Escape From Mr. Lemoncello's Library

by Chris Grabenstein

  “Cool. I’m outta here. Win, baby, win!”

  Mike backpedaled out of the bedroom, making double fist pumps the whole way.

  “You have four minutes remaining,” advised Dr. Zinchenko.

  “Okay, Curtis, here’s my question. What do these authors have in common?”

  Kyle rattled off the list of the statues in order.

  And Curtis stared blankly into his computer cam.

  For a real long time.

  Then he shook his head. “I’m sorry, Kyle. I have no earthly idea.”

  “Really?” Kyle was astonished. “You’ve got nothing?”

  “Well,” said Curtis, “the only connection I can see is Thomas Wolfe wrote Look Homeward, Angel and Lewis Carroll wrote Through the Looking-Glass. Both titles have the word ‘look’ in them. But the two books are otherwise completely different. The two authors as well.”

  Kyle and his whole team stood in stunned silence.

  Until Sierra started jumping up and down.

  “Of course!” she shouted.

  “Your time is up,” announced Dr. Zinchenko.

  “Um, okay,” Kyle said to the computer screen. “Thanks, Curtis. That was, uh, really helpful.”

  “It was!” said Sierra, daintily clapping her hands together like a very polite seal. The computer screen faded to black.

  “What’s up?” asked Miguel.

  “I think I know how to crack the statue code.”

  “There’s a code?” said Akimi. “Who knew?”

  “It’ll take time,” said Sierra. “And I need a computer.”

  “Oh-kay,” said Kyle, who was sort of shocked to see Sierra so completely jazzed. “We’ll be in our meeting room, putting together a list of new Dewey decimal numbers from the Bibliomania cards so we’re ready to hit the ground running when the doors reopen at ten tomorrow morning.”

  While Sierra settled in at a desktop computer pad, the rest of the team returned to the Bibliomania board game.

  “We should just start flipping over cards and putting together a list of call numbers,” Kyle suggested.

  “Sounds like a plan,” said Akimi.

  She plucked a purple card out of the pile.

  Lose a Turn was all that was printed on the other side.

  “Try a different color,” urged Miguel.

  Akimi flipped up a blue card.

  Take an Extra Turn was printed on it. So Akimi flipped over all the other blue cards while Miguel flipped over all the purples.

  The purple cards all said Lose a Turn. The blue ones all said Take an Extra Turn.

  Kyle had been checking out the red and maroon piles.

  “The reds all say ‘Pick a Yellow Card,’ ” he reported. “The maroons say ‘Grab a Green.’ ”

  “The grays do the same thing,” said Miguel. “Only they say ‘Pick a Pink.’ The tan cards say ‘Go Grab an Orange.’ ”

  “So that leaves the colors we’ve already played.” Kyle flipped over a yellow card. “ ‘In the square root of 48,629.20271209 …’ ”

  “What the …?” said Akimi.

  “Hang on,” said Miguel. “There’s a calculator app in this desktop computer.”

  Kyle read the rest of the card: “… ‘find half of 4-40-30.’ ”

  “Well, that’s 2-20-15, again,” said Sierra.

  “And the square root of forty-eight thousand whatever is 220.5203,” said Miguel. “The King James Bible we already found.”

  Akimi flipped through the rest of the yellow cards. “Same with these. They all send us into the Religion section to find that Bible verse.”

  “Ditto with the greens,” reported Miguel. “All clues leading to Bird Songs, Warbles, and Whistles.”

  “And the pinks all lead back to 027.4,” said Kyle. “I guess they really wanted to make sure we found Get to Know Your Local Library.”

  “Which leaves the wild cards,” said Akimi. She examined the orange deck. “Find a rhyme for ‘cart and paperbacks,’ ‘smart and zodiacs,’ ‘tart and potato sacks.’ ”

  “The Art and Artifacts Room,” said Miguel with a sigh.

  “Where,” Akimi continued, “we need to find a rhyme for ‘Randy,’ ‘Sandy,’ or ‘Brandi.’ ”

  “The Willy Wonka candy,” said Miguel.

