Mr. Lemoncello's Library Olympics

by Chris Grabenstein

  “Because it’s Disneyland in there!” shouted Mrs. Tinker. “Disneyland, I say!”

  “Then we’re agreed,” said Charles’s mother. “Something must be done.”

  “And may I,” said Charles, “as a youth of Alexandriaville, quickly elucidate how fortunate I feel to have you wise and sagacious elders looking out for my best interests as well as the interests of all the young children yet to come?”

  Charles knew being smarmy was the best way to get adults to do exactly what you wanted them to do.

  “Thank you, Charles,” said his mother. “Rose, please make a note in the official meeting minutes. Resolved: We, the League of Concerned Library Lovers, must, by any means necessary, seize control of Alexandriaville’s new public library and wrest it away from that borderline lunatic Luigi Lemoncello.”

  There was a light rap on the living room door.

  “Excuse me,” said Chesterton, the butler. “This gentleman insists that he is here for your meeting.”

  “Are you folks the Concerned Library Lovers?” asked a scrawny old man with a pointy beak who stood timidly in the doorway beside the butler. The man was dressed in a bright blue Windbreaker and was fidgeting with the sweat-stained Toronto Blue Jays baseball cap he held in his hands.

  “Do we know you?” asked Charles’s mother.

  “I don’t think so. My name is Peckleman. Woodrow J. Peckleman.”

  “Of the Geauga County Pecklemans?” twittered Mrs. Tilley.

  “No, ma’am. From right here in Alexandriaville. Well, I grew up here, but then I flew the coop.”

  Charles sniggered. He couldn’t help it. Mr. Peckleman looked like a chicken.

  “I own the Blue Jay Extended Stay Lodge,” said Mr. Peckleman.

  “That’s Olympia Village,” said Charles. “You’re Andrew’s long-lost great-uncle-twice-removed, correct?”

  “That I am.”

  “Pardon me for asking,” said Charles’s mother, “but what brings you here, Mr. Pecklestein?”

  “It’s Peckleman, ma’am. And I won’t beat around the bush. I don’t like what they’re doing inside that Lemoncello Library downtown.”

  “Neither do we.”

  “I know. I’ve seen you folks on TV. Now, like I said, I used to live here in Alexandriaville. Years ago. Grew up with Luigi. Knew him when he was just a little boy, not some kind of fancy billionaire. And let me tell you folks something: Luigi L. Lemoncello was just as irresponsible back then as he is now. Why, in fifth grade, he made up multiplication and division games to make learning math ‘more fun.’ Pah. Math isn’t supposed to be fun. It’s math!”

  “That’s all well and good, Mr. Peckleman, but…”

  “You people want him out of that library, am I right?”

  Charles’s mom coyly twiddled her fingertips against her cheek. “Perhaps.”

  “Well, I know how to do it.”

  “Really? And what do you require from us in return?”

  “Not much. I just need you to talk to that brainy gal from Michigan for me. The tall one on the Midwest team.”

  “Marjory Muldauer?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ve been scoping out all the library lovers bunking at my motel. Looking for just one of ’em to help me do what needs to be done. So far, over a dozen have turned me down. But I have a hunch that Miss Muldauer won’t.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “She’s not very fond of all the silly sideshow antics down at Luigi’s library. I suspect she wouldn’t mind seeing the place run by more responsible adults.”

  “But, Mr. Peckleman, why do you want me to speak with this girl on your behalf?”

  “Because, Mrs. Chiltington, she’ll listen to someone refined and educated like you. And when you offer her a ‘Go to College Free’ card, I have a feeling Miss Muldauer will become the answer to both our prayers.”

  Team Kyle’s bookmobile ride from Olympia Village to the Lemoncello Library was extremely quiet on the second morning of the competition.

  Finally, Akimi spoke up. “Wonder what kind of wacky games we can lose today.”

  “Both of them,” said Miguel. “And it’ll probably be my fault again, too.”

  Kyle was also feeling pretty low. But since he was still the team’s captain, he decided he needed to give a pep talk. Maybe he could even convince himself that they still had a shot.

  “Take it easy, you guys,” he said. “Look—if you were playing Mr. Lemoncello’s Family Frenzy and the first and second time you rolled the dice, you landed on Sewer Repairs and Dog Pound, would you quit?”

