The Story Collector--A New York Public Library Book

by Kristin O'Donnell Tubb

  Mr. Hill.

  Viviani had hoped she wasn’t right—that the shoes in the photo next to the Inverted Jenny and the shoes in the photo of John Jr. dressed as Big Red were just a coincidence. But, no, photos don’t lie. Merit loved that about photography. Photos tells facts. Tears welled in Viv’s eyes as Mr. Hill avoided her gaze.

  Sometimes the bad guy is disguised as a good guy.

  Does that mean … that sometimes the good guy looks like a bad guy?

  Mr. Green snatched the envelope from Mr. Hill and shook it open. Sure enough, the missing stamps were inside.

  “Well, I’ll be,” Mr. Green snarled. “It seems you girls have caught yourselves a burglar.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Justice,

  Dewey Decimal 172.2

  SEE ALSO: common good, fairness

  Justice! They’d caught the thief. The feeling of doing something right made Viviani feel extra jolty, just like jazzy radio songs or the first sunny spring day. The feeling was too much to contain: Viviani, Merit, and Eva ran to the tip-top of the library, then slid and skidded down every banister in sight, whooping and hollering and waking the entire family, thank you very much.

  It was, of course, bittersweet for Viv. Yes, she’d saved Mr. Eames’s job. Yes, she’d saved Papa’s job and their home in the library. But Mr. Hill had tricked her, just as she’d tried tricking Merit, and, boy, did it feel terrible. And as she soon discovered, his name wasn’t even Mr. Hill at all.

  “Joseph Hemphill,” he said, extending his hand to Viviani again, this time in apology. The whole Fedeler clan was downstairs awaiting the police. She thought about not shaking his hand; she truly did. But this fellow had helped her realize that her story was worth telling. That her voice was worth listening to. That she was, indeed, a story collector. And so she shook it. And as she did, she said, “You know what, Mr. Hill? I mean, Mr. Hemphill? You’re not a bad-luck collector. It seems to me you create your own bad luck.”

  * * *

  The police came and cuffed Mr. Joseph Hemphill, dragging him off cursing and limping. The night he’d stolen the stamps, he’d heard the kids wandering the library and thought it was the guards. He’d made his way to the basement and tried to scale the card catalog in the library school (“the best hiding spot,” Viviani had told him) but had tumbled backward and broken his leg. He’d been unable to escape the library after that, hiding and wandering the stacks, dragging his leg through the basement.

  “So, see, Papa?” Viviani said to him. “Our wandering the library at night actually saved the stamps.”

  Based on Papa’s frown, he wasn’t buying that line of logic.

  As it turns out, the crash that the kids had heard that night when John Jr. was dressed as Big Red? A too tightly stretched electrical cord, spanning from a telegraph machine wrapped in tinfoil to the far wall. Viviani and Eva’s Martian communicator in Papa’s workshop. Mr. Hill—Mr. Hemphill—had tripped over it. They’d set a trap without even knowing it.

  “So, see, Papa?” Viviani said again. “My playing in the workshop was pretty handy after all.”

  Based on Papa’s deepening frown, Viviani decided to stop pointing out all the ways she’d helped.

  Viviani, Merit, and Eva had their picture taken for the newspaper. Pop! went the photographer’s loud flash, which blinded them and left them blinking back red stars for many minutes.

  “It’ll be in tomorrow’s paper,” the reporter grunted as he left. Viviani wondered if Mr. Hemphill had even been a reporter at all that first day, on the steps of the library. She doubted it. Had he paid for her fancy leather captain’s log, or had he stolen that, too? Oh, she had so many questions for him, but she figured most of those would remain unanswered.

  Perhaps she’d just have to make up stories to fill in the blanks.

  “Oh, Viv,” Mama said, sighing, after most of the excitement had died down. She pulled Viviani in for a tight hug and breathed in her scent, as mamas do. “I’m so glad you girls are safe.”

  John Jr. ruffled her hair, and Edouard said, “Fact: that was stupid but I’m glad you’re okay.” Then he punched her on the arm.

  Papa hugged her hardest of all, a hug that felt like all the safety and light and warmth in the world. “Nice work, kid.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes. And you’re in big trouble. We’re talking weeks of extra chores, Firecracker.”

