Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library (23 page)

“Sir?” said Sierra. “Would you like Andrew’s library card for the discard pile?”

“No, thank you. That card is now property of Team Kyle.”

Haley Daley raised her hand.

“Yes, Haley?”

Kyle saw her shoot a withering glance at Charles.

“How may I help you, dear?” asked Mr. Lemoncello.

“Well, sir, if it’s okay with you, I’d like to switch sides. I want to join Kyle Keeley’s team.”

“Zap!”
said Mr. Lemoncello, waving his arms like a magician. “
Zip!
You’re now on Kyle Keeley’s team!”

“Haley?” said Charles. “How can you desert me?”

“The same way you just deserted Andrew.”

“Um, do we get
her
library card, too?” asked Kyle.

“Indeed you do. Plus any and all information she chooses to share with you. And so, Charles, I ask you: Would
you
like to quit your team and join Kyle’s?”

“Excuse me?”

“You know, all for one and one for all?”

“Sir, with all due respect, that may have worked for those three musketeers in a trumped-up work of fiction, but I’m sorry, that is not how things work in the real world. Out here, it’s every man for himself. What good is a prize if everyone wins it?”

“I see. But Haley knows all the clues you’ve collected.”

“True, sir. But I doubt she realizes what any of them mean.”

Kyle could see Mr. Lemoncello’s nose twitch when Charles said that. And it wasn’t a happy-bunny kind of twitch, either.

“It was a joke, sir.” Charles must’ve seen the nose twitch, too.

“Oh. I see. Like the one about the boy named Charles. Hilarious. Remind me to tell it to you sometime. Anyway, be that as it may, I insist that you be given a few extra clues to compensate for the fact that all your teammates are either being kicked out of the game or abandoning your ship.” Mr. Lemoncello reached under the desk and pulled out a white envelope. “This, Charles, is for your eyes only.”

Charles stepped forward and took the envelope.

“Thank you, sir. That is very generous.”

“I know. You may also ask me one question. But please, don’t waste your question asking me, ‘Where is the alternate exit?’ because I do not know.”

“You don’t know?” Kyle said it before Charles could.

“Haven’t a clue. This entire game was designed by my head librarian, Dr. Yanina Zinchenko, as my birthday present.”

“But,” said Akimi, “you could just ask Dr. Zinchenko how to get out, right?”

“Akimi Hughes? Are you one of those people who read the last chapter of a book first to see how it ends?”

“No, but …”

“Good. It’s much more fun when the ending is a surprise. Dr. Zinchenko is the only one who knows how and where to exit this building without setting off all sorts of fire alarms. Any clues I personally delivered during the course of this game were completely scripted for me by Dr. Z.”

“Okay,” said Charles, “here’s my question.…”

Mr. Lemoncello raised a hand. “Before you ask it, be advised: Your opponents will also hear my answer.”

“Fine. Why is the book on the bedside table in your private suite
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
by E. L. Konigsburg?”

“Because when I was your age, Mrs. Tobin, my local librarian, gave it to me.”

Miguel raised his hand.

“Yes, Miguel?”

“Can we have one bonus question, too?” he asked politely.

“No,” said Mr. Lemoncello. “However, I will give you one bonus answer, which Charles, of course, will also hear. Your bonus answer is ‘lodgepole, loblolly, and Rocky Mountain white.’ ”

“What are three different kinds of pine trees?” said Charles, just to show off—and to let Kyle’s team know their bonus answer didn’t give them any kind of advantage.

“I am told that is correct,” said Mr. Lemoncello, touching his ear.

He reached under the desk again and this time pulled up a three-foot-tall hourglass, a giant version of the red plastic timers that came as standard equipment in a lot of his games.

He turned it over.

“It’s the jumbo, three-hour size,” he said as the sand started trickling down. “Because it is now nine o’clock and you have only three more hours to find your way out of the library. Good luck. And may the best team—or, in Charles’s case, the best solo effort—win!”

“Let’s see what kind of
real
bonus clues Mr. Lemoncello is serving up today,” Charles said to his empty conference room.

He really didn’t mind flying solo. It meant he wouldn’t have to share his prize when he won it.

Winner won all.

Losers lost all.

That was just the way the world rolled.

And Charles knew he would win.

After all, he was a Chiltington. They never lost.

Even if he had wasted his question about the
Mixed-Up Files
book. Turned out that Mr. Lemoncello was just a sentimental sap like Kyle Keeley. The book was there because his beloved librarian gave it to the old fool when he was the same age as all the library lock-in contestants. Boo-hoo. Big whoop.

And what was all that nonsense about pine trees?

Preposterous.

Unclasping the sealed envelope, Charles found two silhouette cards. Each of them was numbered, in case Charles couldn’t figure out which books they would’ve been hidden in.

Babied?
Charles wondered.
No. Crawled!

He examined the second free card.

Three dinners? Three couples? A restaurant?

This one was difficult.

Charles decided to put the two new pieces into the puzzle, to see if their meanings would become clearer:

Charles was missing only one clue, but he had everything else.

“You can walk out the way BLANK crawled in in passed restaurant.”

No. That didn’t make sense.

In fact, all he was really certain about were the first two lines: “You can walk out the way.”

The way what? Past the restaurant? The Book Nook Café?

And what about the image of the football player?

It came from the Johnny Unitas book. Maybe Johnny Unitas, who had played football back when Mr. Lemoncello
was Charles’s age, had owned a restaurant? Perhaps a popular national chain?

If so, there might’ve been one in Alexandriaville. Maybe right here in the old Gold Leaf Bank building.

Could the last bit be “In Johnny Unitas’s Restaurant”?

Or what if Andrew Peckleman had been right all along and it was the NINETEEN that was the clue from the football player card? That would make the final line “In nineteen …” WHAT?
Diners? Couples?

No.

Anniversaries!

The three couples in the bonus clue were obviously celebrating their anniversaries!

Nineteen anniversaries? Was today the nineteenth anniversary of some major event in Alexandriaville?

Charles shook his head. He knew the phrase would make sense only
after
he had completed the third line, the only one that still had a blank in it: “BLANK, CRAWLED, INN.”

What if the missing image is an eyeball?
Then the third line could be “I crawled
in
.”

Hang on
, Charles thought. The one book in the Staff Picks display case nobody had found yet was
True Crime Ohio: The Buckeye State’s Most Notorious Brigands, Burglars, and Bandits
by Clare Taylor-Winters. The last image was going to be a criminal of some sort.

That one, single missing book might tell Charles who had crawled into the bank and, more importantly,
where
they had crawled in. Was this the nineteenth anniversary of a famous bank robbery?

Charles realized he needed help.

It was time to use his Ask an Expert.

That made him laugh.

Because Charles knew the top library expert in all of America, maybe the world. Someone much more important than Dr. Yanina Zinchenko.

Kyle Keeley and the rest of that bunch didn’t stand a chance.

Eager to find out all he could in the final minutes before the Dewey decimal doors reopened on the second floor, Kyle listened as Haley Daley detailed everything she had learned on Team Charles.