Book Scavenger (9 page)

Emily knew from experience that her parents would be dutiful about unpacking for approximately one or two more days and then something would come up to distract them—work deadlines, a local festival they didn't want to miss out on since they probably wouldn't be there the following year, or the urgent need to research an unusual bird they saw. Their possessions would gradually find their way out of their moving containers and be put away—clothes would move to closets after they were worn and washed, that sort of thing. Emily sometimes suspected her parents had an unspoken competition about who could ignore the moving boxes the longest. When they were in Colorado, there was an entire box that never got opened. Her parents donated it without even looking inside when they moved to New Mexico. They figured it must not be important if they hadn't been compelled to open the box for a whole year, and since they were on a perpetual quest to live with as few belongings as necessary, off went the box. At the time, their decision had seemed logical enough to Emily. But now she wondered what had been in that box. She thought of James's apartment and all the photos and trinkets. What if the box had been full of old family photos or heirlooms—something special that you wouldn't technically need for a year, but was still important all the same?

“Finished!” Emily's dad announced from the front room. His footsteps echoed down the hallway. He rapped loudly on Matthew's door before entering the kitchen. “I propose a treat!” he said.

“A treat?” Emily's mom asked. “Does it involve leaving the house? Because I would be so sad if I had to stop unpacking right now.” She dropped the spatula she'd been holding and stepped away from the bags and boxes to grab her purse off the kitchen table.

Flush music amplified as Matthew came out of his room and joined them.

“Let's venture down to North Beach,” Emily's dad said. “I've been dying to see City Lights.”

Emily perked up. “The bookstore?” She remembered reading the name in Mr. Griswold's profile.

“The one and only,” her dad replied. “Or I should say, the one and only City Lights. I imagine there are many bookstores in San Francisco. But City Lights is at the top of my list for Jack Kerouac and Beats-related spots.”

“I'm in!” Emily said.

“Me too!” her mom said.

“Can we get lunch?” Matthew asked.

The family took a bus down their hill to a neighborhood called North Beach. Emily wasn't sure why it was called North Beach, because there wasn't a speck of sand in sight. They got off the bus near Washington Square, a flat stretch of grass that sat in front of an old church. That day there was an Italian heritage parade, so the square and streets were filled with people. A marching band, followed closely by floats of Christopher Columbus's ships, circled the square. Elsewhere in the city was a Fleet Week celebration, and every so often the Blue Angels flew overhead as part of the air show.

Heading to the City Lights bookstore, the Cranes walked a weaving path around café tables that packed the sidewalk. The sky erupted with another thunderous roar as a pyramid of six jets flew high above the twin white spires of the Saints Peter and Paul Church. Emily and her parents clutched their ears, but Matthew didn't seem as fazed. Maybe the music that constantly pulsed through his earbuds dulled the sound a bit.

Her dad, leading the way, turned to them and walked backward. “Only in San Francisco!” he shouted. Her parents said that so often with every place they lived, it had become an inside joke. When their parents made a remark about a sunny day or a sale on tomatoes, Emily or Matthew would say, “Only in … (fill in the blank of wherever they were living).” It usually flustered their mom like she'd been scolded and she'd snap, “Well, not everything can be an enriching experience.”

They walked under sculptures of open books dangling from wires like birds in flight and soon found themselves in front of City Lights. Emily's dad wanted a picture taken of him standing under the
CITY LIGHTS BOOKSTORE
painted on the front window; then one with him, Matthew, and Emily; then he asked a stranger to take one of the whole family. He was so excited you'd think he was visiting Disneyland.

They filed through the entrance into a small room shaped like a pizza slice.

“Amazing to think this room made up the whole bookstore in the beginning, isn't it?” And it
was
kind of amazing, since the original pizza-slice-sized store would have fit maybe ten people tops, and that would have been shoulder-to-shoulder. The bookstore was now a hodgepodge of rooms that spanned nearly a whole block. “As other businesses left this building,” her dad explained, “City Lights gradually took over the whole space.”