  “So,” said Kyle, “I’m guessing the Bibliomania game was only supposed to help us find the four clues we’ve already found.”

  “But we need to know more numbers,” said Miguel. “Because a library should be a know-place for know-bodies.”

  When Miguel made his pun, Kyle and Akimi both groaned.

  But then Kyle thought of something: “This is why Mr. Lemoncello called our time-out a bonus. He knew we’d need a ton of time to find a new source of numbers.”

  Just then Sierra burst into the meeting room.

  “You guys! I found a whole bunch of new numbers!”

  “What?” said Kyle, Akimi, and Miguel. “Where?”

  “Up on the ceiling!”

  “You need to look up at the Wonder Dome,” said Sierra.

  “Huh?” said Kyle.

  Sierra and her whole team were standing together outside the door to Community Meeting Room B. She hadn’t been this happy or excited in a long time.

  “Um, Sierra?” said Akimi. “Why exactly are you suggesting we all give ourselves a crick in the neck by staring at the ceiling?”

  “Okay. This is a game some of us play online called What’s the Connection? I put up a list of authors and you have to figure out how they’re linked by the titles of their books.”

  “Whoa,” said Akimi, sort of sarcastically. “Sounds like fun.”

  “It is. But believe me, it’s not easy.”

  “What’d you figure out?” asked Miguel.

  “Well, like Curtis said, Thomas Wolfe wrote Look Homeward, Angel and Lewis Carroll wrote Through the Looking-Glass. That got me thinking. And running computer searches. Stephen Sondheim wrote a book called Look, I Made a Hat. Maya Angelou wrote Even the Stars Look Lonesome, and Pseudonymous Bosch wrote This Isn’t What It Looks Like.”

  “They all have ‘look’ in the title,” said Kyle.

  “What about the other five authors?” asked Akimi. “Did they write ‘look’ books, too?”

  “No, they’re up there for a different word.”

  “Huh?”

  “Booker T. Washington wrote Up from Slavery and Shel Silverstein wrote Falling Up.”

  “And Dr. Seuss?” said Kyle.

  “Great Day for Up. George Orwell did Coming Up for Air, and Todd Strasser has a book called If I Grow Up.”

  “So the ten statues give us two words,” said Miguel.

  “Yep. ‘Look’ and ‘up.’ So I did. I looked up. At the Wonder Dome. There! Did you see it? That string of numbers that just drifted across the two hundreds screen under the Star of David?”

  “220.5203,” said Miguel.

  Akimi knuckle-punched Kyle in the arm. “This is just like that bonus code thingie you showed me on the school bus!”

  “Of course,” said Kyle. “This is a Lemoncello game. He always hides secret codes in screwy places. Way to go, Sierra!”

  “Thanks,” said Sierra, realizing how much more fun it was to play this kind of game with real friends instead of virtual ones on the Internet.

  “But we already found that same two hundreds number playing Bibliomania,” said Miguel.

  “True,” said Kyle. “Check out the sections for numbers the cards wouldn’t give us.”

  Everybody craned their necks and focused on the graphics swimming across the ten panels overhead.

  “Here comes another one!” said Sierra. “In the six hundreds. Right underneath the floating stethoscope.”

  “Got it!” said Kyle. “624.193.”

  “Whoo-hoo!” said Akimi.

  “Sierra, you’re my new hero,” said Kyle. “You saved the day.”

  Sierra blushed. “Thanks.”

  “The spinner,” said Akimi.

  “Huh
?” said Miguel.

  “That was another clue. The Bibliomania game was pointing us to the ceiling, too. Because in Dewey decimal mode, the Wonder Dome looks like a giant 3-D version of the board game’s spinner.”

  “Awesome, Sierra,” said Miguel. “Absolutely awesome.”

  Sierra and her teammates stared up at the ceiling for over an hour. At 12:30, they finally lay down on the floor so they wouldn’t cramp their neck muscles.

  Because every fifteen minutes, the animated ceiling looped through call numbers for every Dewey decimal room in the library.

  Except one.

  And then the sequence repeated itself.

  “How come there’s no three hundreds number?” said Miguel.

  “Probably because that’s the one book we really, really, really need,” said Kyle.

