The Librarian (Book One: Little Boy Lost) (2 page)

  
The kids found a woman in a short flowered dress standing at the foot of a mammoth staircase that snaked its way to the building’s second story with no apparent means of support. “Thanks for coming,” the woman said. “There’s plenty of room, guys. Come on in.” Ms. Easton took a place beside her, a great spot to keep an eye on her students as they formed a semi-circle around the young, energetic woman. “My name’s Hope. I’m the
assistant
librarian here at Astoria Municipal. I’ll be your guide on today’s tour.”

  
A boy in braces shoved his hand into the air before asking: “When do we meet the
real
librarian?” He spoke with a lisp though Wesley never knew if he was born with the impediment or if it was the result of a mouth filled with metal.

  
“Ah! Well—“

  
“I hear he’s like two hundred years old!” someone said, his loud voice echoing through every corner of the building. “Is that true?”

  
“Two hundred?!” a kid with spiked hair hissed. “You’re such an idiot!”

  
“My dad said!”

  
“Yeah? Well, your dad’s a freakin—“

  
“That’s enough!” Ms. Easton said sternly, snapping her fingers to gain everyone’s attention. She’d heard all the stories. Urban legends about the library’s caretaker had been bouncing around their small town since she was a little girl. Before that, even. Still, she wasn’t going to let those tall tales become the focus of their tour. “Let’s be nice, okay? Thank you. And Tommy...” She found the boy in braces. “Let’s raise our hand the next time we have a question.”

  
“I did.”

  
“You know what I mean.”

  
Ms. Easton quietly mouthed an apology to Hope that most of her students couldn’t hear. “You’re fine,” Hope said with a smile. “They’re kids. They’re excited.”

  
“So!” Hope turned to face the class, bending at the waist to look a few eager faces in the eye. “How many of you can tell me
who built
the Astoria Library?”

  
The kids didn’t respond.

  
“No?” Hope straightened. “Well, I’m guessing most of you already know this is the oldest building our city. Does anyone know just
how old
the Astoria Library is?”

  
Again, nothing.

  
“That’s very good.” Hope smiled at Ms. Easton, acting very impressed. “This is one time when no answer is just the answer I was looking for.” Most were confused, but a few, Wesley and Taylor among them, were intrigued.

   
“The truth is, no one knows for sure when the library was built or who built it. The building was already here –
 
abandoned – when Captain Harding and his men came ashore in 1802.” This grabbed their attention. Kids in Astoria loved to hear about the notorious pirate who had played a major role in the city’s early history before he and his men disappeared, never to be heard from again.

  
Seeing their interest was piqued, Hope started to walk away from their gathering point and move deeper into the library. Their tour was beginning, and the kids were quick to follow.

  
“Once visitors get past the building’s old world construction, the first thing most people notice are the literature displays scattered through our library’s main hall,” Hope continued, gesturing to the diorama beside her. The display appeared somewhat out of place, looking more like something one would expect to find in a museum rather than a dusty old library filled with books.
 

  
The display was simple enough. A square table topped with a heavy glass case. But the items inside were quite peculiar. There was a large, wooden chest in the center of the table that overflowed with gold coins and jewelry. A weathered map was placed beside the chest with the weight of an eighteenth-century pistol holding it in place.

  
“These displays are unique to the Astoria Library,” Hope continued. “You won’t find them anywhere else in the world.”

  
“Whoa!” A young boy with freckled cheeks was standing with his greasy nose pressed to the glass. “It looks so real.”

  
Randy and Caleb sauntered by the boy admiring the pirate relics. “Be glad it’s not,” Randy said.

  
“Why?”

  
“Cause if that gold was real I’d steal every piece then kill anybody I thought might tell...
like you
.”

  
The young boy swallowed hard and didn’t say another word the rest of their tour.

  
The next exhibit wasn’t encased in glass. Instead, velvet ropes attached to brass posts were in place to keep visitors from its treasures: an Indian headdress, a dagger, an ominous metal hook, and the stuffed head of a crocodile, its mouth propped open by a ticking clock.

  
“Each is a dioramic display that contains replica items from a classic piece of literature.” Hope walked across the large room. There were more than a dozen displays in this part of the library alone.

  
“Here’s an interesting one you kids are probably too young to recognize.” A long chrome cylinder sat alongside a neatly folded black uniform in the next display. The cylinder was rigged to wear on one’s back, and there was a long coil of tubing extending from its base that connected the heavy pack to a metal device that looked a lot like a gun. There was a helmet sitting just in front of the uniform. It was marked with the number 451. “This is the equipment the firefighters used in Ray Bradbury’s
Fahrenheit 451
. Does anyone know what this book is about?”

  
Wesley shut Taylor down with a firm look before she had an opportunity to ask her question. He’d read the book. She knew he had. But he wasn’t about to admit that here. Not now, not in front of everyone.
 

  
“That book takes place in a future where it’s illegal to read. Firefighters aren’t paid to put out fires, they’re paid to burn books.”

  
There was a snicker at the back of the group. Hope shifted her gaze just in time to catch Caleb leaning into Randy’s ear. “Sounds like the guys who’re comin to knock this place down.”

  
Hope frowned, saddened by the comment she wasn’t meant to hear. It seemed some of the kids had already heard the library wasn’t likely to survive the summer.

  
“Take a moment to check out the rest of these exhibits before we move into the Archives Room where you’ll see we have the largest collection of first editions on the West Coast.”

  
Most the students seemed to gravitate toward a
Wizard of Oz
display near a smooth pillar made of marble in the center of the room. Others were drawn to a half-painted picket fence with a straw hat hanging from its gate. Each display had something to offer; each was interesting in its own way.
 