  “Yes,” said Akimi. “I’d consider it an omen.”

  “I wouldn’t,” said Sierra. “Especially since you still have so many more turns to go before anyone wins.”

  “Exactly,” said Kyle. “Well, we’ve got ten more turns. Right now, the score is Pacific one, Midwest one. All we have to do is win one game and we’re tied for first place.”

  Miguel stroked his chin. “Hmm. When you put it like that…”

  “We’re still currently tied for last place,” said Akimi.

  “So is everybody else,” said Kyle as the bookmobile pulled up to the front of the library. “So let’s go in there and change that!”

  “Fine,” said Akimi, who was pretty immune to pep talks. “Whatever.”

  —

  The setup in the Rotunda Reading Room was slightly different for the second day of the competition.

  The two circles of desks closest to the center of the room had been roped off to the crowd of spectators, many of whom were now upstairs on the second and third floors with the news cameras, peering down at the action from the upper decks.

  Kyle noticed that Mr. Peckleman, the motel owner, was in the crowd clustered at the remaining tables on the first floor. He was staring up at the Wonder Dome in awe.

  “Ah, the sandhill crane migration!” Kyle heard him exclaim to nobody in particular. “Isn’t it marvelous?”

  The entire underbelly of the Wonder Dome had been transformed into a fluttering flock of birds, soaring across an unbelievably blue sky, swooping through a clay-colored desert landscape.

  “Welcome, bookworms!”

  Kyle looked up.

  Mr. Lemoncello had just climbed on top of the balcony railing outside his private suite—on the third floor! He was wearing a leather aviator helmet with goggles and had a pair of feathered wings strapped to his back.

  “Today,” announced Mr. Lemoncello, “in our third and fourth games, you will use the library to help your imagination take flight, much as I am about to do.”

  “No!” screamed Mrs. Lonni Gause, the frazzled holographic librarian, who popped into view behind the circulation desk. “Don’t jump! You’ll end up a heap of crumpled bones, just like the old library ended up a heap of crushed rubble! And they’ll be back! The book haters with their bulldozers! They always come back! I hear them rumbling up Main Street now!”

  “Fear not, Mrs. Gause,” cried Mr. Lemoncello. “If anyone should ever again threaten this library, I will fly to its aid, much as I should’ve flown to it all those years ago. But alas, I was too busy doing business in Beijing to come home and save my beloved library, leaving you to ask, ‘Where’s Waldo?’ even though my first name was, and still is, Luigi. Moving on. I’d like to quote the lyrics of Rodgers and Hammerstein—something that’s extremely easy to do when you’re in a library near 782.14 and all those magnificent Broadway show tunes—‘I flit, I float, I fleetly flee, I fly!’ ”

  Mr. Lemoncello leapt off the railing.

  Two thousand spectators gasped. Several hid their eyes.

  Too bad. They missed the whole thing.

  Mr. Lemoncello floated in a graceful arc, then soared up to join the migrating Canadian geese now flocking in a V formation on the Wonder Dome video screens.

  After leading the geese toward Montreal, Mr. Lemoncello drifted down to buzz and salute the statues perched atop the pillars at the base of the dome. The holographic hero
es were different again. Kyle turned around so he could read all their names: Amelia Earhart, Charles Lindbergh, Neil Armstrong, Bessie Coleman, Jimmy Doolittle, Howard Hughes, Sally Ride, Billy Mitchell, the Tuskegee Airmen, and some kind of monk whose pedestal was labeled “Eilmer of Malmesbury.”

  “They’re all famous aviators,” said Miguel as Mr. Lemoncello executed a tucked-knee roll and soared around the rotunda like Peter Pan.

  Actually, he flew exactly like the star of a touring production of Peter Pan that Kyle had seen at the civic center.

  Because now, in the shafts of sunlight streaming through the arched windows at the base of the dome, Kyle could see cables hooked to a harness under Mr. Lemoncello’s wings.

  As he spread out his arms and fluttered toward the floor, the audience applauded wildly.

  “Thank you, thank you,” said Mr. Lemoncello when his feet finally touched down.

