Erin and I headed to the library as soon as we finished lunch on Monday. While she turned in her books, I went over to the animal section to get mine. There weren’t any, though.
I walked over to Ms. Pearl’s desk. “For some strange reason there still aren’t any books with ocelots in them.”
“Let me take a look.” She put her glasses on her nose and typed on her computer. “It looks like they were returned and then checked right out again.”
“By the same people?” I could not believe my ears. I looked over at Erin, and she looked back at me. I could tell that she could not believe her ears either.
“No. And yes.” Ms. Pearl bent closer to her computer. “The two people who checked out the books you want returned them at the same time. Then they checked out the other person’s.”
“When did all this happen?” I tried to raise my eyebrow up.
“I had a substitute this morning, so it must have happened then.”
“So the books are gone for three more days?”
“I’m sorry, but yes,” said Ms. Pearl.
“Hmm.” I bit down on my fingernails and thought about all this. “We only need two books for our reports. Now these guys are both going to have five.” I was starting to get a little bit nervous about finishing my report.
“Would you like me to reserve them for you?” asked Ms. Pearl. “When they come back in on Thursday, I could set them aside with your name on them.”
“That would be awesome,” I said. “And it would still give me plenty of time to finish my report.”
“I’ll leave myself a note.” Ms Pearl pulled a pencil from behind her ear and wrote down my name and the books I wanted.
“Hi!” Zachary came into the library just when we were leaving.
“Hi-bye,” Erin and I said at the same time.
“I wonder who has the books I need,” I said. “I hope they are just really interested in jungle cats. I hope they’re not in cahoots with each other.”
“It’s impossible to know,” said Erin. “Everybody is being so secretive.”
“I was going to ask Ms. Pearl who had them,” I said, “but I thought maybe it was very private information, like if you get lice or something.”
“That’s private information?” asked Erin.
“Yep,” I said. “If someone at the school finds them on your head, they just send you home and don’t tell anyone at all. Last year kids kept disappearing in the middle of the day, and it was a little bit spooky. Finally we found out what was going on, though.”
Erin scratched her head. “Every time I hear the word lice I start itching.”
We sat down on our favorite bench by the basketball courts. Her itching made me start itching too. “I’ve never had lice, have you?”
“I did when I was in kindergarten,” said Erin. “My mom said it was awful, but I don’t remember it.”
“Guess what?” Zachary ran over to us and jumped on the bench. “There is not one single thing on Pacific pocket mice in our whole library! It is that rare!”
“Wow!” I said.
“That’s amazing!” said Erin.
“What is?” Charlie bounced his basketball over to us and started dribbling in a circle around our bench.
“None of your business!” I was still a little mad that he’d tried to tell everyone what my animal was.
“I bet it’s shocking and amazing animal report stuff.” The end-of-recess bell rang, and Charlie ran off to get in line.
“It is pretty shocking and amazing that there’s nothing in our library,” I said. “You should say that as part of your report.”
“Yeah,” said Zachary. “That would be good.”
We slid off the bench and started walking to our line.
“What are you going to do about your resources?” asked Erin.
“I don’t know,” said Zachary. “Ms. Pearl said I should ask Mr. Harrison.”
“Maybe you can go to a different library,” I said. “Actually, maybe I can too. The books I need keep getting checked out. I’ll ask Mr. Harrison and let you know.”
“Take your seats, everyone,” said Mr. Harrison when we got into class. “You may read silently at your desks until music or work on your reports.”
I raised my hand.
“Do you have a question, Cinderella?”
“Yes, but it’s a secret-y one. Can I come up there and ask?”
“Of course,” said Mr. Harrison.
I walked up to his desk and said very quietly, “Zachary and I are having trouble getting the books we need for our reports at the school library. Can the book resources come from another library?”
“Sure,” he said, “but why so hush-hush?”
“Everybody knows what our animals are,” I explained. “We need to have some secrets.”
I turned back to my desk and gave Zachary a thumbs-up.
“What did you ask Mr. Harrison?” asked Logan when I sat down.
Since his animal wasn’t a supersecret either, I started to tell him; but Christopher and Trevor were listening, so I raised my hand again.
“Another supersecret question?” asked Mr. Harrison.
“No,” I said. “I was just wondering if maybe me and Logan and Zachary could all sit together to work on our reports. Everyone knows our animals, but we have some other stuff to discuss that we are in cahoots about.”
Mr. Harrison rubbed his hands together. “I cannot wait to see these reports. You may use the worktable at the back of the room.”
Logan gathered up his books, and I grabbed my Lots About Ocelots notebook.
Erin raised her hand. “May I sit at the worktable too?”
“Only people who don’t have secret animals can,” said Rosemary T.
“I’m doing toucans,” Erin said very loud so everyone could hear.
The class made ooh and ahh noises.
“It’s no big deal,” said Erin. “It’s not like I have lice or anything.”
Now the class made an eew noise.
“If it’s okay with the Group in Cahoots in the back,” said Mr. Harrison, “it’s fine with me.”
“Thumbs-up from the Group in Cahoots,” I said.
Logan and Zachary and I all gave a thumbs-up, and Erin brought her toucan books back to the worktable. Once she set them down she did a thumbs-up too, and the four of us all bumped our knuckles together.
“Hey,” said Zachary. “That can be our group’s secret handshake.”
“It’s not very secret,” Rosemary T. called from her table.
“Yeah,” said Rosemary W. “We all saw it.”
“Oh well,” I said. “We have plenty of other secret things.”
I leaned way into the table and so did Erin and Logan and Zachary.
“So, what did you ask Mr. Harrison?” whispered Logan.
“I asked him if we could check out books for our reports at the regular library,” I whispered. “Zachary can’t find anything at all at ours, and the books I need keep getting checked out.”
“Why did you ask it supersecret?” asked Logan.
“I didn’t want to give anyone else the idea,” I said. “Because I really need to get some books.”
“Maybe I’ll go to the regular library too,” said Logan. “I have seventy-two facts on gorillas, but I could always use more.”
“Seventy-two is pretty amazing,” said Zachary.
“Yeah,” said Logan, “but none of them are very interesting.”
“Tell us some,” I said.
Logan opened up his notebook. “Fact one: there are three subspecies of gorillas. Fact two: one is the western lowland gorilla. Fact three: one is the eastern lowland gorilla. Fact four: one is the mountain gorilla.”
“You’re right,” said Zachary. “Those aren’t very interesting.”
“How do you shock and amaze people with facts?” asked Logan.
“Maybe you could do them in different voices,” I said.
“Are you good at accents?” asked Zachary.
“I can do a French one,” said Logan. “Bonjour, mesdams est mosures. Fact five ees dere are only feefty-five tousand goreellas left in zee vild.”
We all four laughed very loud.
“Mr. Harrison,” said Rosemary T. “I can’t concentrate with all the noise they’re making at the worktable.”
“Luckily it’s time to go to music,” said Mr. Harrison. “Let’s line up.”
