The Fantastic Library Rescue and Other Major Plot Twists

by Deborah Lytton

  I’m really enjoying this hero moment…

  I imagine myself as the superhero of books. I disguise myself as a librarian, but if there is a reader in need, I become Book Girl! I wear magical glasses that can spot books anywhere and have a book bag that looks ordinary on the outside but can actually hold hundreds of books on the inside. With my magical powers, I can climb the tallest bookcase, find an out-of-print book, speed-read faster than anyone in the world, and deliver copies of books to everyone who wants to read one!

  I am saving the day until Mrs. Xia shushes us.

  “Girls, this is still a library.” She holds her finger to her lips. Shhhhhhhhhhhh.

  And that’s the end of my hero moment. But not the end of my journey.

  Chapter 2

  Journey to a Faraway Land (But Not Yet)

  I’m still imagining myself walking into school with eight copies of The Misfit Girls when Mrs. Sablinsky begins introducing a new assignment. It isn’t until she says the word creative that I wake up from my daydream. Creative is one of my favorite words, along with imagination, llama, and squiggle. The list keeps growing. I must have over twenty favorites now. Abe’s favorite word is cookie. He doesn’t get real cookies, just dog-safe treats that are made in the shape of a cookie, which I am pretty sure is done more for the dog owner than the dog. Abe would eat the treat no matter what it looks like.

  I listen to Mrs. Sablinsky. “This is a creative writing assignment. Every student is to write a poem by Friday. The format and subject are up to you. If you would like to read your poem out loud at our first Fifth Grade Poetry Read, please let me know when you turn in your work.”

  There is a lot of excitement in the room about the first Poetry Read. We all want to be part of a new tradition. It’s like the entire class begins talking at once.

  Mrs. Sablinsky rings the little bell on her desk to get our attention. Everyone quiets down. “That’s better. Now, may I please have a volunteer to read the first poem on page seventeen of your textbook?”

  I raise my hand, but she doesn’t choose me. Truth: Mrs. Sablinsky almost never calls on me, even when I am being quiet and raising my hand nicely. I’m not really surprised when she chooses Will P instead since he’s her absolute favorite student. There are two Wills in our class, so we have to use their last name initials to tell them apart. Not that they look the same or anything. Will P is supersmart and makes up completely amazing words like fantastical and wears red glasses. Plus, he’s my friend. Will B picks his nose a lot (I mean a lot). I won’t even share the rest of what he does. He is an OK artist though. Mom says everyone has something to like about them. I guess that’s true even for a boy who picks his nose for fun.

  Will P reads the poem about walking through a busy city.

  Then Mrs. Sablinsky asks for some observations about the poem. After that, she introduces the next poem in the book. “This poem is called a haiku. It is a type of poetry that originated in Japan. Most haikus are written about nature. So, if you are going to write about nature, you might consider using this format. There are only three lines in the poem. The first line is five syllables, the second line is seven syllables, and the third line is five syllables.”

  I like nature. I raise my hand to read the poem out loud. Guess what? Mrs. Sablinsky doesn’t choose me. Instead, she chooses Siri. The haiku is about the sea, and the words make me feel like I am looking at the ocean. No, wait, like I’m in the ocean.

  I see the ocean rolling up and down with the words of the haiku dancing on the tops of the waves. I ride my surfboard across the water and catch each word. An otter wearing sunglasses floats past me with the word sea in her paws. A sea turtle carries the word waves on his shell. Then a blue whale spouts sapphire. After I gather all the words, I make my own poem.

  How the sea glistens

  With waves of pearl and sapphire,

  Calling out to me.

  Suddenly, Mrs. Sablinsky glides by on a stand-up paddleboard and says, “Everyone please get started on your assignments now.” The words of poetry drift apart and are pulled away by the current.

  I take out a blank piece of paper and my favorite green pencil. I think I want to write a long rhyming poem. I like to rhyme words: Fun and sun. Hi and bye. I’m a mine of rhymes (ha!) except that I’m not really sure what to write about. I look around the room for inspiration. Good writers observe the world around them to use in their writing.