  “That Lemoncello,” said Akimi. “What a comedian.”

  Peering over the railing on the third-floor balcony at close to two a.m., Andrew Peckleman saw Sierra Russell sitting all alone in the Rotunda Reading Room.

  Andrew had spent the night on the third floor losing video games to Charles.

  And being reminded about how much he needed to break into Community Meeting Room B to “borrow” any clues Kyle Keeley’s team had gathered, to pay Charles back for wasting so much of “the team’s time” on the Anne of Green Gables clue due to his “foolish fear” of heights.

  Andrew had promised Charles he’d do whatever it took.

  “If anyone on Team Keeley is going to help us break into their headquarters,” Charles had said, “it will be the shy girl who is constantly reading. Have you noticed what Sierra Russell uses for a bookmark?”

  “No,” Andrew had honestly answered.

  “Her library card, which of course doubles as a key card for Meeting Room B. Find a way to borrow it.”

  “Isn’t that illegal?”

  “Of course not. This is a library. People borrow books, don’t they?”

  “Well, yeah …”

  “Did I mention that I have three thousand Facebook friends? Two thousand Twitter followers? Each and every one of them will hear what a weenie and wimp you are if you don’t do this thing to guarantee that our team wins.”

  So Andrew made his way down to the first floor.

  Sierra, as usual, was reading a book.

  As he moved closer, Andrew saw a flash of white.

  Charles was right. Sierra was using her shiny white library card to mark her place in the book’s pages.

  He made his way to the cluster of overstuffed reading chairs.

  “Good book?”

  His voice startled her.

  “Oh. Hello. Yes.”

  “Mind if I join you?” He slid into a crinkly leather seat opposite Sierra. “So, um, what’re you reading?”

  “Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator by Roald Dahl.”

  “Oh, yeah. I’ve heard about that book. Where’s the rest of your team?”

  “They went to bed. Want to get up bright and early. Before the doors on the second floor open again.”

  “Yeah. Haley and Charles conked out, too. Guess it’s just us bookworms, huh?”

  “Well, it is kind of late,” said Sierra. “I’m going to go upstairs and …”

  “May I take a look?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “At your book. I’ve never actually read it. I just tell people I have.”

  “Oh. Sure.” Sierra handed it to him.

  “Thank you.”

  Andrew flipped through the pages until he found the spot where Sierra had tucked in her library card. “Wouldn’t it be cool if this library had a flying elevator like in that Willy Wonka movie? Especially if you could use it to crash through the roof like Charlie and Wonka did. That’d be a pretty cool way to escape from the library, huh?”

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  That was when Andrew made the switch. He slipped his library card into Sierra’s book and palmed hers.

  Charles would be so proud of him!

  “So,” he said, closing the book, “did you ever read The Elevator Family?”

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  “It’s all about this family that lives in the elevator of a San Francisco hotel. And let’s just say, the book has its ups and its downs!”

  Andrew laughed hysterically, because it was one of the funniest jokes he knew. Sierra sort of chuckled. He handed back her book.

  Overhead, the Wonder Dome dissolved out of its Dewey decimal mode and, with a swirl of colors, became a bright green bedroom with a pair of red-framed windows looking out on a blue night sky with a full moon and a blanket of twinkling stars. In the great green room, there was a telephone, and a red balloon, and a picture of a cow jumping over the moon.

  The ceiling had become the bunny’s bedroom from Goodnight Moon.

  A quiet old lady bunny in a frumpy blue dress hopped into the Rotunda Reading Room. Two tiny cats followed her.

  “Great,” said Andrew. “Another stupid hologram.”

  “I think she’s cute,” said Sierra.

  “Hush,” said the bunny. “Goodnight clocks and goodnight socks. Goodnight, Sierra.”

  “Goodnight, Bunny.” Sierra took her book and headed upstairs.

  “Goodnight, Andrew,” said the bunny.

  “Right.”

  He pocketed the purloined library card. He couldn’t do anything with it right away. Not while the holographic bunny’s handlers were watching on the spy cameras.

  But first thing in the morning …

  “Goodnight old bunny saying hush,” he called out.