  
Wesley was eager to explore himself but wanted to see where Randy and Caleb were heading first. There was a skylight in the library’s domed ceiling which allowed plenty of natural light into the building, but the sun also cast a web of shadows that reached into the deepest recesses of the library. The building was a collection of dark nooks and hidden crannies where a bad kid could get away with anything without being seen. It was a bully’s playground. Wesley had to be safe. If they were heading one way, Wesley was going the other.

  
Taylor found Randy and Caleb just as Wesley spotted them. The two boys were standing near the
Peter Pan
display Hope had pointed out before.
 

  
“Eighth graders get Magic Mountain and we’re stuck in this dumb-ass place?” Caleb began. “Yeah, that’s fair.”

  
“Cover me,” Randy whispered, using his chin to gesture toward the display. Caleb knew exactly what Randy wanted, as if they’d run this game a thousand times before. Ms. Easton was talking with their guide, but Caleb stepped into her line-of-sight just to be sure.

  
With Caleb blocking the teacher’s view, Randy leaned over the rope, grabbed the jewel-encrusted dagger and quickly tucked it into his waistband before pulling his jersey down so no one could see. And no one did. No one but Wesley and Taylor, Wesley with knots in his stomach all over again.

  
“He’s an idiot,” Taylor said matter-of-factly. “C’mon.” Together the friends left the group and moved into one of the library’s long aisles just off the main hall. Towering bookcases flanked either side of them as they set out to explore a little on their own.

  
Wesley studied the large, leather-bound books sitting on the top shelf. “How are you supposed to get some of these books down?” he wondered aloud. Most were blanketed with dust and missing the numeric label other books displayed on their spine. Some looked like they hadn’t left the shelves in years.

  
“I’m sure they’ve got ladders or something.”

  
Wesley cast a nervous glance over his shoulder as they walked deeper into shadow, farther away from that skylight in the main hall.

  
“Wow!” Taylor gasped. There was a large piece of artwork hanging on the wall at the end of the aisle. Carved from a single piece of wood, it offered a breathtaking view of the ocean from cliffs high above a rocky beach. In the distance, a pirate ship attacked the inhabitants of a small island. “These are too cool!” One of the impressive woodcarvings capped the end of each aisle in the library. “Why do you think she didn’t tell us about these?”

  
“We just got here,” Wesley said. “Maybe she will.”

  
“Yeah, maybe.” Taylor studied the intricacies of the carving. Each stone on the beach and every ripple of the water had been carved with incredible care and impossible detail. “Is that... that’s a mermaid!”

  
“What?!” Wesley exclaimed. “Let me see.”

  
Taylor stepped aside to give him a better view. Sure enough, there were small mermaids swimming alongside the wooden ship. The creatures seemed to be locked in an epic battle with the men aboard the vessel, though Wesley couldn’t be sure.

  
“This is Neverland,” Wesley said.

  
“What?”

  
“From
Peter Pan
.” He couldn’t hide his excitement. Alone with Taylor, he didn’t have to. “I’d bet my life this is Neverland.”

  
Taylor was happy to see Wesley was in a better mood. “I don’t know,” she said. “I tried to read it once, but it was too hard.”

  
“I know. All that Old English drives me nuts.” He turned to face the artwork once more. “Still, what if every one of these doors is a scene from a famous book?”

  
“They’re not doors, Wes.”

  
“That’s what they look like.”

  
He hurried to the carving at the end of the next aisle. Equally beautiful, the new scene was of men in a hot air balloon flying over a snow-capped mountain range. The men in the balloon were armed with rifles.

  
“What’s that?”

  
“I don’t know. Pretty dope, though.”

  
The next was a London street scene. The kids were taken with the men in top hats, the long overcoats and the horse-drawn carriages that were traveling down the long brick street. Both missed the sign labeling a well-known address: 221b Baker Street.

  
Wesley recognized the next scene immediately: a young boy travelling the Mississippi on a raft with a skinny slave. “Huck Finn,” he announced, pointing as they passed.

  
They took them in one at a time, marveling at their artistry and enjoying a glimpse into fantasy worlds where anything seemed possible. There were dragons and swordsmen, gorgeous landscapes and desolate wastelands.

  
Wesley wondered if anyone would ever take the time to capture one of his stories in such dramatic fashion.

  
One day
, he told himself.
One day
.

  
They came to the last carving on the wall a little quicker than they would have liked, but Taylor immediately felt as if they had saved the best for last.

  
“Oz.”

  
Really?” Wesley moved to look.

  
“My mom... she used to read
The Wizard of Oz
to me when I was a kid.” Wesley was going to ask if she’d grown up while he wasn’t looking but knew the moment was wrong for a joke like that. “It’s one of my favorite memories of her. One of my
only
memories.” For a long moment Taylor was lost in her thoughts, and Wesley wasn’t sure what to say. Her mother rarely came up, and when she did, it was the one thing that seemed to suck the wind from Taylor’s sails. When she finally looked to the carving again, Wesley breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

  
“Who do you think made all these?” Her eyes moved across the wood’s grain. Every brick in the road leading through the hillside had been carved individually. Thousands of them. “Just one of these would take forever.”

  
Wesley was staring at the carving with an intensity that took Taylor by surprise.
 

  
“What?” she asked.

  
“Look at that little building on the left. It’s darker than the rest.” The artist had made deeper cuts in the wood to make this small piece of the Emerald City skyline more pronounced than the rest. Upon closer inspection, Wesley realized it was also carved into the shape of a magic wand. The little building on the left wasn’t a building at all.
 

  
“That’s weird,” Taylor said.

  
Wesley couldn’t imagine why the artist would hide a wand in his work like this. But hadn’t he seen something similar in the Neverland carving? He couldn’t be sure.