  Mrs. S loves cats so she has lots of cat-related items in Room 15. A cat on one poster wears a pair of bunny ears. Another poster has a list of transitional words made out of paw prints. Cat mugs sit in a line on Mrs. Sablinsky’s desk, and underneath it there is even a waste paper basket in the shape of… Can you guess it? A cat! So unless I want to write a poem about cats, I don’t think the scenery is going to spark any ideas. Besides, I’m one hundred percent a dog person.

  Then I notice something on the wall near my desk. We recently switched seats, and I’m in the front of the room now, which would be great except that all my friends are in the back of the room. Also, I’m sitting next to Jason, the kid who sleeps during class and drools all over his books. (Note that I am not sitting at the danger zone that is Desk One for two reasons:

  Will B used to sit there.

  He used the underside of his desk as a tissue.)

  Getting back to my point, sometimes when you change seats in a classroom, you notice things you never noticed before—like a calendar on the side board that says November at the top decorated with brown and gold leaves.

  November. That’s a pretty good theme for a poem. I decide to go with it.

  November, how your leaves inspire me

  In gold and brown and red

  Hey, this is almost professional!

  Like a wreath a princess wears on her head

  What does that have to do with November? OK, maybe not so professional after all. I’m sure if Mrs. Sablinsky read these words, she’d sigh, like she always does when she deals with me.

  Siri comes over to my desk.

  “How’s it going, Ruby?”

  I wrinkle my nose. “I only have two good lines so far. What about you?”

  Siri holds up her paper. And I can’t believe my eyes—it’s completely filled with writing. “I love poetry!” she tells me with a bright smile. “I wrote about the Statue of Liberty.”

  Oh, that’s really smart. We’ve been learning a lot about Lady Liberty, as Mrs. Sablinsky likes to call her. Big words like liberty and freedom would sound good in a poem. But I can’t write one on the same subject. It would be like stealing Siri’s idea. Plus, I’m Ruby Starr—I’m the Queen of Imagination. I can come up with my own creative and brilliant idea. So, I crumple the princess with the crown of leaves and start over.

  I take out a new piece of paper and put my name on the top. Except when the bell rings, that’s still the only thing on the page.

  “Leave your work in your desk folders,” Mrs. Sablinsky tells us. “This is an in-class project only.”

  In other words, she doesn’t want our parents writing the poems for us. On the last project we had on biomes, Jason’s mom went crazy and planted real grass and little trees in a cardboard box. Then she created animals out of thread and pebbles. It was like something you would see in a museum. Mrs. S was not impressed. She got that pinched expression like she smelled stinky cheese and said, “This will not do, not at all.”

  Since then, all our projects have been in-class projects. (Fun fact: Biomes are areas with the same weather, animals, and plants, like deserts, grasslands, and forests. I like the savannah best because lions live there. Lions are very literary animals. I mean, they live in Oz and Narnia, two of my favorite book places.)

  I hurry out to the front of school with the other Unicorns. I can’t wait to get to the library.

  “Good luck,” Siri says with a wide grin.

 
“Fingers crossed,” Charlotte adds.

  I give them one of my signature winks. I close my right eye and nod at the same time. I’ve practiced in the mirror to get them just right. Believe me, it takes a lot of practice. This is my way of saying that they can count on me.

  In the crowd of parents and kids, I spot my grandma right away. She’s wearing black-and-white-checked golf shorts with a blue shirt.

  “Hi, sweetie pie,” she says as I hurry over for a hug. “How was your day?”

  Today my grandma is picking me up from school because it’s Tuesday and my mom usually works late on Tuesdays. So, Gram picks me and my brothers, Sam and Connor, up from school. Only Sam and Connor go to different schools and get out later than I do, so there’s usually time for an ice cream or a trip to the library for a super-important mission.

