Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library

Akimi uses up her Librarian Consultation lifeline to find out from Mrs. Tobin that the book under Dr. Suess’s image is Huckleberry Finn. Sierra, Akimi, and Kyle use telephone cords to make a safety rope attaching Kyle to the hover ladder’s handrail. His plan is to rise in the maglev hover ladder up to the book, then reach to the window and open it. Kyle thinks he only has to get a hand out to be able to say he found a way out of the library—enough to win the game. Charles rudely tells Kyle that he (Charles) already thought of Kyle’s window idea and rejected it because wire mesh prevents the windows from opening. Kyle tries to pull himself up to the window anyway but cannot get free of the ski-boot-like clamps on his feet holding him to the hover ladder; he sees the wire mesh and admits Charles is right. Kyle realizes he wasted an hour, but Akimi and Sierra agree that “It was worth a shot” (98). The three take off for the basement when they hear Haley’s screams.

This chapter switches to Charles Chiltington’s third person limited viewpoint. Charles thinks Dr. Zinchenko’s directive to seek the library staff’s help “to help you find whatever it is you are looking for” (99-100) is a clue. He focuses on the enclosed display case of “Staff Picks: Our Most Memorable Reads” in the lobby. Inside the case are 12 images of book covers mounted to foam core. They lack call numbers; Charles attempts to look up the call number of In the Pocket: Johnny Unitas and Me on a desktop computer in the rotunda Reading Room, where he discovers that the call number is censored; a message reads: “You didn’t really think we’d make it that easy, did you?” (101). Charles realizes he must find the book in the massive library. He deduces that it is children’s fiction. In that section, Charles finds the book right away. A card with black-and-white silhouette image of a football player throwing a pass with the number 19 on his jersey falls from the book, and Charles picks it up.

Akimi, Kyle, and Sierra follow Haley’s cries downstairs to the Stacks, the storage room for research materials where robots fetch requested items. They see that someone upstairs is requesting a magazine when a light over a metal box labeled “Magazines and Periodicals. 1930s” (105) begins blinking. They find Haley running in place on a treadmill with her hand stuck in an overhead book return slot, having tried to escape that way. Akimi finds a shut off switch and soon Haley is free. She does not thank them; in fact, when Kyle suggests she tell the security guards she might be hurt, Haley insists she is fine and plans to win the game. She leaves. A tablet screen appears in a floor tile with a message congratulating Kyle, Akimi, and Sierra for helping a competitor. The tile slides open to reveal a paper tube with a yellow, lemon-scented card that reads “SUPER-DOOPER BONUS CLUE” (105).

This chapter switches to third-person point of view limited to Haley. Haley frustratedly goes to the Book Nook Café to think. If she wins the prize, she hopes to provide her family with money they need, as her father lost his job a year ago. Fame as Mr. Lemoncello’s spokesperson would bring additional commercials and possibly movies and TV options for her. A book in the Café is one she recalls seeing in the Staff Picks display in the lobby: Cupcakes, Cookies, and Pie, Oh My!. When she picks it up, she finds two cards: one silhouette of a black sheep on a white card, and one lemon-colored card labeled SUPER DOOPER BONUS CLUE. The clue reads, “YOUR MARVELOUS MEMORY HAS EARNED YOU EVEN MORE MEMORIES. PROCEED TO THE LEMONCELLO-ABILIA ROOM. LOOK FOR ITEM #12” (111). Up in the room on the third floor, Haley finds stacks of cardboard storage boxes. She finds #12; it contains “Paraphernalia, Accoutrements, and Doodads from Mr. Lemoncello’s 12th Year” (112). Keepsakes fill the box, including a Disneyland pennant, game piece prototypes, and an envelope of “First and Worst Idea Ever” (113). She does not know what to make of the items.

Kyle’s team’s bonus clue reads “YOU WILL FIND THE ULTIMATE VERSION OF THIS BOARD GAME ON THE SECOND-FLOOR BALCONY CIRCLING THE ROTUNDA” (114). They unroll the sketch that came in the paper tube. Kyle recognizes the sketched board game as Mr. Lemoncello’s Bewilderingly Baffling Bibliomania. In the Reading Room, they see Haley heading back to the basement and Andrew Peckleman receiving the delivered magazine from the Stacks. He asks Mrs. Tobin if it is the real magazine, and she answers yes. In so doing, Andrew inadvertently uses up his Librarian Consultation. Andrew gets angry and threatens to have her fired. Miguel requests something on a slip of paper he places before Mrs. Tobin, who tells him the item is removed, but that he can find it “next to the original Winkle and Grimble scale model” (117). Details of that location print on a slip of paper and come out of Mrs. Hobin’s desk. When Miguel turns and sees Kyle, Sierra, and Akimi, he stops short.

