Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library (17 page)

“Or someone shows us the box lid,” cracked Akimi.

“Look, it’s only six p.m.,” said Kyle. “And we’re collecting a ton of good information.”

“You mean a ton of
random
information,” said Akimi.

“Well,” said Miguel, “once we have more clues, we can use Sherlock Holmes’s famous ‘deductive reasoning’ method to make logical connections between all the random junk.”

“Works for me,” said Kyle. “But if we’re going to play Sherlock Holmes, we need to go spin that spinner and dig up more clues.”

“The game’s afoot,” said Sierra.

“Huh?” Kyle and Akimi said it together.

“Sorry. It’s just something Sherlock says to Watson whenever he gets excited.”

Sherlock Holmes. Kyle had just found another bunch of books to add to his reading list.

“Okay, Sierra,” said Kyle, “your turn.”

Sierra flicked the spinner. The pointy tip ended up in the yellow 200s zone, so she went ahead and pulled a yellow card.

“It’s definitely for the two hundreds section,” she said, showing her clue to Miguel before revealing it to Kyle and Akimi.

“Weird,” said Miguel.

“What?” said Akimi before Kyle could.

“Well, the two hundreds are where they keep books on world religions.”

“But there are
two
numbers on this card,” said Sierra.

“Maybe this time we need to find
two
books?” suggested Kyle.

“I don’t know,” said Sierra, studying her card. “ ‘220.5203’ is obviously a call number.”

“Obviously,” said Akimi.

“But this other number isn’t in the proper format. ‘Two-twenty-fifteen.’ ”

“February twentieth, 2015!” said Akimi. “Quick—what happened on that date?”

“Um, nobody knows,” said Kyle. “Because
it hasn’t happened yet
.”

“Oh. Right. Okay—how about February twentieth, 1915?”

“That was the opening day of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco,” said Sierra.

Jaws dropped.

“Sorry. I’m a big world’s fair fan.”

Everybody else just nodded.

Finally, Miguel spoke up. “Look, let’s just go down to the two hundreds room and find 220.5203. We can figure out the second chunk later.”

The team once again trooped down to the second floor and worked their way around the circular balcony.

“You guys?” said Sierra, looking across the atrium at the statues. “Remember how they switched all the hologram authors when Bridgette Wadge did her Extreme Challenge?”

“Yep,” said Kyle. “She was doing good till she got to the Russian dude.”

“What Russian dude?” asked Miguel, who hadn’t witnessed Bridgette’s elimination.

“Guy who wrote five or six books Sierra could tell you about.”

“But look,” said Sierra. “Now all the author statues are the same ones they were last night.”

“So,” said Kyle thoughtfully, “if they can switch ’em around …”

“These must be clues for our game!” blurted Akimi. She pulled out a pen and her notepad. “I’ll write down their names.”

“Start with the guy under the triple zeros wedge of the Wonder Dome,” suggested Kyle.

“Right.”

Akimi read the labeled pedestals and jotted down all the authors’ names:

“So,” said Akimi when she’d finished writing, “do you think this game could get any more complicated?”

“Maybe,” said Kyle. “It’s possible that Mr. Lemoncello left a couple different paths to the same solution.”

“Well, personally, I can only take one path at a time,” said Akimi. “So let’s go find two-twenty-point-whatever.”

“Should be in the next row of bookcases,” said Miguel. “Here we go. 220.5203. The King James Bible.”

“
Ach der lieber!
An excellent choice,” said a man with a thick German accent.

The four teammates spun around.

And were face to face with a semi-transparent guy in medieval garb with a fur-trimmed cap and a beard that looked like two raccoon tails sewn together under his nose and chin.

“I am Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg,” said the holographic image, who had ink stains all over his fingertips.

“You created the Gutenberg Bibles on your printing press!” gushed Sierra.

“Ja, ja, ja. Big bestseller. You need help with der Bible, I am at your service.” He bowed.

“Oh-kay,” said Akimi, turning to Miguel. “Take it away, Miguel.”

“Herr Gutenberg, sir, we’re looking for two-twenty-fifteen.”

“
Das ist einfach
.”

“Huh?”