  “Pretty OK,” I tell her. “I really need to go to the library. Would you take me?”

  Gram slings my backpack over her shoulder and slips her arm around my shoulders. “It would be my pleasure.”

  When we get to the parking lot, I find Gram’s car right away. It’s just an ordinary white SUV. Except my grandma dresses her car for every season. Since we are close to Thanksgiving, she has red, yellow, and orange turkey feathers fanning across the roof of the car. A pair of eyelashes is on the front headlights so they look like eyes. Also, her license plate says, GRAMBUS. You really can’t miss it.

  “I need to get eight copies of a book for the Unicorns,” I tell Gram. “They’re counting on me.”

  She winks as she opens the door for me. “Then we better hurry.”

  I climb into the backseat and belt in so my hero’s journey can begin. I know, I know. I am fully aware that going in Grambus to the local library isn’t like jumping on a magic carpet and flying off to Neverland. But when I open the pages of any one of the gazillion books on the shelves, I do journey to another place.

  My magic carpet is actually an open book. I sit in the middle of the pages with my sidekicks, a hedgehog named Dot and a ladybug named Spike. We fly over lands from all the stories I have read. There is a castle with a bear king, an island of mermaids, a miniature city of talking mice, a creaky old house with a crooked tree, an open plain filled with wild horses, and even a giant beanstalk leading to a kingdom of golden birds. My imagination can take me anyplace I want to go.

  “Ruby, we’re here.” My grandma’s voice lands my book carpet ride in the parking lot of the library.

  “That was fast,” I say as we get out of the car. The doors of the library open automatically for us like we are famous. (Except I am pretty sure the doors do that for everyone.)

  I hurry to the children’s section of the library. I don’t have to worry about Gram keeping up. She’s a super-sporty kind of grandma. Plus, she wears magic sneakers. PS: They aren’t really magic like Dorothy’s slippers. She just says they help her keep up with me.

  I am happy to see that my favorite librarian, Miss Mary, is here today. I rush over to explain the situation.

  “Hi, Miss Mary. I am on a super-important mission to locate eight copies of The Misfit Girls right away.”

  “Hi yourself, Miss Ruby. Is this a top-secret spy mission?” Miss Mary asks with a grin.

  “Not top secret,” I confide. “But important because I need them ASAP.” (I’ve heard my dad say ASAP sometimes on the phone about work. It’s a shortcut for as soon as possible.)

  Miss Mary nods. “The Misfit Girls is a really popular book. I know we have a number of copies. I’m not sure about eight though.”

  “Even six would work,” I try. Charlotte and I can share since we’re reading book club books together. And Jessica reads so fast that she could hand it off to Daisy in one day probably.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Miss Mary says.

  Gram takes a seat on the blue-and-yellow-striped sofa. I look around at all the books on the shelves. So many adventures are waiting inside the covers. It makes me happy just thinking about all the books there that I haven’t read yet.

  “What else happened at school today?” Gram says as I sit down beside her. She tugs on one of my curls.

  “We’re writing poetry. And we’re going to invite people to come and hear us read our poems out loud. Would you and Grandpa come?”

  Gram hugs me. “We wouldn’t miss it!”

  That’s the good thing about family. You always have a cheering section.

  “You’re already a poet. You wrote that wonderful poem about Abe and George for Grandpa’s birthday,” Gram says with a chuckle. My dog, Abe, is the brother of my grandparents’ dog, George. Things to know about Abe and George:

  1. They are Labradoodles (half Labrador retriever and half poodle).

  2. They are named after presidents. (Can you guess which ones? Hint: #1 and #16.)

  3. They get into a lot of mischief, especially when they are together.

  Gram is right, I did write a pretty good poem for my grandpa’s birthday. But I don’t think I would want to read it out loud in front of the whole school. No, my class poem needs to be way more impressive. It needs to be fabulously fabulous.

  Just then, Miss Mary returns with a book in her hands. Wait—a book. One book! Seven less than I need!