Kyle and Miguel exchange brief words and give nothing away of their pursuits. Kyle takes the girls to the second-floor balcony, where he shows them how the Reading Room and dome strongly resemble the game board sketch. He explains that in the real game, a player goes to each of the 10 Dewey Decimal rooms and answers a trivia question about a book. Then, it is a race to the exit the library. Kyle tells the others that in all Lemoncello board games, a “back-door exit” allows for an unexpected win, but the black square on the diagram representing the quick escape is not represented in the room below. They determine to go to the Young Adult room and play the actual board game for help.

Bridgette Wadge attempts her Extreme Challenge. She must name four titles written by each one of 10 crime and mystery writers like Poe and Dickens in two minutes. She does well but falters on her last writer, Dostoyevsky, getting only Crime and Punishment before her time runs out. She is eliminated and departs. Akimi and Kyle swear they will not attempt an Extreme Challenge, but Sierra, who wrote five titles or each writer while Bridgette made her attempt, says she might.

They use Sierra’s library card to get into the Young Adult room. Her card includes pictures of the books The Westing Game and The Egypt Game. Inside, they discover a fortune teller booth like “Zoltar Speaks” except it is Mr. Lemoncello’s likeness that sits inside. Kyle speaks to it and asks for a board game. The dummy replies, telling him to say its name. He does so; a slot in the fortune telling booth opens and out comes the board game Bibliomania game. The fortune teller warns them to read directions.

Andrew Peckleman rushes in demanding to talk to Mr. Lemoncello, whose voice he heard. Peckleman shouts at the camera, “I want to talk to an expert!” The real Mr. Lemoncello immediately replies and asks to whom Andrew would like to speak. Andrew says he wants to talk to the writer of the magazine article he requested, a piece about “cracking open bank vaults in the 1930s” (127). Dr. Zinchenko says the reporter is dead and reminds Andrew that the way they came in will not work to get out. Andrew accuses them of “rigging” the game to favor Miguel. The Mr. Lemoncello dummy comes to life and tells Andrew he can ask a question. Andrew wants to know where Miguel is; the dummy tells him that Miguel is in the Art and Artifacts Room. Kyle and Akimi follow to protect Miguel, but Andrew flees the Art and Artifacts Room, afraid of holograms of a Pharoah and a woman. They find Miguel at a desk studying blueprints. Sierra runs in and says they received a bonus clue from the fortune-telling Mr. Lemoncello.

Back in Charles’s third-person limited perspective, the chapter opens with Charles studying two more cards from two Staff Picks: an umpire tossing someone from a game on one card, a pedestrian walking sign on the other. He feels he must be on the right track, as the two cards together read “walk,” then “out.” Andrew runs in as Charles is about to go after his next clue. Charles forewarns Andrew that Miguel will probably join the team with Kyle and Akimi, then he asks Andrew to join him in beating them. Andrew accepts and tells Charles exactly where they can find a book on languages—the 400s.

Once inside the dark room, they see four mannequins without facial features. A movie projects onto one, giving the mannequin a face and moving mouth. She insists on telling each boy about his American heritage. The mannequins explain that Andrew’s ancestor Peter Paul Peckleman appeared on a 1968 TV game show called Concentration—a game exactly like Mr. Lemoncello’s Picture Word Puzzler, which Charles takes as further confirmation that he is right to pursue the pictures in the Staff Picks books.

Sierra reads the new clue: that adding two and two can sometimes equal more than four. Kyle offers to have Miguel join the team and says they are headed to the discard bowl to see the books on the cards of those who left the game. Miguel comes along. Clarence, who is guarding the bowl, tells the group they must win the cards; then Miguel joins the team. Mr. Lemoncello and Dr. Zinchenko appear on the screens dressed as a game show host and his assistant. They announce the stakes are high: if the team does not win the game, they will be eliminated.

Mr. Lemoncello calls the game “Risking Everything for Five Little Library Cards.” The children will have to solve a rebus (a ciphered message in which pictures and letters stand for words) in 90 seconds. The rebus is suddenly displayed on every screen. It is five lines long. Kyle sees right away that the first and third share three of the four symbols, and he offers to decipher both lines. The others each take a line. They talk it out somewhat to themselves and each one says their line, completing the puzzle as a team. Kyle repeats the answer: “Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read” (146).

A scene break in the chapter signifies a switch in viewpoint to Charles. He and Andrew hear the victory in the Electronic Learning Center and run up to see the completed puzzle on the monitors. Charles whispers that Kyle’s team might be catching up. The two quickly go the 900s room to find the next Staff Picks book but discover Haley already there, holding the book they need. Charles quickly plots to persuade Haley to join his team.

Another viewpoint switch shows the reader that while Haley does join the team, she intends to use Charles and Andrew just as Charles plans to use her. Haley assumes she will be the star of Mr. Lemoncello’s ads and commercials even if the three of them win, because she is the one with “zazz.” The clue she found before Charles got to it is a silhouette of the state of Indiana.