Mr. Lemoncello's Library Olympics

by Chris Grabenstein

  “Is this going to be on the final?” quipped Kyle. He was trying his best to sound confident in front of his fiercest rival.

  Marjory Muldauer kept her eyes locked on Kyle. “You never know, do you, Mr. Keeley?”

  “Miss Muldauer,” said Mrs. Yunghans, “perhaps you should rejoin the rest of your team?”

  Marjory ignored her.

  “It was 1857,” she said. “It was a horse-drawn cart. Donated by a Victorian merchant named George Moore to ‘diffuse good literature among the rural population.’ ”

  “Well,” said Kyle, “these are way cooler. And the drivers don’t have to shovel horse poop all day.”

  Marjory Muldauer didn’t laugh. She narrowed her eyes.

  “I hope you enjoyed your fifteen minutes of fame, Mr. Keeley. Because when these games are over and done, you will be over and done, too.”

  She turned on her heel and walked away. Kyle actually shivered.

  The girl wasn’t just scary good. She was also scary.

  Andrew Peckleman was in the motel game room.

  “For the last time, the stupid thing is broken,” he told the blond boy from Utah, who was on the Mountain team.

  “How can it be broken? The motel manager said all these games are brand-new.”

  “Well, maybe Mr. Lemoncello made a lemon.” Andrew jiggled the control knobs on the console. He jabbed his thumb at the on/off button. Finally, he gave the pressboard box a swift kick. “See? It doesn’t work. Play something else.”

  “But I wanted to play Squirrel Squad Six.”

  “And I wanted to be the first librarian on Mars. Ask me how that’s working out. Now go play something else.”

  The boy from Utah shuffled off to try Mr. Lemoncello’s Disgracefully Destructive Elephant Stampede. The goal was to mash as much mall merchandise as you could with Melvin, the mischievous mastodon.

  “Andrew?” called his uncle from the motel’s front office.

  “Yes, sir, Uncle Woody?”

  “Come here, please.”

  Andrew stepped into the office. His uncle was at the back wall, fiddling with the combination lock on a large steel door.

  “I’ll just be a minute.” He slid a rolling wall panel in front of the steel door. When the panel clicked into place, the massive storage locker was completely hidden behind a seamless wall featuring a framed print of two bluebirds.

  Andrew’s uncle pointed to a thirty-pound sack of birdseed sitting on the floor.

  “I need you to refill feeders six and seven.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And check the batteries in the spinners.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Each of Uncle Woody’s bird feeders had a weight-activated spinner that turned it into a whirling merry-go-round the instant a squirrel set foot on it.

  “I need to go chat with a few of our guests.”

  “About what?” asked Andrew.

  “Never you mind. Go take care of the bird feeders.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Lugging the seed bag over his shoulder, Andrew went out the side door to the swimming pool and patio area.

  Since it was only the first day of spring, the pool was still covered with a tarp, but the stainless steel gas grills on the concrete slab surrounding it had been shined and buffed. Cooks from a catering company would use them for the opening ceremonies celebration. Hamburgers, hot dogs, and s’mores were on the menu.

  The outdoor fire pit—an elevated ring of rocks surrounded by lawn chairs—was stone cold. It would not be lit at any time during the Library Olympic Games because Mr. Lemoncello hated bonfires. “Throughout history,” he explained in the Library Olympics welcome packet, “too many books have been burned by people who didn’t like what was written inside them.”

  There would also be no flaming Olympic torch, just a giant, ten-foot-tall flashlight to celebrate the joy of reading under the covers. It was mounted on the back of a flatbed truck and would swing through the sky after Mr. Lemoncello switched it on, just like one of those swiveling spotlights at the grand opening of a used-car dealership.

  Andrew unscrewed a cap on bird feeder number six and hoisted the bag of seed.

  “Why does this hotel have so many bird feeders?” asked someone behind him.

  Andrew whirled around.

  It was the tall girl from Michigan. Marjory Muldauer.

  Andrew adjusted his glasses. “Excuse me?”

  “What’s up with all the bird feeders?”

  Andrew shrugged. “Uncle Woody likes birds.”