  “I’m sorry, Ruby, but it appears all the other copies are checked out. I do have one copy though.” She holds the book out for me. I see the five pairs of sneakers on the cover. “I can put your name on a waiting list for the other copies.”

  I sigh. I have failed in my mission. Seven people were counting on me, and I have let them down. That’s all I’m thinking as I thank Miss Mary and tell her that there is no need to put my name on a list. I can’t wait a week or even a few days. My mission has a one-day deadline.

  “Shall we check it out?” Gram asks as she takes the book from Miss Mary. “One is better than none.”

  I study the black-and-white checks on Grandma’s shorts. They look like a chessboard without the pieces. Somehow, that makes me sad, as if the pieces are all lost. My brothers and I have a game cabinet with all these board games in it. A few of the puzzles are missing pieces. When you have spent over an hour fitting one thousand teeny-tiny pieces together to make Winnie the Pooh and his friends (OK, some of the puzzles have been in that cabinet for a really long time!), and then Piglet is missing an eye, it kind of takes the excitement out of finishing the puzzle.

  I shrug and answer Gram, “Maybe if there were three of us, but eight girls can’t read one book. Not in time for the next meeting anyway.”

  Gram gives the book back to the librarian at the counter. I don’t see Miss Mary to say good-bye so I follow my grandma out the door. I’ve never left the library without a book before. This is a first for me. A first I would rather not repeat.

  The Southern California sunshine can sometimes turn a sour mood into a cheery one. Not today. I didn’t even want to read this book in the first place, but I promised the Unicorns I would save the day.

  Superheroes

  don’t

  fail

  in

  their

  missions.

  They always succeed.

  That’s when I remember: the library isn’t the only place to get a book.

  Of course! I don’t know why I didn’t think of this right away. The bookstore is my favorite place to get a present. (In case you are ever stumped about what to get me: books, book marks, book lights—you get the idea. Anything that begins with the letters: b-o-o-k.) I know this sounds completely weird, but confession time: I love, absolutely love the way a new book smells.

  Every good hero faces obstacles and has to come up with a Plan B, right? So here goes my Plan B:

  “I bet the bookstore has eight copies of The Misfit Girls. Could you take me there?” I ask Gram as I climb into the backseat.

  “I’m sorry, sweetie pie, but we’re out of
time. We have to go pick up your brothers now.”

  The bookstore that used to be in my neighborhood closed, and the second-nearest bookstore isn’t really that near at all. So much for Plan B. And now I’m all out of ideas.

  “Maybe your friends can each try to get a copy of the book,” Gram suggests. “Buying eight books is a tall order, even for a grandma who likes to spoil her best granddaughter.”

  I grin a little at Gram’s joke. I am her only granddaughter. And I know buying eight copies of a book would cost a lot.

  “You’re right,” I agree. Of course everyone could go out and find the book themselves. That’s the way it usually works. Except that someone wanted to be a hero (or in my case, a superhero) and save the day.

  “Maybe you could choose another book?” Gram suggests as she pulls into the pickup line at Connor’s school.

  “I would, but it’s not that easy to get eight fifth graders to agree.”

  “I believe there are at least that many members in your mother’s book club. How do they agree on a book to read?” Gram asks as she hands me a granola bar.

  My mom’s book club is what inspired me to start my own. I have been to all of her meetings except for one (but that is a whole other story) so I have heard them choose books before. “Mom asks everyone to suggest a book. Then she makes a list and has them vote on which one to read first. They go through the list week by week.”

  “That is what leadership is all about,” Gram tells me. “And you, my dear girl, are a born leader.”

  Yum, the granola bar has chocolate chips in it. Remember number two on the list of super-important things about me? Well, chocolate really does make things better. And that must be why by the time Connor gets into the car, I have come up with a Plan C.

  Chapter 3

  Plan C or Possibly Plan D

  Dinner at the Starr house is the opposite of simple because every person in my family eats a different way. Except for me. I eat everything.