Book Read Free

Property of the Rebel Librarian

Page 1

by Allison Varnes




  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2018 by Allison Varnes

  Cover art copyright © 2018 by Andy Smith

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Visit us on the Web! rhcbooks.com

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Varnes, Allison, author.

  Title: Property of the rebel librarian / by Allison Varnes.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Random House Books for Young Readers, [2018] | Summary: Twelve-year-old June Harper, shocked when her parents go on a campaign to clear the Dogwood Middle School library of objectionable books, starts a secret banned books library in an empty locker.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018001349 | ISBN 978-1-5247-7147-8 (hardback) | ISBN 978-1-5247-7149-2 (epub) | ISBN 978-1-5247-7148-5 (glb)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Books and reading—Fiction. | Libraries—Fiction. | Middle schools—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction. | Family life—Fiction. | Protest movements—Fiction. | Librarians—Fiction. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Books & Libraries. | JUVENILE FICTION / School & Education. | JUVENILE FICTION / Social Issues / Adolescence.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.V398 Pr 2018 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  Ebook ISBN 9781524771492

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v5.3.2

  ep

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1: Ripple Effects

  Chapter 2: Intercepted

  Chapter 3: Everybody Talks

  Chapter 4: Consequences

  Chapter 5: Extraction

  Chapter 6: “Two Roads Diverged”

  Chapter 7: Risk

  Chapter 8: Locker 319

  Chapter 9: Changes

  Chapter 10: Ultimatum

  Chapter 11: New Leaf

  Chapter 12: Edits

  Chapter 13: Property of the Rebel Librarian

  Chapter 14: Accusations

  Chapter 15: “Nothing Gold Can Stay”

  Chapter 16: Compartments

  Chapter 17: Fault Line

  Chapter 18: Lost and Found

  Chapter 19: Fallout

  Chapter 20: Lightning

  Chapter 21: Verdict

  Chapter 22: Forgotten Embers

  Titles in June’s Library

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  You’re going to read a lot about me and the things I’ve done. Most of it’s true.

  I can’t help that, not that I’d want to.

  I would do the exact same thing all over again if I had the chance.

  It’s like when you read a sad book for the second time. You know the moment is coming, and you know it’s going to make you cry, but that doesn’t stop you. You read it anyway, because you love the story.

  So take your time. I’ll just be sitting here, grounded for all eternity, while you read about the moments when everything fell together and apart. They’re all here. Every last one.

  * * *

  The front door swings open after I walk home from school, right on schedule. Except today, Dad holds my copy of The Makings of a Witch.

  I grin up at him, but he doesn’t return my smile.

  The flush of rising blood pressure snakes across Dad’s pale face to his ears. It looks like he raked his hand over his light brown hair a million times while pacing in front of the window. That’s what he did when they finally let Kate go out on her first date. Back and forth, back and forth, right in front of the window until she showed up on the doorstep. Except she made curfew and then the show was over. This one is just getting started, and I have no idea why.

  Dad signals to the empty spot by Mom on the love seat.

  “Would you care to explain this?” he says, holding up the novel.

  I shrug. “Um, it’s a book?”

  He stares at me through his tortoiseshell glasses until I look away. “Yes. One that we don’t approve of.”

  I don’t understand. They’ve always been okay with the books I’ve read. I squirm on the stiff cushions. “Dad, it’s just a book. I—”

  “What concerns me more than anything”—he taps the bar code sticker—“is that it’s from the Dogwood Middle library, of all places.”

  The grandfather clock ticks away the seconds while I squirm. I can’t watch TV or use the family computer without someone looking over my shoulder, but books have always been safe. Mom cross-stitched READERS ARE WINNERS on a couch pillow to prove it.

  “Dad, I—”

  “No buts, June. You know the rules.”

  Dad is president of the PTSA, and he keeps his thumb on everything at Dogwood Middle. Especially me. It doesn’t matter that I’m twelve and have never, ever given Dad a real reason to worry. Did anyone ask me to the school dance last week? Nope. Why would they, when he’d follow us the whole time?

  The best part of Dad’s day is hassling my teachers about posting my grades online. Easy to do because he works from home as a tech consultant. It’s so embarrassing. Sixth grade was bad enough, but things got ten times worse in August when Kate left for college.

  Dad gently taps the novel against his knee. “Missing kids. Witches. It’s too scary for you.”

  “No, it isn’t! I like creepy stuff. If you’d just—”

  “No. This sort of thing won’t happen again. Understand, June, it’s our job to protect you. It would be nice if you’d meet us halfway. Until you do, you’re grounded. No TV. No phone. No internet.”

  “What?” I’ve never even been grounded before.

  “You heard me. Rules are rules.”

  Mom shakes her head with disappointment.

