The Librarian (Book One: Little Boy Lost) (6 page)

  
“
Now
you want to tell?”

  
“Uhh... yeah?! He’s got a knife!”

  
Taylor tossed the book to Wesley, the dagger’s blade held firmly within its pages. “Not anymore,” she said with a grin. She was smiling.
She was actually smiling!
Even worse, she was heading back into the room they’d just escaped.

  
“Tay?” She didn’t answer. “Tay?!”

  
He shook his head then yanked the dagger from the book and went in after her.

  
They found the boy had retreated to the same spot where they found him. He was sobbing.

  
Are you kidding?
Wesley thought.
What’s his problem?
He attacked us!

  
The boy’s head snapped up as the kids tiptoed toward him, but Taylor was quick to put her hands into the air. Palms out, nothing to hide.

  
“It’s okay,” she explained. “I promise. We didn’t mean to scare you. All right? We aren’t like that. We’re friends. We aren’t going to hurt you.” Wesley kept his eyes on the boy as Taylor slowly pulled a chair from under the table to give the kid an easy way out. “Why are you crying?” she asked. “Are you lost? Is there somewhere you’re supposed to be?”

  
The stranger measured their intentions with innocent eyes before slowly sliding out from under the table.

  
And then he answered.

DOUGLAS LED RANDY through the library’s main hall, past the ransacked display and toward the large spiral staircase. “Do me a favor?” Douglas asked. “Wait down here? This is an ugly part of dad’s business he’d rather you didn’t see.”

  
“Oh. Okay.” Randy watched his dad climb the stone steps, dialing a number into his cell phone and holding it to his ear.

  
“Upstairs and ready,” Douglas said.
 

   
“Very good, sir.” Outside, Douglas’s driver hung up and turned around to look into the car’s backseat. “Second floor,” he explained. “You’re good to go.”

  
The dark figure answered with a small nod then faded away like the smoke from a candle’s dying flame. Just like that, he was gone.

BACK IN THE library, the strange boy’s words were hanging in the air like a stubborn fog refusing to lift in the morning sun.

  
Not words, really. A single word.

  
Neverland.

  
It was Taylor who finally broke the silence, asking the boy for a moment alone with her friend before dragging Wesley into the doorway nearby.

  
“Oww, Tay! Jeez!”

  
“Now what?” Taylor asked. When Wesley didn’t answer she saw his reaction to the boy’s answer was decidedly different from her own. “Wait a minute. You don’t believe—“

  
“Maybe he’s telling the truth.”

  
“That he’s a Lost Boy? From Neverland?! Like... Peter Pan’s Neverland! You have got to be kidding me?!”

  
“I don’t know!” Wesley whispered. “Maybe! I mean, look at him. Besides,” he shook his head, “You didn’t see what I saw.”

  
Both turned to look at the stranger. He certainly looked the part.
Peter Pan
was a tough read, but the Lost Boys were some of the most iconic and memorable characters in all of literature. If the Lost Boys were real, this was what they looked like.

  
Wesley stepped toward him. “Hey.”

  
The boy recoiled, moving aside so there was a chair between them. Wesley stepped back, forgetting he still had the knife in one hand and the speared book in the other. “No, no, no! I don’t want to fight. Not again.” He set both items down on a nearby desk. “See?” Wesley put both hands into the air. “I’m not going to hurt you.” He looked away then quietly said, “I probably couldn’t if I tried.”

  
Taylor covered her grin with a single hand. The boy was beginning to relax and took a reluctant step from behind the chair.

  
“What’s your name?” Wesley asked.

  
“Locke.”

  
“Locke? I’m Wesley. That’s Taylor.” She put a hand into the air but didn’t wave. “You said you’re from Neverland, right? Like...
the
Neverland?” Locke answered with a nod. “Okay. How did you get
here
?”

  
“Through the portal.”

  
“The woodcarving?”

  
Again, a nod.

  
Wesley looked over at Taylor. Two of the puzzle pieces rattling around in his skull had just clicked together.
 

  
“Can you show us?” Wesley asked.

  
“I can, but... I have to find the key.”

  
“Okay. Cool. Where’d you have it last?”

  
“I didn’t lose it!” This time it was Locke advancing toward Wesley. “This isn’t my fault! Someone was playing with things that don’t belong to them! Things they don’t understand! I would never—“

   
“Okay, okay!” Wesley backpedalled, hands back in the air. “Dang!” Locke turned away.

  
“What’s wrong?” Taylor asked. Her voice seemed to have a soothing effect on all of them, like a mother talking to a toddler recovering from a skinned knee.

  
“You don’t understand,” Locke said. “There are rules and... and...” His words caught in his throat, and he couldn’t continue.

  
“What rules?” Wesley asked.

  
“You can only visit a world other than your own for eighty-eight minutes. Otherwise...”

  
“What?”

  
“I’ll be written out of the story.”
 

  
Wesley didn’t understand but could hear the desperation in Locke’s wavering voice.

  
All at once Locke pulled away from Taylor, overcome with frustration. “I knew I shouldn’t have come! They told me! I should’ve listened!”

  
Wesley stepped forward. “It’s okay,” he explained. “We’ll help. How long have you got?”

  
“I’ll never make it.”

  
“Yes you will,” Wesley said in a deep voice that didn’t sound like his at all. “You’ll make it.”

  
Taylor looked up at Wesley sharply. She couldn’t believe he was making a guarantee like that, but she played along regardless. “Where would you normally find the key?”

  
“It’s part of the display on Neverland history in the museum.”

  
“The
museum
?”

    
“I tore the display apart, but the key isn’t there.”

  
“What does the key look like?” Taylor asked. Wesley could see her thoughts were running in the same direction as his.

