Mr. Lemoncello's Great Library Race

by Chris Grabenstein

  “If that is the correct answer, why did the third clue send us to a drugstore?” asked Abia.

  “Because Murphy’s sells all sorts of stuff—including toys. They have these bags filled with plastic cowboys. That’s where we’ll find our fascinating fact about Edison.”

  “I respectfully disagree,” said Abia. “It is too easy an answer. We need to dig deeper.”

  “Fine. Dig all you want. They sell garden tools at Murphy’s, too. Me? I’m heading for the toy bin and digging for a bag filled with tiny plastic cowboys!”

  —

  When they reached Murphy’s Drugstore, neither of the other two Edison teams was there.

  “Guess their clues sent them somewhere else,” remarked Kyle as he checked out the store. “The toys are back this way.”

  “Have fun,” said Abia. “I will be searching in the cold-remedy section.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, Kyle Keeley, I did a more thorough search of the data than you did.”

  “Right. Because I got the answer on the first try. Boom! Why don’t you just wait here and I’ll go grab our next clue?”

  “No thank you.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  They took off in opposite directions.

  Kyle went to the toy department and found a bin of clear plastic bags stuffed with multicolored, five-inch-tall plastic cowboys.

  “Right out of The Great Train Robbery!” he said with a grin.

  Kyle started examining the bags. Each one had two dozen cowboy figures striking maybe five different poses. There were also a couple corral fences in the bags—but no bright yellow clue cards.

  “Are you finished playing with your cowboys, Kyle Keeley?”

  He whipped around. Abia was in the toy aisle, holding a tissue box decorated with yellow lemons and brown cellos.

  “What’s that?” asked Kyle.

  “Our next clue. The Great Train Robbery may have been the first silent film produced by Thomas Edison, but the first copyrighted motion picture shot on an Edison Kinetoscope—which, by the way, is what the clue specifically asked us to identify—was a five-second-long, black-and-white filmstrip of one of Mr. Edison’s assistants, a gentleman named Fred Ott, sneezing. He might need this.”

  She wiggled the Kleenex box.

  “All that was in those books in the back of the bookmobile?” asked Kyle.

  “All except the tissue. I figured out that part by attempting to think in the same manner that you often employ when deciphering one of Mr. Lemoncello’s riddles.”

  “So I helped you find the answer, right?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said sarcastically. “You helped a great deal.”

  “I was kidding. You get all the credit on this one. Was there anything in the box?”

  “A final riddle: ‘Race back to the library, and when you know the answer, tell Mr. Lemoncello who invented the lightbulb.’ ”

  “Easy!” said Kyle. “Thomas Edison.”

  “Too easy,” said Abia. “The first answer is not always the best answer. Besides, there is a number printed at the bottom of the clue card: 621.32097309034.”

  “Okay,” said Kyle. “That’s definitely a Dewey decimal number.”

  “Correct.”

  “Come on. We can use our lPads to do a catalog search on the ride back to the library.”

  “I have already done one,” said Abia as they hit the sidewalk. “It is a book on Thomas Edison.”

  “Which is going to tell us that he’s the guy who invented the lightbulb!”

  “Perhaps. But if that is the case, why does this clue encourage us to do further research?”

  “Because someone’s trying to slow us down.”

  They climbed into the bookmobile.

  “We can’t afford to waste time,” said Kyle. “Come on, this is one we know the answer to!”

  “Do we?” asked Abia. “Just like we knew a bag of plastic cowboys was the answer?”

  She had him there.

  “Fine,” said Kyle. “We’ll go read another book, even though everybody in third grade knows that Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb.”

  They rode back to the library in silence.

  When they entered the lobby, they saw Andrew Peckleman and Diane Capriola standing on the lemon square, facing Mr. Lemoncello.

  “Do not stop, Kyle Keeley,” said Abia. “Upstairs. The six hundreds room.”

  “Upstairs,” muttered Kyle, because he’d agreed to play this one Abia’s way. “The six hundreds room.”

  But as they dashed up the curving staircases from the lobby to the second floor, Kyle could hear Andrew and Diane loudly proclaiming their answer.

  “Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb!” whined Andrew. “Duh!”

