Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library (2 page)

That’s why Kyle Keeley had fifty cents deducted from his allowance for the rest of the year.

And got grounded for a week.

Halfway across town, Dr. Yanina Zinchenko, the world-famous librarian, was walking briskly through the cavernous building that was only days away from its gala grand opening.

Alexandriaville’s new public library had been under construction for five years. All work had been done with the utmost secrecy under the tightest possible security. One crew did the exterior renovations on what had once been the small Ohio city’s most magnificent building, the Gold Leaf Bank. Other crews—carpenters, masons, electricians, and plumbers—worked on the interior.

No single construction crew stayed on the job longer than six weeks.

No crew knew what any of the other crews had done (or would be doing).

And when all those crews were finished, several
super-secret covert crews (highly paid workers who would deny ever having been near the library, Alexandriaville, or the state of Ohio) stealthily applied the final touches.

Dr. Zinchenko had supervised the construction project for her employer—a very eccentric (some would say loony) billionaire. Only she knew all the marvels and wonders the incredible new library would hold (and hide) within its walls.

Dr. Zinchenko was a tall woman with blazing-red hair. She wore an expensive, custom-tailored business suit, jazzy high-heeled shoes, a Bluetooth earpiece, and glasses with thick red frames.

Heels clicking on the marble floor, fingers tapping on the glass of her very advanced tablet computer, Dr. Zinchenko strode past the control center’s red door, under an arch, and into the breathtakingly large circular reading room beneath the library’s three-story-tall rotunda.

The bank building, which provided the shell for the new library, had been built in 1931. With towering Corinthian columns, an arched entryway, lots of fancy trim, and a mammoth shimmering gold dome, the building looked like it belonged next door to the triumphant memorials in Washington, D.C.—not on this small Ohio town’s quaint streets.

Dr. Zinchenko paused to stare up at the library’s most stunning visual effect: the Wonder Dome. Ten wedge-shaped, high-definition video screens—as brilliant as those in Times Square—lined the underbelly of the dome like
so many orange slices. Each screen could operate independently or as part of a spectacular whole. The Wonder Dome could become the constellations of the night sky; a flight through the clouds that made viewers below sense that the whole building had somehow lifted off the ground; or, in Dewey decimal mode, ten sections depicting vibrant and constantly changing images associated with each category in the library cataloging system.

“I have the final numbers for the fourth sector of the Wonder Dome in Dewey mode,” Dr. Zinchenko said into her Bluetooth earpiece. “364 point 1092.” She carefully over-enunciated each word to make certain the video artist knew what specific numbers should occasionally drift across the fourth wedge amid the swirling social-sciences montage featuring a floating judge’s gavel, a tumbling teacher’s apple, and a gentle snowfall of holiday icons. “The numbers, however, should not appear until eleven a.m. Sunday. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Dr. Zinchenko,” replied the tinny voice in her ear.

Next Dr. Zinchenko studied the holographic statues projected into black crepe-lined recesses cut into the massive stone piers that supported the arched windows from which the Wonder Dome rose.

“Why are Shakespeare and Dickens still here? They’re not on the list for opening night.”

“Sorry,” replied the library’s director of holographic imagery, who was also on the conference call. “I’ll fix it.”

“Thank you.”

Exiting the rotunda, the librarian entered the Children’s Room.

It was dim, with only a few work lights glowing, but Dr. Zinchenko had memorized the layout of the miniature tables and was able to march, without bumping her shins, to the Story Corner for a final check on her recently installed geese.

The flock of six audio-animatronic goslings—fluffy robots with ping-pongish eyeballs (created for the new library by imagineers who used to work at Disney World)—stood perched atop an angled bookcase in the corner. Mother Goose, in her bonnet and granny glasses, was frozen in the center.

“This is librarian One,” said Dr. Zinchenko, loud enough for the microphones hidden in the ceiling to pick up her voice. “Initiate story-time sequence.”

The geese sprang to mechanical life.

“Nursery rhyme.”

The geese honked out “Baa-Baa Black Sheep” in six-part harmony.

“Treasure Island?”

The birds yo-ho-ho’ed their way through “Fifteen Men on a Dead Man’s Chest.”

Dr. Zinchenko clapped her hands. The rollicking geese stopped singing and swaying.

“One more,” she said. Squinting, she saw a book sitting on a nearby table.
“Walter the Farting Dog.”

The six geese spun around and farted, their tail feathers flipping up in sync with the noisy blasts.

“Excellent. End story time.”