They stepped up into a larger room washed in sunshine from tall windows. Matthew nearly collided with a college-aged guy, who did a double take of Matthew's shirt—the one with five diamond playing cards on it. “Flush!” the guy said, and Matthew said, “Yeah, man.”

“You hear about the underground concert? At the Fillmore?”

“Seriously?” Matthew pulled at his Mohawk, trying to play it cool, but Emily could tell by her brother's bouncing knee that this was new and exciting news. “I knew they were doing an underground tour, but I didn't know they'd be here.”

“Yeah, man,” the guy said. “You have to buy tickets for Shoot the Moon, but Flush will be playing, too.”

Matthew waited until the guy walked out of the store before hurrying to their dad.

“Dad, did you hear that?” Their dad studied notes written on Post-its tacked to a bulletin board that asked,
WHAT'S THE ONE BOOK YOU ALWAYS RECOMMEND?

“Flush at the Fillmore, Dad. That's, like,
my
Jack Kerouac and
my
City Lights. I have to go to that concert. I'll never have this chance again!”

It sounded melodramatic, but her brother was probably right. By the time his favorite band came back to that venue, the Cranes would probably be long gone, living in Ohio or Mississippi or wherever their parents' whims took them next.

“We can talk about it.”

“But it's Flush!”

“You're causing a traffic jam, Matthew,” their mom said. “Your dad didn't say no. We just need more information. Now's not the time.”

Matthew plugged his earbuds back in and stepped through an arched doorway leading to another room of books. The rest of the Cranes split into different directions to explore the bookstore on their own.

Emily walked from small room to small room, up and down the three levels that made up City Lights. She noted the mismatched flooring; the hand-lettered signs with sayings like
A KIND OF LIBRARY WHERE BOOKS ARE SOLD
; an oval mirror with a lion's head on top; framed art, photos, and memorabilia from the Beat poets. Emily trailed her fingers along the varied book spines and thought about young Garrison Griswold, freshly moved to San Francisco, and how this bookstore and its owner had been an inspiration to him.

She'd hoped coming here might help her understand the hidden words she and James had found in Mr. Griswold's book.
Fort, wild, home, rat, open, belief
,
she chanted to herself as she wandered among the bookshelves. No bolt of inspiration struck, and the bookstore didn't magically offer up a solution as she'd hoped it would, but she was quite content to roam. She passed Matthew sitting on a footstool flipping through a book with black-and-white photographs of musicians. Her mom smiled at a book of poetry. Her dad studied a group photo of his beloved Beats for so long Emily wondered what he must be thinking about.

If Mr. Griswold hadn't been attacked, this would have been a perfect first weekend in a new place. Book hunting on a pier with a new friend, discovering Mr. Griswold's game, and spending an afternoon browsing in an iconic bookstore. She only wished there wasn't a giant, invisible timer lording over her family, ticking down to when they would inevitably move again.

 

CHAPTER

11

THUD.
Thud-thud-thud. Thud.

It was Monday morning, Emily's third day in San Francisco. It was also the Columbus Day holiday, which meant no school. Her first day at another new school would wait one more day.

Emily slid open her window and listened to the pulley squeak as the bucket was lowered. Even though James had his window open upstairs, too, they seemed to have made an unspoken agreement that there would be no verbal conversations when the message bucket was in use. Encrypted conversations only.

She unfolded the paper and read:

ZTFV VX KBQU T HXXO? B OFXZ T CXXQ KBQBFC SJXV.

She translated the message in no time at all:
Want to hide a book? I know a good hiding spot.

Emily had lucked out moving into James's building.

Twenty minutes later they walked up their hill and down the other side, ending up in the middle of a stretch of shops and restaurants. Emily had brought her backpack with her to hold her Book Scavenger notebook and the book they planned to hide (Emily's second paperback copy of
Inkheart
, the one she'd found at the Albuquerque Zoo), and at the last minute Emily threw in
The
Gold-Bug
. You never knew when you might have time to sit down and study a book for more typos.