  “Everybody knows that,” added Diane.

  Yeah, thought Kyle. Everybody except Abia Sulayman.

  “Here it is,” announced Abia, reaching for the book with 621.32097309034 on its spine. “The Age of Edison: Electric Light and the Invention of Modern America by Ernest Freeberg.”

  “Okay, it took like half an hour just to read the title!” said Kyle, who was totally exasperated with his partner.

  Meanwhile, Abia was dutifully checking the index, flipping through pages, and examining the dense text.

  “We need to hurry up. Andrew and Diane already gave the right answer. Akimi and Angus are probably down there right now doing the same thing. We’re gonna lose!”

  “If Akimi and Angus give the same answer that Andrew and Diane just gave, then they, too, will have answered incorrectly.”

  She tapped a passage.

  Kyle scanned it.

  According to the book, Edison was not the lone genius inventor of the lightbulb. He was in a very competitive race, where he borrowed—some said stole—ideas from other inventors who were also working on an incandescent bulb.

  “So,” said Kyle, “what’s the answer? Who invented the lightbulb?”

  “Many different individuals,” said Abia. “Including British scientists Humphrey Davy and Warren De la Rue, plus the Canadian team of Woodward and Evans, who sold their patent for an electric lightbulb to Thomas Alva Edison.”

  “That’s our answer?” asked Kyle. “All sorts of people?”

  “Yes!” said Abia.

  “Fine,” said Kyle. “What’ve we got to lose? Except, you know, the whole entire game!”

  They hurried around the second-floor balcony to the grand staircase sweeping down to the lobby, where they saw Akimi and Angus standing on the lemon square doing an end zone victory dance.

  Mr. Lemoncello stood beside a hologram of a bald man in a bow tie wearing an old-fashioned three-piece wool suit. A watch chain dangled between his vest pockets. Kyle figured the Nonfictionator had just cooked up Thomas Alva Edison.

  But Mr. Edison didn’t look too happy. His head was sort of hanging low.

  “Are we too late?” asked Kyle as he and Abia descended the steps.

  “No,” said Mr. Lemoncello. “Fortunately, just like the milk, Akimi and Angus had the correct answer. Andrew and Diane, unfortunately, did not.”

  Kyle looked at Abia. Her grin was extremely wide.

  “Go on,” he told her. “Give our team answer.”

  “Thank you, Kyle Keeley. It shall be my pleasure. Our answer is ‘A lot of different scientists and inventors contributed to the invention of the electric lightbulb.’ ”

  “You are correct,” said Mr. Lemoncello. “Therefore, Abia and Kyle will join Akimi and Angus and move on to the next leg of the competition, where the four of you will go up against Elliott and Katherine, Miguel and Pranav—the winners for the Michael Jordan exhibit. Congratulicitations!”

  “Way to go, Kyle,” said Akimi.

  “It was all Abia on this one,” said Kyle.

  “Wait a second,” wailed Edison. “I am the Wizard of Menlo Park! I am a genius!”

  “Indeed you are, sir,” said Abia respectfully. “But, if I may be so bold, your true geniu
s was your ability to coordinate all the various research being done by others around the incandescent lightbulb to create a mass-producible result.”

  Edison turned to Lemoncello. “Does everybody in the world need to know this? I like the story they tell kids in grade school better. I did it all by myself.”

  “Sorry, Tom,” said Mr. Lemoncello. “At the Lemoncello Library, we value the truth more than myths.”

  “What about all those Percy Jackson books you have?” fumed Edison. “Those are myths!”

  “And they are correctly shelved as fiction.”

  “You also kind of stole a few ideas,” Akimi said to Edison. “Like from those two Canadian guys.”

  “I did not steal anything,” said Edison. “I bought their patents. Paying for knowledge is an acceptable form of research and development.”

  “Tell me, Thomas,” said Mr. Lemoncello, “did you ever hire a fellow named Benjamin Bean to do ‘research and development’ for you?”

  “Bean? Never heard of him,” said Edison. “Now, if you will excuse me, I must go invent the talking doll!”

  With that, Thomas Edison vanished.

  Up bright and early the next day, Kyle hurried to the library for the second leg of the amazing research race.