  Viviani smiled. Weeks of spending more time with Papa sounded like just the punishment she needed. “You can start calling me Red again, you know.”

  Papa grabbed her chin and jostled it. “Yeah?”

  John Jr. shook his head. “Naw, Firecracker is the bee’s knees. Let’s keep that.”

  “But what if I don’t want to be called that?”

  John Jr. trapped her in a gentle headlock and tickled her. “Like you have a choice in your own nickname, Firecracker.”

  * * *

  The next night, the bow tie–sporting Mr. Eames wandered and whistled through the hallways once again, but now, much to John Jr.’s and Edouard’s and Viviani’s dismay, he changed up his routine. They knew that from this point forward, they’d never know where he’d be, and when. Their Master Thief tallies would be doomed, and their snooping and sneaking would be that much more difficult. (Note that it by no means squelched the snooping and sneaking.)

  And speaking of sneaking: Viviani just had to know. So later that same day, after all the hubbub, she gathered her gumption and faced her fears head-on. She found the custodian in the map room and tapped him on the shoulder.

  “Mr. Green?”

  The cleaning man spun around, his messy blond hair falling over one glaring green eye. “Yeah?”

  Viviani swallowed. “Um, I was wondering. How come everyone’s shoes make so much noise in this library but yours? How come we never hear you coming?”

  Mr. Green scowled down at his glossy wing tips. “The shine, don’cha know? Makes ’em soft. These here shoes are like ballet slippers, they are.”

  The idea of the janitor wearing ballet slippers made Viviani laugh. Mr. Green did not. He turned to empty another special lion-emblazoned library garbage can. But that wasn’t the question she truly wished to ask.

  “Mr. Green?”

  He grunted, which Viviani took as permission to keep speaking.

  Viviani took the INVENTORS’ CLUB sign from her pocket. “Did you get me in trouble with my parents because of this sign?”

  Mr. Green paused and looked at the note Viviani was smoothing flat over the glossy table in the map room.

  “I’m sorry I … called you a cannibal,” Viviani whispered.

  “You did what?” Mr. Green’s face shifted. It was the first time Viv had seen him do anything other than scowl. She imagined his face muscles creaking and groaning and moaning before landing in a somewhat awkward grin.

  “Right here,” Viviani said, and tapped the note. “The cannibal part. I’m sorry I—”

  But Viviani halted midsentence, which was a rare thing indeed, for her to run out of words like that. Then she saw it: the way Mr. Green looked at the note, like it was a thing made of magic instead of ink and paper.

  “Mr. Green,” Viviani asked slowly, “can you read?”

  Mr. Green’s face looked wistful, as if he were seeing something far away, rather than the window in the map room. He didn’t answer, which was, of course, his answer.

  His face twitched. “Follow me.”

  Mr. Green slid through the library as silently as a ghost, Viviani trailing behind him. He wound down, down, down to the basement and stopped just in front of his rusted, locked-tight custodial closet. He dug for his key.

  The key. His one-of-a-kind, special, nobody-else-has-one key.

  Viviani’s insides shriveled. Her heart raced. This was a mistake, starting this conversation. Asking if he could read. He had led her to the closet. He was searching for the key.

  He found the key and swiftly unlocked the door, which likely held back an
entire arsenal of weaponry. Or organs floating in yellowy jars. Or entrails. He swung the door open. It shrieked on its hinges. Something toppled off a shelf and landed on Viviani’s toe. She yelped and leapt backward. Was it a saw? A bone? A skull?

  It was a picture book.

  “You’re the culprit?” Viviani said, picking up the book from the ground. “You’ve been stealing picture books from the children’s room!”

  “Not stealing,” Mr. Green grumbled. “Borrowing. I always return ’em.” He snatched the book, called Millions of Cats, from Viviani. It was new, and he was dusting it off, inspecting it to make certain it hadn’t been damaged in the fall.

  “The pictures, see. I’m teaching myself using the books with the pictures. This one’s about cats.” He pointed to the word cats.

  “You could check them out with a library card, Mr. Green,” Viviani said, but Mr. Green was already shaking his head.

  “Can’t fill out the form.”

