CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Yoenis soon brought them to a wide boulevard lined with royal palm trees. They stopped in front of a tall cream-colored colonial-style building. He shook hands with them all, gave Uchenna an extra wink to thank her for her kindness, and made absolutely certain that Elliot knew the way back to Rosa’s.

After Yoenis had gone, Professor Fauna stood, staring up at the grand facade, a satisfied smile on his face, and his black trash bag clutched to his chest. “¡Miren, amiguitos!” he said. “¡El Archivo Nacional de la República de Cuba! Vengan, let us see what treasures lie within!”

Professor Fauna led Elliot and Uchenna through the large gate, up some stairs, through a big wooden door, and into a grand foyer. The children looked around. The foyer was strangely empty. The only person there was a heavyset, grey-haired woman sitting at a tiny wooden desk by the door, reading a newspaper. She did not look up when they came in.

Professor Fauna approached her and gave a small bow. “Buenas, señora. ¿Dónde está el tarjetero, por favor?”

Without looking up, the woman pointed across the foyer.

The members of the Unicorn Rescue Society walked into a high-ceilinged room with large open windows. One half of the room had long, shiny wooden tables, where people were quietly reading. The other half of the room was lined with rows and rows of huge wooden cabinets. Each wooden cabinet had dozens of tiny drawers.

“What in the world are those?” Uchenna asked. “Does this place keep the smallest books in the world in those drawers? Books for mice?”

But Elliot’s eyes lit up. “No!” he exclaimed. “Those—Those are card catalogs!”

“What?” Uchenna asked, but Elliot was already rushing toward them. Uchenna followed. Meanwhile, Professor Fauna walked over to a counter built into a wall, where another woman read a newspaper.

Uchenna peered over Elliot’s shoulder as he pulled open a tiny drawer. “Look!” he breathed. It was filled with thousands of yellowing index cards. Elliot picked one up. It was musty and brown at the corners, and it smelled a little.

“What are they?” Uchenna asked.

“Each card represents a book or a document. This is how libraries worked before computers. The cards are organized by subject, author, or title—depending on the drawer.” He read the card he was holding:

“The author is José Martí. And the book is called Documentos personales. Unless this is just some documents. I can’t tell. Ma456.78 is where on the shelf the librarian would find it.” Elliot exhaled. “So cool.”

Uchenna shrugged. Then she saw that Professor Fauna was struggling to get the woman at the counter to understand him.

In the little room behind the counter, smiling calmly and staring into the distance, was a very old man. Uchenna noticed that the man’s eyes were milky blue. She wondered if he wasn’t staring at anything at all—maybe he was blind.

Professor Fauna’s voice was getting louder and louder. “¡Se llama La Orden Secreta del Unicornio! ¡Debe de haber un expediente entero! ¡Con muchos documentos! ¡Un salón entero! ¿La Orden Secreta del Unicornio? ¿No? ¿Nada? ¿Segura? ¿Ni conoce La Orden? ¡Imposible! ¡No puede ser! ¡NO LO CREO!”

At last Professor Fauna threw up his hands and turned to Uchenna. “She has never heard of the Secret Order of the Unicorn!”

“Uh . . . ,” said Uchenna, “neither have I.”

“Yes, but you are not the guardian of their records! I am certain they are here! I have pieced together all the clues! Followed every lead! The records of the Secret Order of the Unicorn are—there!” He suddenly pointed. “The card catalog! That will tell me where they are!”

He hustled over. Uchenna watched him go. Then, to the lady behind the counter, who was reaching for her newspaper and looking completely unconcerned about never having heard of the Secret Order of the Unicorn, Uchenna said, “¿El baño, por favor?” The woman smiled at Uchenna and pointed back to the foyer.

Uchenna found the bathroom and went into a stall. When she was finished, she stood up and flushed.

And she screamed.

A huge blob of pink sludge was coming up through the toilet. She banged the door open and threw herself out of the stall. Uchenna turned and stared at the sludge bubbling up in the toilet bowl. She went to the sink and turned on the tap. Water. Not pink sludge. She washed her hands, and then went back to the toilet to see if she’d been imagining things.

She had not.

Pink sludge sat in the toilet. Suddenly, a bubble burst on its surface, sending a small eruption of sludge all over the walls of the stall. Uchenna was a brave girl, but she screamed again when that happened.

She hurried back to the reading room.

Professor Fauna and Elliot were hunched over two different tiny drawers, a few feet apart, whispering urgently.

“I have secreción, which means secretion. That’s not right,” Professor Fauna was saying. “I have secretaria, and secular, and seco. But no ‘secret’!”

“And I have ungüentos, uniformes militares, universos . . . no ‘unicorn’!” Elliot replied.

“¡Mala palabra!”

“Hey, you two,” Uchenna interrupted them. “Something just happened in the bathroom.”

Elliot and Professor Fauna kept up their frantic flipping through the musty catalog cards.

“Hey!”

“Next,” Professor Fauna muttered, “we will check orden, or sociedad, or—”

Uchenna grabbed Elliot and spun him around. He stared at her. After a moment, he said, “What?”

And Uchenna replied, “You have to come to the girls’ bathroom with me. Now.”