  “Probably because he looks like a bird.”

  Andrew snorted a laugh. “I know. He does!”

  “I’m trying to find some coffee,” said Marjory, her hands propped on her hips. Her face was scrunched up like she’d just smelled sour milk. “I need to read two more books tonight.”

  “Well,” said Andrew, “if you really want some 641.3373, follow me.”

  Marjory gave him a look. “That’s the Dewey decimal number for coffee.”

  “Yes. The beverage. Coffee the agricultural product would be 633.73.”

  “And,” said Marjory, “coffeehouses would be 647.95. Eating and drinking establishments.”

  “Yep.”

  “You know a lot about the Dewey decimal system for a motel employee.”

  “Oh, this is just a part-time job. My name is Andrew. Andrew Peckleman.”

  “You were one of the losers, weren’t you? In the escape game.”

  Andrew hung his head in shame. “Yes. But ask me if I care.”

  “Okay,” said Marjory. “Do you care?”

  “No. Not anymore.”

  “Well, that monstrosity that Mr. Lemoncello constructed isn’t really a library, Andrew. It’s an indoor amusement park.”

  “Have you seen it?” Andrew asked.

  “Not yet. But I’ve seen pictures. They should close it down and turn it into a Chuck E. Cheese’s—after, of course, I win my college scholarship from loony old Lemoncello.”

  Andrew smiled.

  Because Marjory Muldauer was a kindred spirit.

  He dropped the birdseed sack onto the concrete patio.

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go grab that cup of 641.3373.”

  “And maybe,” said Marjory, “we can find a few 641.8653 to go with it.”

  “Ooh,” said Andrew. “I love doughnuts.”

  Just after dark, Kyle and his teammates put on their opening ceremonies costumes and headed out to the motel’s central courtyard.

  A bandstand had been erected at one end of the grassy rectangle situated in the middle of the motel’s chalet-style units. Mr. Lemoncello, Dr. Zinchenko, and the mayor of Alexandriaville stood on the platform, ready to review the thirty-two Olympians.

  Mr. Lemoncello was dressed in a shimmering silver toga and silver laurel-leaf crown. He looked a little like the male tribute from District Three in a Hunger Games parade. Dr. Zinchenko was all in red, again. Shiny red sequins. The mayor wore a black trench coat. He wasn’t much on dressing up.

  The eight teams marched, one at a time, into the motel’s version of an arena and walked around it, just like the athletes at the ancient Greek Olympic Games did (except those guys didn’t have a sidewalk or running shoes).

  A crowd of several hundred spectators ringed the courtyard, which was illuminated by colorful strings of party lights. More people were watching the festivities on giant-screen TVs set up across the highway in Liberty Park.

  Kyle was carrying the “Hometown Heroes” banner. He and his teammates were wearing gray-and-scarlet tracksuits (Ohio State University’s colors), brown “buckeye” nut hats, and squeaking banana shoes, exactly like the ones Mr. Lemoncello sometimes wore. The musical sneakers—bright yellow and slightly curved—were one of Mr. Lemoncello’s biggest hits over the holidays. The “game” was to make the banana shoes burp-squeak out a tune by hopping, skipping, and tap-dancing the notes. For the opening ceremonies’ “Parade of Champions,” Kyle, Akimi, Miguel
, and Sierra had choreographed the footwork to play a burp-squeak version of “Hang On Sloopy,” Ohio’s official rock song.

  Most of the other teams wore wacky costumes, too.

  The team from the Pacific states was decked out in board shorts, flip-flops, and way cool Hawaiian shirts. They blew “Surfin’ Safari” on kazoos. Pranav Pillai was the kazoo drum major.

  The kids representing the Mid-Atlantic region wore crab costumes, complete with deely-bopper antennae and pinchers.

  The Northeasterners went with very scholarly, Harry Potter–style robes and mumbled a chant in Latin while they marched (“Semper ubi sub ubi”); the Southeast team, including Diane Capriola, wore sleek NASCAR race car driver jumpsuits with all sorts of book patches sewn onto every available inch; the Southwest team sported cowboy hats, big belt buckles, and boots and did rope tricks with their twirling lassoes; all the Mountain players wore flannel shirts, lumberjack pants, fake mountain-man beards (even the girls), and furry, flap-eared hats.