The geese slumped back into their sleep mode. Dr. Zinchenko made one more tick on her computer tablet. Her final punch list was growing shorter and shorter, which was a very good thing. The library’s grand opening was set for Friday night. Dr. Z and her army of associates had only a few days left to smooth out any kinks in the library’s complex operating system.

Suddenly, Dr. Zinchenko heard a low, rumbling growl.

Turning around, she was eyeball to icy-blue eyeball with a very rare white tiger.

Dr. Zinchenko sighed and touched her Bluetooth earpiece.

“Ms. G? This is Dr. Z. What is our white Bengal tiger doing in the children’s department? … I see. Apparently, there was a slight misunderstanding. We do not want him permanently positioned near
The Jungle Book
. Check the call number. 599 point 757…. Right. He should be in Zoology.… Yes, please. Right away. Thank you, Ms. G.”

And like a vanishing mirage, the tiger disappeared.

Of course, even though he was grounded, Kyle Keeley still had to go to school.

“Mike, Curtis, Kyle, time to wake up!” his mother called from down in the kitchen.

Kyle plopped his feet on the floor, rubbed his eyes, and sleepily looked around his room.

The computer handed down from his brother Curtis was sitting on the desk that used to belong to his other brother, Mike. The rug on the floor, with its Cincinnati Reds logo, had also been Mike’s when
he
was twelve years old. The books lined up in his bookcase had been lined up on Mike’s and Curtis’s shelves, except for the ones Kyle got each year for Christmas from his grandmother. He still hadn’t read last year’s addition.

Kyle wasn’t big on books.

Unless they were the instruction manual or hint guide to a video game. He had a Sony PlayStation set up in the family room. It wasn’t the high-def, Blu-ray PS3. It was the one Santa had brought Mike maybe four years earlier. (Mike kept the brand-new Blu-ray model locked up in his bedroom.)

But still, clunker that it was, the four-year-old gaming console in the family room worked.

Except this week.

Well, it
worked
, but Kyle’s dad had taken away his TV and computer privileges, so unless he just wanted to hear the hard drive hum, there was really no point in firing up the PlayStation until the next Sunday, when his sentence ended.

“When you’re grounded in this house,” his father had said, “you’re
grounded
.”

If Kyle needed a computer for homework during this last week of school, he could use his mom’s, the one in the kitchen.

His mom had no games on her computer.

Okay, she had Diner Dash, but that didn’t really count.

Being grounded in the Keeley household meant you couldn’t do anything except, as his dad put it, “think about what you did that caused you to be grounded.”

Kyle knew what he had done: He’d broken a window.

But hey—I also beat my big brothers!

“Good morning, Kyle,” his mom said when he hit the kitchen. She was sitting at her computer desk, sipping coffee and tapping keys. “Grab a Toaster Tart for breakfast.”

Curtis and Mike were already in the kitchen, chowing down on the last of the good Toaster Tarts—the frosted cupcake swirls. They’d left Kyle the unfrosted brown sugar cinnamon. The ones that tasted like the box they came in.

“New library opens Friday, just in time for summer vacation,” Kyle’s mom mumbled, reading her computer screen. “Been twelve years since they tore down the old one. Listen to this, boys: Dr. Yanina Zinchenko, the new public library’s head librarian, promises that ‘patrons will be surprised’ by what they find inside.”

“Really?” said Kyle, who always liked a good surprise. “I wonder what they’ll have in there.”

“Um, books maybe?” said Mike. “It’s a
library
, Kyle.”

“Still,” said Curtis, “I can’t wait to get my new library card!”

“Because you’re a nerd,” said Mike.

“I prefer the term ‘geek,’ ” said Curtis.

“Well, I gotta go,” said Kyle, grabbing his backpack. “Don’t want to miss the bus.”

He hurried out the door. What Kyle really didn’t want to miss were his friends. A lot of them had Sony PSPs and Nintendo 3DSs.

Loaded with lots and lots of games!

Kyle fist-bumped and knuckle-knocked his way up the bus aisle to his usual seat. Almost everybody wanted to say “Hey” to him, except, of course, Sierra Russell.

Like always, Sierra, who was also a seventh grader, was sitting in the back of the bus, her nose buried in a book—probably one of those about girls who lived in tiny homes on the prairie or something.

Ever since her parents divorced and her dad moved out of town, Sierra Russell had been incredibly quiet and spent all her free time reading.

“Nice shirt,” said Akimi Hughes as Kyle slid into the seat beside her.

“Thanks. It used to be Mike’s.”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s still cool.”

Akimi’s mother was Asian, her dad Irish. She had very long jet-black hair, extremely blue eyes, and a ton of freckles.

“What’re you playing?” Kyle asked, because Akimi was frantically working the controls on her PSP 3000.