  And then, under his breath, he muttered, “In the morning, our competition we’re gonna crush.”

  Up bright and early the next morning, Kyle made his way across the Rotunda Reading Room.

  It was eight-fifteen. The Dewey decimal doors would open in one hour and forty-five minutes. The game would be over in less than four hours.

  Kyle was totally pumped.

  Sierra Russell, on the other hand, was sitting in a comfy chair reading a book. “Hey,” said Kyle.

  “Hi,” said Sierra, stifling a small yawn.

  “Did you stay up all night reading?”

  “No. I went upstairs around two. But there was a new stack of books on the librarian’s desk when I came down.”

  “Oh, really? What’d you find?”

  “Five copies of this.”

  She showed Kyle her book. It was The Eleventh Hour: A Curious Mystery.

  “It’s a rhyming picture book about Horace the Elephant’s eleventh birthday party and the search to find out who ran off with all the food. There are hidden messages and cryptic codes all over the pages.”

  “Why’s it called The Eleventh Hour?”

  “The birthday feast was supposed to take place at eleven a.m. But since somebody stole all the food …”

  Kyle laughed. “Eleven a.m.”

  “What?”

  “The eleventh hour! The last possible moment.” Kyle nudged his head up at the Wonder Dome. “How much do you want to bet that at eleven o’clock, on the dot, the clue we need most of all will pop up in the three hundreds section?”

  Sierra smiled. “So this new book is a clue about our clue?”

  “That’s my guess. Did you eat breakfast?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Well, what are you waiting for?” said Miguel as he strode into the room. “Today’s the big day. We’re gonna need our energy for the final sprint.”

  “He’s right,” said Akimi, climbing down the spiral staircase. “The doors open in less than two hours. Then we only have two more hours to figure everything out.”

  “But,” said Kyle to his other teammates, “Sierra just figured out when we’ll get the big three hundreds clue.” He gestured toward the picture book. “At the last possible minute.”

  “What?” said Akimi. “Eleven-fifty-nine?”

  “Close. Eleven o’clock.”

  “Awesome,” said Miguel. “It must be a
very good clue.”

  Kyle and his team went into the café, where they found Haley Daley seated at a table, eating half a grapefruit and staring blankly through the glass walls into the rotunda.

  “Hey, Haley,” said Kyle. “How’s it going?”

  “Not bad. You?”

  “Good. Win or lose, we’re having a blast.”

  “We’re the fun bunch,” said Akimi.

  “You guys really get along, huh?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Sierra. “I haven’t had this much fun since I was six.”

  “Seriously?”

  “What’s the matter, Haley?” said Akimi. “Life not so good on Team Charles?”

  “It’s okay, I guess. I mean, we’ve pulled together some good clues and all.…”

  “Well,” said Miguel, “if you ever want to switch sides, we’re always looking for new members.”

  “Can I do that? Just switch sides? Even though I know everything about what Team Charles did all day yesterday?”

  “I think so,” said Kyle. “I mean, there was nothing in the rules about teams.”

  “Huh,” said Haley. “And Andrew’s teamed up with you guys, too?”

  “No,” said Kyle.

  Haley nodded toward the wall of windows behind Kyle. “Then why’d he just swipe his library card and go into your meeting room?”

  Zipping across the slick marble floor, Kyle and his team, trailed by Haley, practically slid into Community Meeting Room B.

  Where Andrew Peckleman stood with a notepad jotting down everything that was written on the whiteboard walls.

  “Hey!” shouted Akimi. “That’s cheating!”

  Andrew spun around.

  His eyes were the size of tennis balls behind his goggle glasses.

  “Uh, uh, uh,” he sputtered. “You guys left the door open!”

  “No we did not,” said Kyle extremely calmly, especially considering how much he wanted to throttle Peckleman. “It locks automatically; I checked.”

  “And I double-checked the door before we went to bed,” said Miguel.

  Kyle was surprised to hear it. “You did?”

  “You bet, bro. It’s what teammates do.”

  They knocked knuckles.

  “Well, you don’t have anything but a stupid list of stupid books and stupid authors and a stupid Bible verse.…”