  He slipped out of his flying harness, and his wings shot back up toward the ceiling.

  “Yowza! That’s almost as much fun as the hover ladders. Almost. Teams, your first challenge today is to make your ideas take flight, something that’s very easy to do inside a library.”

  “So long as nobody bulldozes it down!” cried Mrs. Gause, whose flickering image was still being projected behind the circulation desk.

  “Yes. Thank you for that, Lonni.” Mr. Lemoncello pushed up his goggles. “Dr. Zinchenko? Will you kindly take over? I must go assemble our esteemed panel of judges.”

  “Of course.” Dr. Z popped up behind the center desk like a hand puppet. Mrs. Gause disappeared.

  “Amaze me!” cried Mr. Lemoncello as he dashed toward the towering fiction bookshelves and disappeared through another secret door that whooshed sideways in the shelves.

  “Teams,” said Dr. Zinchenko, “on each of your worktables, you will find a sheet of eight-and-a-half-by-eleven paper, one standard paper clip, three inches of tape, one plastic bag containing a dollop of glue, and a stapler loaded with three staples.”

  Kyle and his teammates checked out their reading desk. Everything on Dr. Z’s supply list was arranged in a tidy row.

  “To win today’s first competition, you must design the paper airplane that stays aloft the longest. In the case of a tie, our esteemed panel of judges will also award points for style and what aviators call derring-do.”

  At the Midwest team’s desk, Marjory Muldauer shot her hand into the air and waved it around annoyingly.

  “Yes? Is there a question?”

  “Just one,” said Marjory, folding her arms across her chest. “What does building a paper airplane have to do with the study of library science?”

  “Simple,” said Dr. Zinchenko. “The flight test will take place in three hours, at precisely one o’clock. You may use the intervening time and the library’s vast resources to do research before building your planes. Or not. The choice, as always, is yours.”

  The 700s room on the second floor (named for the Dewey decimal designation for the arts) was crowded with Library Olympians.

  Every team had raced up the steps, hoping to be the first to grab The Paper Airplane Book by Seymour Simon. Its call number was 745.592.

  Fortunately, the Lemoncello Library had eight copies of the book on its shelves.

  “You guys?” whispered Miguel after the team had grabbed their copy of the book and huddled together under a Nerf basketball hoop in a secluded nook so they could talk without all the other teams overhearing what they were saying. “Everybody’s reading this same book.”

  “Because there are all sorts of neat paper airplane designs in here,” said Sierra.

  “But,” said Kyle, “if we follow one of these sketches, our plane will end up being just like everybody else’s.”

  “We need my dad,” said Akimi.

  “Huh?” said Miguel.

  “Well, not my dad, exactly. But someone with his architect-slash-engineer brain.”

  Miguel slapped his forehead with his palm. He had an idea.

  “Aerospace engineering,” he whispered.

  “Six hundred and twenty-nine point one,” added Sierra.

  It was Akimi’s turn to say, “Huh?”

  “Sorry. That’s the Dewey decimal number for aviation engineering.”

  “Oh. Right. I knew that.”

  “It’s next door,” said Kyle, checking out the other teams. All seven of them had settled in at collaboration stations to pore through the paper airplane book. “Follow my lead, guys.”

  He loudly closed their copy of the paper airplane book. “Okay, team. I think that’ll work. Come on. Let’s go fold some paper and use our paper clip.”

  “And the glue,” said Akimi. “Don’t forget, we have a whole dollop of glue.”

  The four teammates sauntered out of the 700s room. Miguel whistled casually. Sierra hummed along.

  The other teams were too busy debating the design of their paper airplanes to pay them much attention.

  When Kyle, Akimi, Miguel, and Sierra slipped next door to the 600s room, the place was empty. Since the 600s were all about technology and applied sciences, the team passed several animated exhibits and dioramas depicting inventions and one about industrial gases, which used Mr. Lemoncello’s patented smell-a-vision technology and reeked of rotten eggs.

  “Great,” muttered Akimi. “We had to come in here on sulfur day.”

  When they turned the corner at the end of a bookshelf labeled “629–632,” they saw a holographic image of a bald man with a paintbrush mustache projected behind a desk. He wore a three-piece wool suit and fiddled with a small rocket.