“That is easy. TWO, TWENTY, FIFTEEN is EXODUS, chapter TWENTY, verse FIFTEEN.”

“Of course!” said Miguel. “Exodus is the second book of the Bible. Twenty and fifteen are the chapter and verse.” He flipped through some pages. “Here we go. Exodus, chapter twenty, verse fifteen. It’s one of the Ten Commandments: ‘Thou shalt not steal.’ ”

“Let’s put the two new cards on the table,” said Charles.

He and his so-called teammates, Andrew and Haley (Charles planned on dumping them both right before he made his glorious solo exit from the library), had scoured the library together for hours looking for more book cover matches.

Peckleman wasn’t nearly as good with the Dewey decimal system as he had claimed to be. And Charles needed someone to do that sort of thing for him. His father always hired tutors or research assistants for him whenever Charles had to do a major paper or report.

Finally, around six in, coincidentally, the 600s room, they scored twice, finding
Tea for You and Me
(641.3372) and
Why Wait to Lose Weight?
(613.2522).

Now their picture puzzle had only four blanks remaining:

“Okay,” said Andrew, “I think it’s pretty clear. ‘Woolly BLANK walk up the skinny BLANK BLANK house Indian and nineteen BLANK.’ ”

Charles nodded and said, “Interesting,” even though he knew Peckleman was way off.

“Uh, hello?” said Haley. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Sure it does,” said Andrew.

“Uh, no it doesn’t.”

In his head, Charles had decoded the clues so far as
“Ewe (a female sheep) BLANK walk out the (t+h+e) way (weigh) BLANK BLANK Inn in passed (past) BLANK.”

But out loud, he said, “I think we just need to tweak Andrew’s translation a little.”

“Fine. Go ahead. I don’t care.” Andrew slumped down in his seat to sulk.

“How about ‘She BLANK walks out the skinny BLANK BLANK house five hundred and past BLANK.’ ”

“Where’d you get ‘she’?” asked Haley.

“From ‘sheep.’ The card you gave us.”

“Actually, I think the sheep is supposed to represent ‘you.’ Because a ewe is a female sheep.”

“Fascinating,” said Charles. “I didn’t figure that out.”

What he did figure out was that Haley Daley was much smarter than he had assumed. She could be a serious threat. And no way was Charles sharing his prize with anybody, especially her.

“And how did you get ‘five hundred’ from Indiana?” she asked.

“Simple. Indianapolis, the capital of Indiana, is home to a race known as the Indy 500.”

“Okay. So how about ‘You BLANK walk out the skinny BLANK BLANK in’—because the Nancy Drew book was about an inn—‘five hundred pass, or
past
, BLANK.’ ”

Now Peckleman piped up. “That makes more sense than what you said, Charles.”

“Indeed,” said Charles, sounding magnanimous.
“Perhaps the clues are telling us to locate a secret skinny passageway five hundred paces past some landmark here in the library.”

Andrew was excited. “This is like the pirate map from
Treasure Island
!”

“Or,” said Haley, “maybe these clues are telling us we need to go out and find the four books we haven’t found yet. We should split up. I’ll go back to the four hundreds room.”

“We’ve already been there,” said Andrew.

“Well, you guys might’ve missed something.”

“Good idea,” said Charles. He figured if Haley Daley wasted time retracing steps he and Andrew had already taken, she would find nothing new and become less of a threat. “Let’s meet back here at, say, seven.”

“Fine.”

Haley left the meeting room.

Charles went to the door and closed it.

“You know what we really need?” he said to Andrew.

“Chocolate milk and maybe some cookies?”

Charles shook his head. “No, Andrew. We need whatever clues Kyle Keeley and his team have found. Especially if they have our missing cards.”

Veering left the instant she reached the second floor, Haley made her way toward the 400s room.

She figured that Charles and Andrew had probably missed something important in the foreign languages room because they’d spent too much time talking to “these awesome mannequins” that told them all about their “American heritage.”

As she rounded the bend, Haley saw Kyle Keeley and his crew tumble out of the 200s room.

It looked like Miguel was carrying a Bible.

But a Bible wasn’t one of the books on display in the Staff Picks case.

We’re following separate paths to the same goal
, Haley thought.
And somewhere, those two paths are going to collide
.