  He was happy to be moving on to the next round and felt bad for the teams that didn’t make it through. It could’ve been him—especially if he hadn’t listened to Abia.

  Four bookmobiles were lined up at the curb near the library’s front entrance. Four fresh backpacks waited on the sidewalk.

  Two of them had the silhouette of a pretty cool-looking biplane. Two had “Dwell in Possibility” written in frilly script letters.

  “That’s for Emily Dickinson, right?” he whispered to Abia.

  “Correct. She was the poet who wrote ‘I dwell in Possibility, A fairer House than Prose, More numerous of Windows, Superior—for Doors—’ ”

  “So, she was also into architecture?”

  Abia looked at Kyle. “Perhaps we should go for the biplane and the Wright brothers?”

  “Definitely,” said Kyle.

  The three other teams were also eyeballing the backpacks and whispering to each other, plotting their strategies.

  The red door leading from the lobby into the control room swung open, and out stepped Mr. Lemoncello. He was dressed like a big bird. Not the Big Bird—some kind of Dr. Seuss creature with gangly legs, an odd beak, and two weird tail feathers.

  “An eggceptionally good morning to you all! Today’s competition will be all about flying and poetic flights of fancy as you research the Wright brothers and Emily Dickinson. To determine the order of your book bag grab, kindly identify which poetic bird I am currently portraying.”

  He preened and yawned and looked at his watch like he was bored.

  Seven of the contestants looked like they were confused.

  But not Kyle. Dr. Seuss was his favorite. He loved when his parents used to read Seuss stories to him at bedtime.

  “If you look at your lPads,” Mr. Lemoncello continued, “you will notice that a Who Am I? game has just popped out.”

  Kyle heard eight DA-DING!s.

  “When you know the answer, enter it! On your mark, get set, Lemon, cello, go!”

  Everyone stood in the lobby, staring blankly at their tablet computers.

  “Do you know this?” asked Abia.

  “I think so. The yawn was a hint….”

  “Then type it in!”

  Kyle started tapping the glass pad.

  Mr. Lemoncello started squawking poetry. “You’ve nothing to do, and I do need a rest.”

  Katherine Kelly grabbed the lPad from Elliott Schilpp. Kyle could tell: She knew the answer, too!

  Mr. Lemoncello completed the stanza: “Would you like to sit on the egg in my nest?”

  Kyle hit send. Miguel and Akimi, who’d finally figured out what Seuss book Mr. Lemoncello was quoting, typed in answers for their teams.

  Mr. Lemoncello’s sleek black wristwatch (which looked bizarre on his feathered arm) blared like a tiny tin trumpet. He held it to his ear.

  “What? Hello? Who are you?”

  He squinted and read what must’ve been written in very small Whoville-sized type on the watch’s screen.

  “Aha! You’ve all guessed correctly. I am, indeed, currently costumed as Mayzie, the lazy bird from Horton Hatches the Egg. The team of Kyle and Abia came in first, Katherine and Elliott second, Miguel and Pranav third, Akimi and Angus fourth—but only by an eggstraordinarily slim margin. You will now, once again, depart in ten-second intervals. Good luck. And happy hunting!”

  Mr. Lemoncello raised his arm. The tiny Whoville trumpet in his wristwatch blared a bugle call.

  “Go!” he shouted.

  Kyle and Abia dashed out the door, down the steps, and onto the sidewalk, where they grabbed one of the Wright brothers backpacks.

  “First bookmobile!” shouted Abia. “Go!”

  They jumped into the back of the vehicle.

  “Where to?” asked the driver, whose name was Mad Dog. Seriously. It was stitched over his pocket.

  “Hang on,” said Kyle.

  He unzipped the front pocket of the backpack.

  “We’ve got another riddle,” he reported.

  “What does it say?” asked Abia.

  Kyle read the yellow note card:

  * * *

  To win this round, you might need to be

  what a North Carolina license plate tells you to be.

  * * *

  “Quick,” said Abia. “Now is the time for Googling. What is the slogan on a North Carolina license plate?”

  They both tapped in the search words “North Carolina license plate slogan.”