  
“It’s a dagger,” Locke explained. Wesley and Taylor look at one another as another puzzle piece locked into place. “Peter Pan’s dagger is the key to Neverland.”

WESLEY AND TAYLOR hurried down a long corridor on the library’s upper level. Locke trailed a few feet behind.
 

  
“You can’t just use this as an excuse to go in after him,” Taylor whispered. “I know you. You’ve wanted inside that secret passage the minute you saw it.”

  
“You don’t believe him, do you?” Wesley asked.

  
“I can’t believe you
do
. You won the science fair for crying out loud! You know? Science? Facts, figures... reality!”

  
“Don’t you get it, Tay? What I saw. The carving, the light, him – it all fits together.” Wesley stopped when Locke caught up with them near the large oil painting the librarian used to access the secret passage.

  
“Are you sure we shouldn’t just find Ms. Easton?”

  
“No!” Locke fired Taylor a stern look. “No grown-ups!”

  
“There’s no way Ms. Easton got on the bus without giving the dagger back to the librarian,” Wesley said. He was feeling along the painting’s frame, trying to find how the old man had opened it.

  
“The librarian’s a grown-up,” Taylor said, her eyes on Locke.

  
“Not like the rest, he’s not.”

  
Wesley found the seams of a button built flush into the painting’s golden frame. He pushed the button, and there was a loud click from behind the wall as something unlatched and allowed Wesley to swing the painting open.

  
All three peered into the passage. There was barely enough light to see the layered cobwebs that clung to the walls and covered the floor like thick blankets.

  
“You sure you want to do this?” Taylor asked.

  
“
You
wanted to help him.”

  
Without a word Locke pulled his dagger and stepped into the passage. His eyes scanned everything around him like a warrior entering the domain of his sworn enemy.

  
Taylor tiptoed into the darkness behind him.

  
Wesley was last, pulling the painting shut as he went in. For a moment, he wasn’t scared at all. His thoughts were bold and adventurous just as they’d been while listening to the librarian’s speech in the auditorium. He was ready for anything that might help him forget what had happened earlier today. Anything to help him escape.

LOCKE WAS LEADING Wesley and Taylor down the dank passage before either had an opportunity to let their eyes adjust to the lack of light. There were two lamps hanging just inside the entry, but both were dimmer versions of those in the library’s main hall. They did little to battle the shadows which seemed to be moving in on them with every step they took. Eventually, they came to a junction that presented two long corridors and a ladder that seemed to disappear into a mist-filled cavern beneath their feet.

  
“Okay,” Taylor began. “I’m not going down there. I don’t care what
anybody
says. The spiderwebs up here are enough to make my skin crawl.”

  
“Since when are you such a wuss?” Wesley asked.

  
“I don’t like spiders,” she said quietly. “What? Sue me.”

  
Locke sniffed the air. “This way.” The passage ahead of them was black as night and would be impossible to navigate without something to guide them. Luckily, there was a rusty lantern hanging from a large hook on the wall – no doubt left for any travelers trying to wander the library’s labyrinth of secret passages. Wesley reached for the lantern, but Locke grabbed his arm and yanked him away.

  
“What was that?” Wesley whined.

  
Wesley followed the Lost Boy’s upward gaze. While it was hard to make out in the shadow, there was a large boulder shaped like a teardrop floating in the air above them. The mammoth stone was hanging from a chain that twisted through an elaborate pulley system before disappearing into a hole in the wall.

  
“Booby trap,” Locke explained. Wesley couldn’t believe it. His trip to the library had started so terribly. Who could have guessed he’d be avoiding booby traps before the day was out? It was too cool. He quickly slung the backpack from his shoulder, fell to one knee and began to dig through his belongings.

  
Taylor watched Locke retrieve a gold pocketwatch. Worry washed over him. “He’s running out of time, Wes.”

  
Wesley ignored her, pulling the hand-held video game from his bag. “Got it!” He pushed a series of buttons on the device. Lights began to flicker. Wesley’s eyes lit up to match.

  
“You’re not supposed to have that in school,” Taylor said.

  
“Jeez, Tay. You gonna tell?”

  
Taylor grinned as she watched him adjust the contents of his pack. He was like a young adventurer preparing for a great quest. She thought it was adorable but quickly pushed the thought out of her mind.

  
The game system offered the blue-green glow of its screen, just enough light to ensure the three wouldn’t run into a wall or blindly offer themselves up to some monster that might be lurking beyond the light.

  
“Alright, baby. Let’s do it.”

  
Again, they were words Wesley wanted back the moment they crossed his lips. He sounded so corny. No one noticed, though. Instead, Locke and Taylor waited for Wesley to lead them forward – past the point of no return.

LEFT TO HIMSELF, Randy was wandering the aisles in the library’s main hall and admiring everything around him. In a lot of ways, his exploration wasn’t that different from Wesley’s. He was taking the time to appreciate the mysterious building now that the other kids were gone and he didn’t have to keep up the tough guy persona his classmates expected.

  
“Randy?” It was Ms. Easton. She was coming his way again.

  
Great
, Randy thought.
What’d I do now?

  
“What are you doing in here?” she asked.

  
“Nothing. Well, waiting for my dad. I guess he knows the librarian and wanted to talk with him. Something like that.”

  
“Maybe that’s good news for this place.” She looked past Randy. “Have you seen Wesley and Taylor? They’re not on the bus.”

  
“Not in a while,” he said as Ms. Easton started to leave. “I’ll tell them you’re looking for em, though. If I see em, I mean.” She didn’t slow down to answer. She didn’t even turn to look him in the eye. “I’ll keep an eye out. And I’ll... I’ll...” Randy was eager to help, but Ms. Easton wasn’t listening. She’d gotten what she needed. There was nothing left to discuss. Randy let his head hang as the teacher disappeared around the corner. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Ms. Easton.”