  Viviani’s heart twisted. Oh, to be unable to swim inside written stories! To not have them woven about your heart! To spend so much of your life in a library and not be able to enjoy its offerings! Viviani felt that the absence of books in Mr. Green’s life must be like color blindness, or like constantly wearing itchy wet wool in summer, or like the inability to taste sugar or salt.

  “I’m going to teach you to read, Mr. Green,” Viviani said, chin lifted. “We’ll begin our lessons tomorrow. In the map room. Bring a pen and a piece of paper.”

  Mr. Green’s face lit up, but he shuffled his feet. “Now, the miss don’t need to go and do that.”

  Viviani smiled and considered all the stories Mr. Green would be able to unlock with this key. This special, one-of-a-kind key: the unique mix of books and stories that he would choose to read. Different from everyone else on the planet. His blanks to fill in. His Once Upon a Time.

  “Yes, Mr. Green, I do.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Friendship,

  Dewey Decimal 158.25

  SEE ALSO: best friends, friendship anecdotes

  The following day, the New York Daily News featured a photo of Viviani, Merit, and Eva with the headline LIBRARY MOPPETS STAMP OUT STAMP THIEF. Merit’s father was so proud that he ran out and grabbed every copy he could find. He made Merit bring three extra copies to the library for Viviani.

  She plunked the stack in front of Viv. “That could’ve been very dangerous, Viviani.”

  Viv shrank. Here it came: the part where Merit decided they couldn’t be friends anymore, that they were too different to be chums. And then Viv would likely lose all her friends at school, too, once they heard this whopper, once they found out Viviani had dressed up her brother like a ghost. Viviani’s eyes stung; she lightly ran her fingers over the photo of their three giddy faces, printed on page one in black and white.

  Viviani nodded, agreeing at last. “It was dangerous. I see three lucky girls in this picture.”

  Merit leaned over her shoulder. “Three lucky girls? I see a Brain,” she pointed to herself in the photo, and Viviani laughed. “A Sweetheart.” Here, Merit pointed to Eva, and Viviani nodded. “And a Friend.”

  Viviani perked up. “Yeah? There’s a Friend in that photo?”

  Merit grinned. “I think so.”

  Viviani tapped the stack of newspapers. “Photos don’t lie, you know. You said it yourself, Brain. If there’s a Friend there, that’s a fact.”

  Merit laughed. “The good thing about being the Brain is that I’m always learning. Yes, certainly, photos capture facts.” Merit circled the photo with her finger sheepishly. “But they also tell a story. Part of one, at least. I think you should write this story down, Viviani. The story of this photo. Our story.”

  Viviani squealed and threw her arms around Merit. “You got it, Brain.”

  “Thanks, Friend.”

  Dear Friend,

  Once upon a time there were three girls who caught a thief, a thief who taught one of those girls that her story was worth sharing.

  And somehow, everything turned out all right: Papa’s and Mr. Eames’s jobs were saved, John Jr. and Edouard are no longer mad at me, and best of all, I have another new best friend! Oh, and Mr. Green doesn’t want to gobble me up. Maybe. It sure sounds like a Happily Ever After to me.

  I am disappointed in one thing, though, if I’m being honest: the fact that there doesn’t appear to be a ghost wandering the library stacks at night after all. It had been downright thrilling, thinking of that red-whiskered fellow, gripping his hammer and seeking revenge on the mischief-makers within. Big Red was just a story, I suppose, and while stories often feel real, they may only be true to our hearts. Edouard said he still might believe in ghosts because “the data points toward their existence.” Data is great. Facts are great. But stories are what connect us.

  And so I’m still a story collector. A word peddler. A knowledge warrior. Stories help us make sense of things that don’t make sense at all. Like an unfortunate amount of bad luck. Or a forever-locked closet. Or a pile of toppled books in a deserted part of the library. I’ve gathered these words, these pages, this story, so I can share it with you, Friend, in hopes that you can find a bit of yourself in me or Eva or Merit or Edouard or John Jr. or Carroll. That’s the truth of fiction, after all. It’s hidden in feelings, not facts.

  A gong sounded. Viviani capped her pen and clicked off the green library lamp, turning her warm writing circle cold and dark. And just before she headed out of the map room, Viviani knew she needed to say goodbye to one part of her story. She whispered to the whole of the New York Public Library:

  “Good night, Big Red.”

