Viviani couldn’t stop herself: she threw her bundled arms around Merit and pressed her cold cheek against Merit’s warm one. “What made you change your mind? Was it my sincerity? My positivity? My imagination? My sense of humor?”
Merit fought a smile. “It was none of the above. I simply can’t resist a good mystery.”
“I’ll take it. For now.” Viviani smiled, then sobered. “But I hope we can be friends someday.”
“Maybe someday,” Merit said softly. Then she scratched her chin. “Do you know of a place where we can get photographs developed?”
Viviani bounced on her toes. “Know of a place? I live in that place.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Photography,
Dewey Decimal 770.28
SEE ALSO: photography equipment and supplies
The door to the Printing Office creaked open, and three girls peeked inside: Viviani, Merit, and Eva, who’d joined the group after they made a short detour to Rogers Peet to recruit her. The air was dark and cool, and no one stood behind the large oak counter. The Printing Office was in the basement, and being down here, so close to where they had heard the moaning, so close to where the furnace banged and the pistons popped and Mr. Green kept his mysterious closet locked tight—well, the three girls were as jittery as gelatin.
Viviani dinged the brass bell on the counter, and still—no one. She dingdingdingdinged it, and at last, a door in the back corner swung open.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” a voice echoed, and then the speaker appeared. It was Mr. Tuttle, and Viviani thought he was perhaps the most appropriately named fellow she’d ever met: his back was hunched, he moved at a glacial pace, and he always, always wore a bright green visor.
“Viviani!” he bellowed, his face lighting up. “To what do I owe this honor, neighbor?”
“Mr. Tuttle,” Viviani whispered, and looked over her shoulder. If her father heard her asking for this favor, his disapproving grumble might shake the whole island of Manhattan. “My friends”—here Merit shifted uneasily—“and I need to get some film developed. Quickly. Can you help us?”
Mr. Tuttle lowered the brim of his visor, as if he were conspiring with them. “I’m only supposed to develop photographs for the library, Miss Fedeler.”
“Oh, this will help the library!” Viviani said. “We think.”
“We think, eh?” Mr. Tuttle tugged at the loose skin of his neck. “Well, that’s good enough for me. Let’s go.”
Eva, Merit, and Viviani each gave Mr. Tuttle a quick hug, then followed him down the hall.
“Film is developed in complete darkness, you see,” Mr. Tuttle said, shuffling slowly toward a door marked DARKROOM. “It’s very dark overall. You cannot open the door at first, or the film will be ruined. If you’d prefer to wait out here, you can. Understand?”
The girls exchanged excited glances. “We’d all like to go, please,” Merit piped up. Her voice had music and smiles and bounce woven within it, and Viviani could tell she was filled to the brim with joy about watching film get developed.
The darkroom was small and cold and smelled like powerful chemicals—bitter and biting, like the scent of vinegar. One long table lined with shallow silver trays and brown bottles was the only furniture in the room.
“Last warning,” Mr. Tuttle said. “If you don’t like darkness, I’d recommend waiting outside.”
Viviani half expected Eva to spin on her heel and march out, but she stayed. Mr. Tuttle banged the metal door shut, and Viviani gasped.
This wasn’t the kind of darkness Viviani had experienced to this point in her eleven years. This wasn’t just darkness; this was a complete and utter lack of light. Smothering. Heavy, as if it actually weighed something. And there were no shadows. None. Darkness this thick swallowed everything whole.
Breathe, Viviani, she told herself. But the chemical air stung her lungs. Breathe.
“First, we open the back of the camera,” Mr. Tuttle was saying. There were clicks and whirs, but Viviani couldn’t see a thing. “I’m using the winding key to roll the film onto a spool pin,” Mr. Tuttle explained.
“A spool pin,” Merit whispered, as if committing this experience to memory.
Viviani’s head spun. Mr. Tuttle said some things about solutions and developer and temperatures, and he seemed very happy to have an audience in this small dark room.
Small. Dark. Room. Viviani’s throat tightened.