  Shame creeps up my face, making me flush red like I always do when I’m upset. I want to crawl under the couch. Was it wrong of me to read that book?

  “I’ll return it after school tomorrow,” Mom says.

  Oh no. Tomorrow is our last game of the season, and Mom will be there anyway because she runs the uniform closet for our marching band. I can’t believe this is happening. Poor Ms. Bradshaw, the librarian, is going to get a visit from my mom, and then there won’t be a hole big enough for me to hide in.

  What have I done?

  I slip out the door with a breakfast bar in one hand and my house key in the other. Emma stands at the curb, squinting into the camera on her phone and putting on lip gloss her mom won’t let her wear. It sparkles on her tan skin. Emma has her reasons for glamming it up, and they’re all in the band. The middle school honors band started marching with the high school a few years ago. Their band was so small, they decided they needed seventh and eighth graders to look bigger. So this is the first year Emma and I get to take our instruments across the parking lot for sixth period, after-school practices, and football games. It’s been tw
o whole months since I started honors band, and I still get that little flutter in my stomach when I walk over to the high school. I wonder if that will ever go away.

  I grin. “That’s a great color on you.” I swiped it for her from the stash Kate had abandoned under our bathroom sink when she left for college and stopped answering my calls.

  Emma blots her lips and spritzes herself with Pretty as a Peach body spray. “Nice dress.”

  “Thanks. It has pockets,” I say, holding out the sides of the green fabric as we start the long walk to school. It’s maybe two miles to the middle school from here. Too close for the buses to pick up, and not far enough for my parents to drop their routines and drive me.

  “What’s the occasion?” Emma takes in my frizz-free hair and the necklace Kate gave me last Christmas and smiles a knowing smile. “You totally have a crush on Graham, don’t you?”

  My shoulders stiffen. “No.” Like my parents would let me date an eighth grader. Or anyone.

  “You like him!”

  “Stop it.”

  “If you say so.” Emma shrugs. “You’re the one fainting everywhere.”

  “It was one time.” I send her a sidelong glare. “I locked my knees, okay?” It was at band camp in July. My first-ever band camp, actually, since sixth graders aren’t allowed to audition for honors band. We were standing in formation, and the next thing I knew, all I could see was blue sky and Graham’s face. He caught me in the last moment before my head hit the pavement. Everyone flocked around me, but the truth is, he held me a moment too long. Past the moment of impact. Past the chorus of Are you okay? And then he winked and said, “Nice of you to drop in.”

  I groaned. “That’s the worst joke I’ve ever heard.”

  He squinted at me. “Uh-oh. How hard did you hit your head?”

  “I didn’t hit my head.”

  He grinned. “It’s the only explanation,” he said as he pulled me to my feet. “Or trust me, you’d be laughing.” Then he turned around and walked back to his spot like he was king of the universe. My mind turned to jelly, and I just stood there trying to think of a comeback.

  You know how some people seem so unbelievably perfect, they can’t possibly be real? Graham is like that. Always has been. It’s like he’s so sure of each step, and he’s a total flirt. He’s tall and blond, and his closet is full of designer plaid button-downs. Put him on a white horse, and he’d be galloping in the surf in a cologne ad. He probably knows it, too.

  I could never be the girl on the horse. I once lost my balance on a carousel! So, no. I don’t have a crush on Graham Whitmore. He’s the boy I look at a second too long. Nothing more.

  I change the subject and fill Emma in on everything with my parents, ending with, “And Mom’ll be there later today to ruin my life. In a nutshell.” I leave out the part about being grounded. It’s too embarrassing.

  Emma rolls her eyes. “It’s just a book.”

  I laugh. “You know how they are.” Emma has slept over enough times to know there’s a 100 percent chance of G-rated movies before an early bedtime.

  “My parents probably wouldn’t care,” she says.

  I sigh and hop over the broken pieces of sidewalk where tree roots are pushing up through the concrete.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I know.” Her parents aren’t nearly as bad as mine are, but they don’t have to be. Dad keeps constant tabs on both of us. Usually I don’t mind that much. I don’t really get in trouble. But being grounded for reading? That’s a new one.

  “Oh! Almost forgot.” Emma digs The Graveyard Book out of her bag and hands it to me.

  “You’re done already?”

  “Yeah. You’ll love it. Read the beginning with the lights on, though.”

  I grin. “What’s the matter, Em? Get a little scared?”

  Emma rolls her eyes and gives my shoulder a playful shove. “You’ll see what I mean.”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll get it back to you soon.”

  Emma shrugs. “Just keep it.”

  “Seriously?” We share books all the time, but we always return them.

  “It’s yours. But you’ll have to hide it from your parents because there are ghosts in it.”

  “Oh no, not ghosts! Thanks.”