  Viviani turned and began making her way home to where good food and good stories were waiting.

  Behind her, the lamp turned back on.

  Author’s Note,

  Dewey Decimal 809.33

  see also: authors, American; literature, modern

  Once upon a time, a girl was born in a library. Not just any library, mind you: the New York Public Library. And not just any girl: Viviani Joffre Fedeler.

  That part is true, as is the fact that Viviani was named for visiting French dignitaries when her parents were stumped for a name. In fact, quite a bit of this story is true. Viviani and her brothers, John Jr. and Edouard, lived in the library with their parents because their father was the superintendent. John and Cornelia Fedeler moved into the library in July 1910, ten months before the building was opened to the public on May 23, 1911. Viviani was born there on May 8, 1917, and lived in the library for the first fifteen years of her life.

  The red-bearded ghost was part of the library lore; the Fedeler children grew up hearing about the haunted stacks. And, yes, unfortunately a number of men were killed in the construction of the library itself, including a man who fell from the scaffolding while hanging plaster in the world-famous Main Reading Room. (“At least that’s the way father told it,” John Jr. once told the New York Times. It seems he knew to question John Sr.’s imaginative version of things.) The reading room has been known as the Rose Main Reading Room since the 1990s.

  Viviani’s papa, John H. Fedeler Sr., worked for Thomas Edison and the New York Produce Exchange, where John Jr. was born on November 12, 1906, during a power outage, and Edouard on May 13, 1908. Fedeler later became the “superintendent and consulting engineer” at the New York Public Library’s flagship building on Fifth Avenue and Forty-Second Street, today known as the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. John Sr. was an inventor, an engineer (he once “bluffed” his way into working in the chief engineer’s office for the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago), a sea diver (he really did rescue “junk, metal, rifles, and the like” from shipwrecks), and a storyteller. Boy, was he a storyteller.

  John Sr. would sit in his great armchair and tell his children stories, often about the red-whiskered ghost. He hoped by telling such stories that he’d cut down on the amount of late-night library exploring his children would undertake. John Sr. (not Junior, as in th
is tale) also told his children that the library custodian was a cannibal, with hopes that they wouldn’t get underfoot when he did his rounds.

  John Jr. later became the library superintendent, staying on until 1949. In his teens, he did indeed trap pigeons on the library roof (until the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals caught wind of this and requested he free them). He and his siblings and friends later recalled many games of baseball between the stacks, using books as bases.

  And indeed, there was once a thief who tried to flee with a ten-thousand-dollar stamp collection but broke his leg in the getaway. He was found and arrested.

  When the New York Public Library opened in 1911, it attracted tens of thousands of visitors on day one, including President William Howard Taft. The collection consisted of over a million volumes, largely stacked on the library’s innovative seven-tiered bookshelves. The two stone lions out front are made of Tennessee marble and were originally named Leo Astor and Leo Lenox, in honor of the two private libraries that combined to make this main library. The lions are now called Patience and Fortitude.

  Most of the facts about Manhattan in this story are true, too, with two anachronistic exceptions. (Anachronistic is a word I think Viviani would love.…) There was indeed a carousel in Central Park in 1928 (there is still one there!), but it was no longer powered by a horse and donkey at that time; that “steering mechanism” ended in 1924. It was such a lovely metaphor for fiction, however—a real horse propelling fake horses—that this story collector insisted on bending time a little to include it.

  Second, the type of flash Merit uses in this story wasn’t widely available until 1929. Before that, flash powder was used, and as it was explosive, Merit likely wouldn’t have been using it! But so much of the story takes place through Merit’s lens, so I decided to keep this element in the story.

  Today, the New York Public Library’s stacks are largely housed underneath Bryant Park, and the process of requesting and receiving many titles is accomplished with the help of tiny “magical book trains”—a conveyor belt and small book carts (you can see them at work by visiting nypl.org/blog/2016/09/30/magical-mystery-machine-librarians-summon-books-rose-main-reading-room). The NYPL system is made up of ninety-two branches and serves more than seventeen million patrons a year. It currently houses more than fifty-one million items. For more information about the NYPL, including photos of the many world-famous rooms mentioned in this story, visit nypl.org.