“… and then we’ll use a solution called stop bath,” Mr. Tuttle was saying as he banged and clanged in the darkness.
“Stop bath,” Eva said with a laugh, from somewhere to Viv’s left. “Sounds like something John Jr. would use, right, Viv?”
Viviani attempted a half-hearted chuckle.
“Are you okay, Viviani?” Merit asked.
It was so odd, these voices from the dark!
“I’m okay!” she said, likely too loud, but her ears were ringing, so it was difficult to tell if she was shouting.
“Would you like to sit on the floor, Miss Fedeler?” Mr. Tuttle asked. “If you need to leave…”
“No, I’m okay,” Viviani shouted. “We cannot ruin that film.” She sank to the floor. From there, she listened to them discussing fix bath and more agitating and rinsing and drying agents.
Viviani heard Mr. Tuttle drop the film into a hollow canister, then pour in some bitter-smelling chemicals. She heard him screw a cap on, and then he flipped on a small, red-toned light. After all that darkness, the pale light felt blinding. Mr. Tuttle turned the canister upside down, then upright again. “Are you okay, Miss Fedeler? You can leave now if you—”
“I’m okay!” Viviani said in a bit of a whimper from the floor. “I’m fine!”
Mr. Tuttle nodded. “Merit? Would you like to agitate the film for us?”
“Would I! My sister would probably tell you I’m very good at agitating things.”
Eva and Mr. Tuttle laughed. Merit flipped the canister up and down, up and down, between her hands, the solution inside sloshing. Sloshing like Viviani’s insides. Ugh. Her stomach felt bitter.
For the longest eight and a half minutes of Viviani’s life, Merit and Eva took turns sloshing the canister around. They seemed startled when Viviani passed on taking a turn.
“Okay, girls. Now, we dump out the developing solution”—Viviani had closed her eyes at this point, so she didn’t see where the solution went—“and we douse the film in…”
The room felt as if it were closing in on Viviani, just like in Poe’s “Cask of Amontillado.” The story was about a man tricked into a deep, dark cellar and then … stone by stone—oh! Why would she think of that now? Cursed imagination.
Something clanged in the depth of this small darkroom.
“A hammer!” Viviani whimpered, and photographs ready or not, she pushed through the door of the darkroom and into the blinding bright lights of the Printing Office.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Crime,
Dewey Decimal 364
SEE ALSO: crime and criminals, crime and detection
Viviani groaned when Merit and Eva found her sulking in her bedroom some time later.
“I ruined the photographs,” she said to the floor, her head between her knees. “I am so sorry I ruined the photographs.”
Merit and Eva shared a grin. “No, you didn’t, Viviani. They’re down there drying now. Come on!”
Viviani leapt up, her dizziness forgotten.
“Thank goodness! Well, let’s look at them!”
The trio dashed down one, two flights of stairs and into the Printing Office. Hanging in the back on a clothesline, their smiling mugs: Eva tossing her head back in laughter while scaling a bookshelf. Merit looking deadly serious as she talked to the president on a telephone. Viviani riding atop a book cart, finger held aloft, conqueror of the library.
Mr. Tuttle ahemed. “I’ll pretend I saw none of this, girls.”
Viviani hugged Mr. Tuttle. He tugged at the skin on his neck and s
aid, “Your friends tell me you’re looking for clues in these photos, Miss Fedeler. Perhaps these tools might help.” He opened his hand, and there he held a magnifying glass and two loops—the magnifying eyepieces scholars and jewelers wear to study things closely.
Merit squealed.
Merit squealing? Viviani smiled. There was a shot at friendship yet. “Thank you, Mr. Tuttle! I’ll return them to you in perfect condition.”
Mr. Tuttle smiled. “Don’t mention it. Those tools are available to anyone who visits the library. Surely that goes doubly for you, neighbor.”
The girls raced upstairs and found a quiet nook near a massive card catalog on the second floor. They began flipping through the photographs.
“Look at this one of Eva spinning in the office chairs!” Viviani giggled and pointed to Eva’s wild grin, her flying hair. “You look like a bearcat!”