  “That looks like Robert Goddard,” said Akimi. “My dad told me about him. Goddard invented the first liquid-fueled rocket.”

  “He’s also on an old airmail stamp,” said Miguel.

  The others gave him quizzical looks.

  “Stamp collecting is a very interesting hobby.”

  “Robert Goddard really was a rocket scientist,” said Akimi. “Maybe he can help us design a better paper airplane.”

  The teammates moved closer to the hologram’s very real metal desk.

  “Hello,” the hologram said, “my name is Robert. You can call me Bob. I designed and built airplanes and spaceships. When I was your age, I was considered a nerd. Now I’m on an airmail stamp.”

  “See?” said Miguel. “Told you.”

  “Professor Goddard,” said Akimi, “what’s the best design for our paper airplane?”

  “That depends on your objective. Are you going for distance or aeronautical acrobatics?”

  “Distance, sir,” said Akimi. “Whoever can keep their paper plane aloft the longest wins.”

  “Then you should be folding what we rocket scientists call a glider.”

  “Because it glides?” asked Kyle.

  “Precisely. I suggest going with a Seagull. Remember to line up the wing flaps for good balance. Set the dihedral angle flat or slightly up, the vertical stabilizers to approximately forty-five degrees to the plane of the wings…”

  “The plane has a plane?” Kyle was totally lost.

  “Keep going,” said Akimi, who apparently understood engineer mumbo jumbo.

  “Do not use the elevators or your craft will stall.”

  “No worries,” said Miguel. “We always use the spiral staircases.”

  Akimi and Goddard stared at him.

  “Never mind these guys,” said Akimi. “I understand what you mean. My dad designed the library’s front doors.”

  “Incorporating the old bank’s vault door?”

  “Yep.”

  “I am impressed,” said Bob. “Will you be the one launching the craft?”

  “Yes,” said Kyle, Miguel, and Sierra.

  “Excellent. Use a soft or medium throw by gripping the underside of the nose. This aircraft flies best when launched level or at a slight up angle from a high place. A detailed schematic with complete instructions is available in the top drawer of my desk. Good luck. And happy paper-fol
ding!”

  Robert Goddard vanished.

  Kyle pulled open the desk drawer.

  There were eight copies of the Seagull paper airplane design.

  “I guess there’s one for every team,” he said.

  “If they think to come in here,” said Miguel.

  But none of them did.

  They were too busy, back at their worktables down in the Rotunda Reading Room, folding the paper airplanes they had chosen from that one book in the 700s room.

  —

  At one p.m., the eight teams brought their finished aircraft up to the third floor.

  The eight designated fliers stepped up to the balcony railing, where they were joined by Dr. Zinchenko and the panel of holographic judges: Orville and Wilbur Wright, Amelia Earhart, Neil Armstrong, and Leonardo da Vinci.

  The spectators were ringed around the rotunda, eagerly anticipating the paper aircraft taking flight.

  Leonardo, decked out in his flowing robes and floppy Renaissance cap, gave the prelaunch countdown: “Cinque, quattro, tre, due, uno—blast off!”

  Eight paper airplanes took off. The crowd cheered, rooting for their favorite fliers.

  “That’s one small toss for a sheet of paper,” said Neil Armstrong, “one giant heave for paperkind.”

  Most of the paper airplanes drifted in looping circles, spiraling down the three stories under the dome in one or two minutes.

  Akimi’s carefully constructed Seagull, however, stayed aloft for four whole minutes. The audience gasped in astonishment as it glided along, scarcely losing altitude. Finally, after what seemed like forever, it gently drifted to the floor, where it made a soft landing.

  “Woo-hoo!” shouted Kyle.

  He looked down and saw Akimi’s father in the audience on the first floor. Akimi’s dad marched over to the winning glider, proudly plucked it off the floor, and gave his daughter a thumbs-up!

  “Thanks, Dad!” Akimi shouted.

  Orville and Wilbur Wright announced that the hometown team’s glider had just set a new “hand-folded paper plane” indoor flight-time record.

  “And it didn’t get lost,” added Amelia Earhart.

  Akimi accepted the team’s Top Gun medal from Dr. Zinchenko.