  The Midwest team, led by Marjory Muldauer, wore khaki pants, button-down white shirts, striped ties, and blue blazers.

  Kyle thought the Midwesterners looked like marching real-estate brokers. Or Charles Chiltington’s cousins.

  “My dad made it!” said Sierra, waving at a man smiling proudly in the crowd. “And there’s my mom,” she added when the team had hop-skipped and burp-squeaked another twenty feet.

  After all eight teams had marched around the courtyard three times, they lined up in front of Mr. Lemoncello’s reviewing stand, ready for him to officially declare the games open and light the Library Olympics torch, which, Sierra explained, is what people in England call a flashlight.

  “Welcome, one and all,” boomed Mr. Lemoncello. “I am so glad to see you here this evening, because this afternoon my optometrist gave me eye drops and I couldn’t see a thing! Before I officially illuminate our Olympic torch…”

  He gestured toward the ten-foot-tall skyward-pointing flashlight.

  “…I’d like to say a few short words. ‘Terse,’ ‘diminutive,’ ‘stubby,’ and ‘I,’ which is one of the shortest words I know, until it becomes ‘we,’ as in ‘We the people of the United States,’ the same ‘we’ that secured the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity, which, by the way, would be you, children, and not my fanny, which would, of course, be my ‘posterior-ity.’ ”

  He took a deep breath.

  “Tonight, we light the symbolic flashlight of under-the-covers reading to celebrate those page-turners we can never put down, even on a school night. I am assured that our Olympic torch will never reach a temperature of Fahrenheit four fifty-one, something the Lorax, the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe were all quite happy to hear.”

  Mr. Lemoncello pranced across the stage to a giant cartoon version of a wall switch.

  “Gamesters, if you’re game, let the gaming begin!” He heaved up the humongous switch. The ginormous flashlight’s beacon sliced through the night sky. “I now pronounce the games of the first Library Olympiad officially open. I also pronounce my name like a cross between a tart fruit and a mellow musical instrument. Have fun! Play fair! And remember—these games are a quest to find who amongst you is a true champion!”

  A thousand balloons with glow sticks in their bellies were released into the night air. Fireworks rocketed into the sky. The Ohio State marching band tramped into the courtyard to create an open-book formation while blaring a brassy version of “Paperback Writer” by the Beatles. Laser beams sliced through the smoky darkness in time to the music.

  “And now,” announced Mr. Lemoncello after the fireworks had exploded into their grand finale of floating hearts, smiley faces, and interlocking books, “the most stupendously spectacular moment of the entire night, your keys to anything and everything you ever want or need to know, boys and girls, buoys and gulls, dolphins and porpoises—may I proudly present…your library cards!”

  The eight teams stood bunched in front of the reviewing stand.

  Dr. Zinchenko called out names one by one.

  Kyle and his friends would be last to receive their new, Olympic-edition library cards. It was like baseball. The home team always batted last.

  Miguel nudged Kyle. “You think there’s going to be another secret, coded clue on the back of the cards?”

  When Kyle and his teammates had played the escape game, one of their biggest clues came from writing down the first letters of all the books printed on the backs of their library cards. The letters spelled out a sentence that pointed them toward the library’s secret exit.

  “I hope so,” said Akimi. “Because none of the other teams will know how to play Mr. Lemoncello’s First Letters game.”

  “Maybe we should tell them,” suggested Sierra.

  “Why?” asked Akimi. “I thought we wanted to win.”

  “We do,” said Sierra. “But we don’t want to cheat.”

  “Yo,” said Miguel. “It’s not cheating just because we know something the other teams don’t.”

  Sierra sighed. “But it’s an unfair advantage.”

  “True,” said Akimi. “But, sometimes, those are my favorite kind.”

  “But remember Mr. Lemoncello’s motto?” said Sierra. “ ‘Knowledge not shared remains unknown.’ ”

  “Which,” said Akimi, “is exactly how I want this particular piece of knowledge to remain: unknown to everybody except us!”