Eva laughed. “But you in this photo, Viv! Sliding down the banister like that. Now I finally have proof to show your mother.”
The photos showed Viviani silhouetted against a tall window browsing the large display dictionary. Eva turning cartwheels in the wide second-floor hallway. Merit posing like a famous singer at the WJZ microphone. The girls laughed as they relived the sleepover through Merit’s photos.
“That was a pretty fun night.” Merit sighed while looking at a photo of herself sitting on a throne of books. Viviani smiled. It had been a fun night.
Finally, Viviani took a deep breath, and they flipped to the photo of John Jr. just as he’d leapt out from behind the bookstacks, dressed as Big Red. At the time, Merit’s flash had blinded them all, taken in the darkness. The photo she’d captured of John Jr. showed him wild-eyed, hair mussed. The fake beard was crooked, glued on so that it looked more like an orange tabby cat stuck to his pale, freckled jaw. The coveralls Viv had “borrowed” from Papa for the stunt sagged at his wrists, his ankles, and his mouth puckered, as if saying Red.
No one said a word. Viviani felt her cheeks burn in shame. Oh, Merit must really hate her.
Merit was the first to giggle. “He certainly looks as if he’s seen a ghost,” she chuckled.
Eva began to laugh, too. “And look! There’s Carroll, peeking out of the stacks behind him!”
Viviani leaned in over the girls, and she hovered the magnifying glass over the photograph. Sure enough, Carroll’s thick curly hair and two flashing white eyes poked out from behind a bookshelf. The girls screamed with laughter, and a faraway librarian shushed them.
They laughed until tears streamed down their faces. They laughed until their stomachs hurt. They laughed until they were giggling piles of mush.
As they were catching their breath, Merit gasped. “Look! Right there!”
The trio focused their attention where Merit had pointed. In the upper right corner of the photo, barely peeking out from behind a bookshelf: the heel of a shoe.
A running-away shoe.
But twisted at an odd angle, like it was being dragged.
“Ghosts don’t wear shoes,” Eva whispered.
Merit shook her head. “Nope. But thieves do.”
“I know that shoe.” Viviani scratched her chin, then dug back through the pile of photographs until she reached the one that Merit had taken of the Inverted Jenny.
And, yep. She saw the same shoe.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Traps,
Dewey Decimal 639.1
SEE ALSO: snares, ambushes
Dear Friend,
A new day, a new plan.
I feel excited and nervous and eager and jittery all at once—like some of the herky-jerky, sparky inventions that Papa fiddles with in his workshop. We’re going to catch a thief.
The thief is still here—I know it. The odd angle of that shoe, the moan we heard: that thief is still here, and struggling.
I keep telling Eva—and myself—it’s sorta like capturing fireflies. Unpredictable but not dangerous.
I hope I’m right.
We decided not to tell Mama and Papa about this plan because, well, they’re already concerned for his job, for our home. And this one? It’s all on me, Friend, I’m sorry to say. When I saw that shoe, I realized: I did this.
I got us into this, and I’m going to get us out.
* * *
Merit and Eva arrived at the library for sleepover number two. Because it was winter break, multiple sleepovers a week were possible, and those were the best kinds of weeks of all. Viviani had to agree to months of extra chores to garner another sleepover so soon after the last one had ended in a jumbled pile of hijinks, but Mama, ever the hostess, caved eventually.
Eva lugged in her heavy, bulging-at-the-zipper suitcase, dragging it across the floor behind her. When Mama raised an eyebrow at it, Merit shrugged and said, “Viviani had an idea for a craft.”
“Carry on,” Mama said, for she was quite used to Viviani’s ideas for things.
And once again, the shadows crept across the great, wide expanse of floor. And the ticks of the clock in the Main Reading Room swept by like passing librarians.
* * *
At midnight, Viviani pressed her ear to the door of her parents’ room. Papa was snoring like a dragon, and Mama’s nose was whistling. The sound-asleep symphony.
“Let’s go,” Viviani said, motioning her head to the door.