  The houses end at the corner, and the sidewalk grows smooth again. We follow it across the street to the town square. It’s the heart of everything, where parades and festivals are held every time a vegetable blooms. Flowers line the sidewalk in front of all the shops: pharmacy, post office, yoga studio, and everyone’s favorite, the diner. Not that I get to spend much time there. From here, Dogwood Middle is less than a mile ahead.

  “Think we’ll win tonight?” Emma asks when the football field comes into view.

  We haven’t won a game since before Kate started high school. “Nope, but our band is better.”

  “Like there’s any question.”

  With each step, my boots leave a trail of black scuff marks on the cement, as if to say I was here. It’s oddly satisfying.

  We stroll past Dogwood High, a two-story brick building built forty years ago, and up to its sister building, Dogwood Middle. Groups of kids hang out on the steps and the benches, laughing and talking.

  The familiar smell of gym floors and sloppy joes hits my nostrils as we pass through the doors to the middle school. Several band members chat in the hallway, their instruments already in their hands. “See ya at the assembly?” Emma asks as we split up to go to our lockers.

  “Sure.” But I won’t. I’m supposed to play fight songs to rally school spirit for the big game, but they’ll need to have enough pep without me.

  There’s one place on my mind, and I should’ve been there ten minutes ago. But for the first time in my life, I’m nervous about going to the library. I’d give anything not to have to tell Ms. Bradshaw what’s coming.

  When I throw open the door, Ms. Bradshaw is stooped over an open box on a study carrel, her long auburn curls dangling over its contents.

  The comforting smell of paper fills my lungs, and I relax a little. “Ms. Bradshaw?”

  She plunks a stack of books on the table and glances up with a big grin on her rosy face. “Morning, June.” Why does she have to look so happy to see me? She doesn’t deserve what she’s about to hear.

  “Do you have a minute?”

  She laughs. “Define minute. I’ve got to unload these before first period. Want to give me a hand and we can talk?”

  “Yeah, okay.” I flip through a few books I’ve never heard of: Holes, Lily and Dunkin, Wishtree.

  “You’d like those,” she says.

  I put them down. My palms begin to sweat and my sad little breakfast gurgles in my stomach. Tell her. I take a deep breath and blurt out, “My parents found my copy of The Makings of a Witch and said I couldn’t read it. My mom’s bringing it back to you today. It’s—it’s bad.”

  Her eyes fall to the book in her hand, but she isn’t really looking at it. She’s probably thinking of how ridiculous my family is, because that’s all I’m thinking about right now.

  “I think they’re mad it was in the library because of the witches and the graveyard. And the other stuff.” There. Now she’ll think twice before letting me rifle through the new titles.

  She slaps a Dogwood Middle library sticker on the cover of the newest Percy Jackson book. “But you read it.”

  “I did.”

  “Then that’s that,” she says with a one-shouldered shrug. “There’s nothing I can do about it.”

  “Tell that to my parents.” I sigh. “They’re probably going to make things difficult. I’m so sorry.” I think I’m going to be sick. Ms. Bradshaw attends every single one of our football games, and she cheers the loudest during the halftime show.

  “Did you like The Makings of a Witch?”

&nbs
p; “I loved it. And here’s the thing—it wasn’t that scary. It kept me guessing what would happen next, but I didn’t have nightmares or anything.”

  She reaches for her coffee mug on the other side of the box. “Is that right?”

  “Yeah,” I say quietly, and keep my eyes down, fiddling with the books on the table.

  “You know, there’s a reason I suggested it to you.” She takes a slow sip of coffee and I can feel her staring at me. “We wanted to work out the details before announcing it, but the author’s coming next week to talk about her book. And you can’t very well help run the event if you haven’t read the book, can you?”

  I look up at her and will myself not to let my jaw drop. “You’re kidding me! She picked Dogwood?” We aren’t exactly known for anything, really. There’s an enormous pecan statue by the highway, but that’s about it. It’s also where cell phone service gets spotty. Try to get a bar of service to register here, and you could be waiting a long time.

  Her expression settles into smooth, serious lines. “I don’t kid about books. Ever.” She nods toward a stack of flyers.

  Now I know I’m in panic mode, or I never would’ve missed them. The book cover is in the center, with the event details listed below it. I can’t believe it’s actually happening. “This is so awesome.”

  She hands me a small stack. “Make yourself useful, would you? And of course you’ll have to swing by afterward to say hello.” She winks. “Can’t let her leave without meeting library groupie number one.”

  “Seriously?”

  She breaks into a huge smile. “It’s already been approved for fifth period next Thursday. School-wide assemblies are mandatory, last time I checked.”

  My heart sinks. There’s no way it’s going to happen for me. I’m not that lucky. “If you say so.”

 

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