“If we were walking to school, we'd turn that way,” James said, pointing down the sloping street. Far down the road, apartment buildings framed a view of the bay with Alcatraz island smack dab in the middle.

Emily stood still. “It's like out of a movie,” she said.

“What is?” James looked at the parking meters, the liquor store across the street, the bus stop in front of them.

“The view.” Emily pointed.

“Oh.” James absentmindedly threaded his fingers through Steve as he looked again toward the water. “Yeah, I guess so. You should see it on a sunnier day, though.”

James turned away from the water to walk up the street. “Hollister's bookstore is up this way.”

James's idea had been to hide the book in a bookstore. “Like hiding a leaf in a tree,” he said. There was one bookstore in particular that he had in mind, a place he stopped in regularly on his way home from school. “Ever since Hollister learned I like puzzle magazines, he's kept a good stock of them.”

As they approached, the door to the bookstore swung open with a jingle and out stepped a black man with gray-frosted dreadlocks tied loosely at the nape of his neck. The man studied the store window as if he were assessing a painting, and then went back inside. His upper body rocked like a metronome when he walked, swinging his ponytail of ropes side to side across his back.

“That was Hollister. He owns the store,” James said. Soon they reached it and could see for themselves the display Hollister had been studying. The entire expanse of window was filled with books arranged by color and stacked atop one another like LEGOs to create the Bayside Press symbol.

James whistled long and low.

“How did he do this?” Emily asked.

“This must have taken him forever,” James said.

They pushed open the door. “Hollister, your window looks amazing!” James said.

The bookstore owner slapped his thigh and said, “Well, hey there, James! You finish the latest
Puzzle Power
? I hope not, because the next issue isn't due for another month.” Hollister nodded in Emily's direction. “Who's this young lady?”

Up close she could see one eye drooped and didn't look in quite the same direction as the other. She wondered if that lazy eye made it difficult for Hollister to read, and if so, how torturous that would be, surrounded by books all the time.

“This is Emily. She just moved here.”

“Hello, Emily-Who-Just-Moved-Here.”

“Your window is really cool,” Emily said. “I never would have thought of using the colors of book spines and covers to make a picture, like art.”

“Ah, well.” Hollister rubbed his neck. “Small token of respect for a good man. It's the least I can do for an old friend.”

“Old friend?” Emily repeated. She looked to James questioningly.

He shrugged. “You're friends with Mr. Griswold?”

“I said
old
friend. It's been at least thirty years since we've had a sensible conversation. Although I do have a regular customer who works for him. A rare-book collector who manages his library. So I sort of feel like I keep in touch with him that way. Or in touch with his reading interests at least, but that's what matters most, am I right?” Hollister chuckled. For a minute he looked like he might say more, but then he dropped to one knee and sorted through the pile of books he'd gathered. A morose cloud had settled around the man's shoulders, and Emily didn't know him well enough to understand if that was normal or due to his dwelling on Mr. Griswold. “This window display is the least I can do right now, that's all.”

It occurred to her that if Hollister once knew Mr. Griswold, he might be able to help them figure out the secret message they'd discovered. But the way he acted, talking about Mr. Griswold, made her worry that maybe it was a touchy subject. And if she was honest, part of her felt protective. Right now
The Gold-Bug
and the words she and James found belonged to them. Sharing that might ruin the fun somehow. They should stick with their original reason for coming to Hollister's store. She cleared her throat.

“Could we hide a book in your store?” Emily said. “For Book Scavenger? It's got a badge inside, so no one will mistake it for one of yours.”

Hollister nodded. “Sure, sure. Have at it.”

The bookshop was narrow with tall bookcases creating tunnels that twisted and turned. A ladder leaned against one bookcase to reach the topmost titles. Every nook was occupied by a chair, a teetering pile of books, or both. In the back half of the store there was a loft and a spiral staircase that led up to it. Emily and James wandered through the store, scouting for the best hiding spot.