It creaked open. Viviani wished John Jr. or Carroll or Edouard had agreed to help, but they were still too mad at her for getting them in trouble after last time. Viviani had never before had so many people mad at her at once. It felt awful, like the stomach flu, only worse because you couldn’t just gulp down some cod liver oil and get it all out already.
Tonight, no one slid down banisters. The three girls padded down the stairs, Eva lugging her heavy bag behind her clunk clunk clunk. Was it Viviani’s imagination, or was the library getting colder the farther they went into the dark?
Viviani wished she knew the routine of Mr. Leon. He had taken over the night shift, at least until it could be proved that Mr. Eames was indeed doing his job the evening the stamps went missing. But, no: Viv would just have to hope that their paths did not cross.
Soon they were again near the drippy, windowless basement, again approaching the clanging that sounded an awful lot like a hammer, again with heartbeats louder than footsteps. Viviani clicked on the Ray-O-Vac flashlight. It puttered on, a pale yellow beam leading the way.
“Unnnggghhh!” came a sound through the darkness.
“Shhh!” Merit said, freezing, readying her camera. “Did you hear that?”
Viviani gulped, nodded.
Merit glared at Viviani, her eyes shining in the flashlight beam. “Viv, this is your last chance. You need to let me know right now if this is another prank.…”
Viviani shook her head and drew an X across her chest. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
Eva whimpered. “Please no dying tonight, okay?”
The girls padded down three more cold, hard steps.
“Ooof!”
The thing—the thief, Viv thought—had run into something. That couldn’t be a ghost, then, could it? No, of course not. Viviani knew this wasn’t a ghost now. The girls exchanged glances. No one wanted to be the one to call off the mission, so they continued.
Down, down, down.
“Eva, get ready,” Viviani whispered. Eva zipped open her bag. The zipper sounded like fabric ripping in all this darkness, like sharp claws tearing through a shirt. Eva fished out her handiwork.
The trio tiptoed through the maze of bookstacks, weaving around the bases of the seven-level shelves that spanned the entire back side of the building. Bookstacks loomed over them like silent giants.
The girls turned the corner around a tall shelf and—
There!
A dark figure, stumbling. Limping.
Just like in Papa’s story! Just like Big Red himself!
But Viviani knew this wasn’t a ghost. This was a thief. A thief she knew.
Viviani gulped
and shouted:
“NOW!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Surprises,
Dewey Decimal 152.4
SEE ALSO: unpredictable, unexpected
A word about nows:
Some nows truly do feel as sudden and sharp as the word itself: “NOW!” Like when you’re trying to swat a fly, or capture lightning on film. But some nows, somehow, draw out the O so that a breathy instant feels more like an eternity: “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!”
The girls felt the latter, as if they were slowly moving through water.
They hurled Eva’s horribly crocheted blanket over the dark, lumbering figure. Merit took one end of the skein of yarn and circled the form, tightening the net around it. Tighter, tighter. The thing groaned.
Viviani leapt forward, crochet needle in hand. “AHA!” she shouted. As she did so, she nudged a nearby shelf of books, and the books toppled onto the figure, thud, thump, CRASH! The thing moaned even louder and stumbled forward.
Eva screamed.
“Confess!” Viviani shouted at the trapped figure. “Give us those stamps you stole!”
Viviani swirled the flashlight up toward the figure, just as the overhead light clicked on.
“What in the world is going on in here?”
Mr. Green stood in the doorway, his approach silent as always. The cannibal himself, looming over them. Viviani didn’t know she could be more scared than she’d just been, but sure enough, her stomach churned and her palms grew sweaty.
“You girls wandering around this library will be the death of me, you hear? And what with that recent thievery, too. You have me worried sick.”
Worried sick?
Mr. Green looked at the trio of girls holding a skein of yarn, a crochet needle, and the hem of a horrible blanket. He then saw someone struggling beneath the loose pile of yarn. He leapt forward and yanked the blanket off. The thief’s leg was bent at a grotesque angle. He clutched a large envelope and wore a terrible pea-soup coat.
The Story Collector--A New York Public Library Book Page 12
