a set of musky-smelling horse stables. As she wound her way up the creaky wooden stairs to the sixth floor, she smelled meat frying, heard the sizzle and clank of fire and pans. Her stomach grumbled. She knocked.
A little girl who looked a lot like Merit swung open the door. She blinked up at Viviani. Viv gave her warmest smile.
“Is your big sister here?”
The girl shrugged.
“Eshe! Who is it?”
Merit’s mother rounded the corner, wiping her hands on an apron. Viviani had never seen a lovelier woman: stunning and strong, with thick black hair piled atop her head. Mrs. Mubarak wore a colorful dress that reminded Viviani of the illustrations found in books about botanical flowers. She smiled at Viviani. “Can I help you?”
“I’m here to see Merit, ma’am. I’m—” Viviani paused and, for the first time ever, thought introducing herself by name might not be a good idea. “I’m a schoolmate of Merit’s.”
“A schoolmate. I see. Have a seat. I’ll get Merit. Would you like some kofta?”
“If that’s what smells so amazing, then absolutely.”
Mrs. Mubarak laughed, which made Viviani feel like she was passing through a ray of sunshine. “It is. I’ll get you some.”
She swept back to the kitchen. Viviani perched on the edge of the couch and glanced around the room: a fire danced in the fireplace, a kitten purred on a cushion nearby. It was warm, and light, and every inch was covered with pillows and blankets. The library was magical and luxurious and all, but … here was all fluff and cotton and cush.
Until Merit entered.
Merit’s eyes dashed around the room, as though she were embarrassed by it. Then she crossed her arms.
“What do you want, Red?” Her voice stung like the ice pellets falling from the gray skies outside. Viviani knew Merit was making a dig at how Viv had turned out to be the ghost. At least, that’s what Merit thought.
Viviani sighed. “You. I want your help. And please don’t call me Red anymore.”
“I think you can find someone else to help. Your brothers seem all too willing.”
Viviani shook her head. “Not on this. They don’t love those stamps like we do.”
“The stamps? What happened?”
As Viviani explained about the missing stamp collection, Merit slowly, carefully sat opposite her, eyes widening.
“They’re—gone?” Merit asked. “The Inverted Jenny, too?”
“Yep. All of them. Stolen.”
At that moment, Mrs. Mubarak returned with a plate of steaming kofta. Viviani lifted a skewer and took a bite of the meat. “Wow! What are these called again? Heaven on a stick?”
Merit’s lips pulled to the side of her face to hold back her laughter because she didn’t wish to give Viviani the satisfaction of chuckling at her joke. Mrs. Mubarak laughed, though. “Kofta. Here, let me get you some basbousa, too.”
Viviani looked over her shoulder, making sure Mrs. Mubarak was well behind the swinging kitchen door, out of earshot. “I need your help, Merit,” Viviani whispered. “I want to figure out who did this. I need to do this for”—her voice faltered—“for my papa.”
Merit chewed her bottom lip, played with her l
eft earring. Viviani had envied those pierced ears since the first time she saw them. Viviani Joffre Fedeler wasn’t used to the uncomfortable itchiness of envy.
“Merit,” she said, inhaling deeply. Then the words tumbled out like pages fanning by in a thumbed paperback: “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I tried to trick you. It was wrong. I thought it’d be fun. I thought I’d show you how much fun it can be to believe in something with your heart, even though you don’t believe it with your head. I wanted to show you the difference between a lie and a story. And, well … it ended up still being a lie.”
Merit’s eyes softened. Mrs. Mubarak showed up just then and placed a huge piece of yellow cake in front of Viv. It smelled sweet, like roses, and it tasted like honey and spun sunshine.
“Mrs. Mubarak!” Viviani said around a mouthful of food, forgetting her manners entirely. “This is amazing! Can you please give my mama this recipe? She’s a great cook—I know she’d love this!”
“I’d be happy to!” Mrs. Mubarak smiled and scooped up Merit’s little sister, who Viviani had forgotten was nearby. Eshe was so quiet. Not like Viv’s siblings at all!
Merit finished her piece of cake and stood. “Mama, I’m going to walk Viviani home. We have things to talk about.”
The two girls bundled and double-bundled and walked through the sleet back to the library. Outside the massive building, Merit paused and placed her hand on one of the lions, now gathering ice in its mane.
“That’s Leo Lenox,” Viviani said. “Named after one of the guys who started the library. Papa won’t let us have a dog or a cat in the building, so I kinda think of him as my pet.”
Merit nodded and stroked the stone lion. Maybe Viviani’s imagination was winning her over?
Viviani stroked his mane, too. “I like to think he’s out here with his brother, Leo Astor over there, making sure all of New York is protected and safe.”
“He didn’t do a very good job last night.”
“No. Lions sleep, too, sometimes.”
“A catnap, then,” Merit said, and Viviani burst out laughing. Her heart filled with hope that Merit was coming around.
Merit sighed and looked up at the six huge columns on the front of the library, lined up like books on shelves. “Listen, Viviani: I’m still not sure if we can be friends. You lied to me and tricked me. But I’ll do it. I’ll help you find that thief.”
The Story Collector--A New York Public Library Book Page 11