  “You guys?” said Kyle as the line worked its way forward. “Let’s wait and see. I’d be surprised if Mr. Lemoncello gave us the same kind of clue twice. He never does it in his board games.”

  Finally, Team Kyle’s names were called.

  Dr. Zinchenko handed them four cards.

  “Your library cards will grant you access to all the rooms and areas where we will be playing our twelve games,” she explained. “The winner of each game will receive a very special medal. The team with the most medals at the end of the week will be declared the winner, if not the champion.”

  “Huh?” said Miguel. “Isn’t the winner automatically the champion?”

  “Perhaps,” Dr. Zinchenko said mysteriously. “Perhaps not. It all depends, don’t you agree?”

  Miguel shrugged. “I guess.”

  Kyle wasn’t paying attention to Dr. Zinchenko. He was too focused on the fact that the library cards were, once again, numbered.

  “Now, if you children will excuse me…,” said Dr. Zinchenko, touching her Bluetooth earpiece. “It seems Mr. Lemoncello needs me inside. He has glued his mouth shut on a caramel apple.”

  Dr. Zinchenko hurried into the motel.

  The players on the seven other teams had already headed into the dining area off the lobby, where waiters were serving hamburgers, hot dogs, potato chips, s’mores, ice cream, cake, candy bars, cookies, caramel apples, and coconut cream pie. “There is also fruit,” Mr. Lemoncello had announced, “for those who do not wish to be bouncing off the walls all night, as I will be.”

  Team Kyle’s chaperones, Mrs. Yunghans and Mr. Sharp, came over to join them.

  “Good job on the parade, you guys,” said Mrs. Yunghans. “We’re going inside to grab one of those burgers.”

  “We’re right behind you,” said Kyle.

  “Totally,” added Miguel.

  The four teammates waited.

  As soon as the adults were gone, they flipped over their library cards.

  There were images of book covers printed on the back.

  “Awesome,” said Akimi. “Just like last time. You guys know the drill. We need to write down the first letters of every title.”

  “I’ve got a pen and some paper,” said Sierra, digging into the hip pocket of her tracksuit.

  The team laid down their cards in order. Two cards had three illustrated book covers on their backs; two cards had four:

  * * *

  CARD #1

  The Candymakers by Wendy Mass

  Holes by Louis Sachar

  Inside Out and Back Aga
in by Thanhha Lai

  * * *

  CARD #2

  Splendors and Glooms by Laura Amy Schlitz

  Incident at Hawk’s Hill by Allan W. Eckert

  Shabanu: Daughter of the Wind by Suzanne Fisher Staples

  Nothing but the Truth: A Documentary Novel by Avi

  * * *

  CARD #3

  One Came Home by Amy Timberlake

  The Year of Billy Miller by Kevin Henkes

  A Long Way from Chicago by Richard Peck

  Criss Cross by Lynne Rae Perkins

  * * *

  CARD #4

  Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy by Gary D. Schmidt

  Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis

  * * *

  “Okay,” said Kyle. “That’s T-H-I, S-I-S-N, O-T-A-C, L-U-E.”

  Miguel gave it a quick shot. “Thigh, sis, ’n’ taco, Lou!”

  “Whuh?” said Akimi.

  “It’s like you’re at KFC and you’re ordering some Original Recipe dark meat plus a taco for your sister, Louise. Or maybe you know the guy behind the counter and his name is Lou.”

  Akimi rolled her eyes. “Seriously, Miguel? They don’t serve tacos at KFC.”

  “Yes, they do if it’s a KFC–Taco Bell combo store, which sometimes they are.”

  “I don’t think the First Letters game is going to work for us this time,” said Sierra.

  She showed them what she had written down on her slip of paper:

  “This is not a clue.”

  “Oh,” said Miguel. “Did not see that coming.”

  Kyle, on the other hand, sort of had.

  He knew nothing about winning these Olympic Games would be easy.

  Bright and early the next morning, Kyle, his teammates, and their chaperones climbed into their bookmobile for the drive downtown to the Lemoncello Library.