  “First in flight!” said Abia, who’d done an image search. “It depicts the Wright brothers’ biplane.”

  “So to win, we need to be the ‘first in flight.’ ”

  “Where is the nearest airport?”

  “Mad Dog!” shouted Kyle. “Take us to Wood County Regional!”

  “Do you have your permission slips?” asked the driver.

  “Yes!” screamed Kyle and Abia. “Hurry!”

  Mad Dog slammed the bookmobile into gear and grabbed a radio microphone with a coiled cord.

  “This is Bookmobile One,” he said to whoever was on the receiving end. “We are on the way to the airport.”

  “Very good,” said Mr. Lemoncello through the bookmobile’s speakers. “Kindly inform your passengers that there are two flights departing to North Carolina at this hour. Whoever finds it first gets to fly in my corporate jet.”

  “Booyah!” said Kyle.

  “Katherine and Elliott are right behind us,” reported Abia. “They must’ve figured out the riddle, too.”

  “The second vehicle to the airstrip,” continued Mr. Lemoncello, “will have a somewhat slower flight in my recently retired prop plane.”

  “Punch it, sir!” Abia shouted at the driver.

  The bookmobile lurched forward.

  Kyle was glad they’d grabbed the first bookmobile at the curb.

  When you were in a mad dash to the airport, it was always good to have a driver named Mad Dog!

  One second after Mad Dog brought the bookmobile to a tire-squealing stop, Kyle and Abia hopped out the sliding side door, grabbed their backpack, and dashed for the hangars where the private planes were parked.

  “Whoa, hold up there, kids,” said a burly security guard, raising her hand and blocking the gate in a chain-link fence topped with coils of barbed wire. “This is a restricted area.”

  “Mr. Lemoncello sent us!” said Kyle breathlessly.

  “We are Abia Sulayman and Kyle Keeley.”

  The guard flipped through sheets of paper on her clipboard. “Sulayman, Sulayman, Sulay, Man…”

  “We’re kind of in a hurry,” said Kyle.

  “Most folks at an airport are. Rush, rush, rush. No one wants to slow down and smell the exhaust fumes anymore.”<
br />
  The guard flicked back to the first page on her clipboard.

  “Sulayman…”

  Kyle heard tires squeal, a door slide open and then slam shut.

  Katherine and Elliott’s bookmobile had just skidded to a stop behind Kyle and Abia’s.

  “Run!” shouted their driver. It was Jessica, the driver Kyle and Abia had for the first leg of the race.

  “Grab the backpack!” cried Elliott.

  “You don’t have time!” said the driver. “Hurry! You’ll lose the jet!”

  Kyle’s heart raced faster than Mad Dog drove as Katherine and Elliott sprinted toward the gate.

  “Ma’am?” he said to the security guard. “We really need to—”

  The phone clipped to the guard’s belt buzzed. “Here we are. The boss just texted over your names. Keeley and Sulayman, you are good to go.” She stepped away from the gate. “Have a nice flight.”

  “Run!” shouted Kyle.

  “Fast!” Abia shouted back.

  They only had a twenty-yard lead on the competition, who barely had to break stride when they reached the guard at the gate because now she had a list of approved names!

  There were several aluminum-sided buildings at the far end of the airfield. None of them were marked with lemons, cellos, or Imagination Factory logos.

  “Which hangar is Mr. Lemoncello’s?” Abia asked Kyle as they continued their sprint.

  “Don’t know,” said Kyle between gasps for air. “But I bet it’s the biggest one.”

  “Let us play your hunch!”

  Abia and Kyle darted on a diagonal. Now Katherine and Elliott were only fifteen yards behind them.

  “They’re following us!” shouted Abia.

  “Because they think we know where we’re going!” said Kyle.

  He grabbed the door. Swung it open.

  There were six planes parked inside the hangar. Three were corporate jets. Three were propeller planes. All were painted in shades of yellow. One of the jets was sculpted with a slight curve along its body so it resembled a banana with wings. There were also bananas decorating the wingtips.

  “That’s his jet!” Kyle told Abia. They started running for it. “Mr. Lemoncello’s biggest hit last year was his burp-squeaking banana shoes!”