Tugs stopped in at the library. She wanted to ask Miss Lucy for the old newspapers, but Mrs. Goiter, Miss Lucy’s sometime substitute, was at the desk today. She couldn’t possibly ask Mrs. Goiter for help. Mrs. Goiter eyed young hang-abouts with suspicion, shushing their every cough and snicker.

Tugs had been known to lose a book or two, but they were always — well, usually — found eventually, and while Miss Lucy was discrete about it, Mrs. Goiter had on more than one occasion called out in a loud voice, “Tugs Button! I’m going to confiscate your card!” or, “Tugs Button, you’re on my list!”

Tugs slipped over to the dictionary to think. Priscilla was not listed. She paged through, reading idly.

Atoll: a coral island or islands, consisting of a belt of coral reef, partly submerged, surrounding a central lagoon or depression; a lagoon island.

Lagoon: a shallow sound, channel, pond, or lake, especially one into which the sea flows; as, the lagoons of Venice.

Reef: a chain or range of rocks, coral, or sand, projecting above the surface at low tide or permanently covered by shallow water.

Tide: the twice daily rise and fall of the water level in the oceans and seas; to drift with or to be carried by the tides.

Tugs loved how one word led to another. She’d never seen an ocean, a lagoon, a reef, not even a mass of rock larger than the boulder that prevented Uncle Edgar from plowing the front acre, as he told the story. But one thing could lead to another, after all.

Then she paged back to button, as she often did.

Button: a catch, of various forms and materials, used to fasten together the different parts of dress, by being attached to one part and passing through a slit, called a buttonhole, in the other; used also for ornament.

Then she flipped to tug, for Tugs.

Tug: to pull or draw with great effort; to draw along with continued exertion; to haul along; to tow; as, to tug a loaded cart; to tug a ship into port.

“There sweat, there strain, tug the laborious oar.” — Roscommon

She repeated the small poem to herself. Tugs loved the strong images of her name. She liked to think of herself towing things along. She would walk up to Mrs. Goiter and ask about newspapers.

Tugs took one more glance at her name in the book, then slipped her hand under the cover and folded it shut with a slap that was louder than she intended.

“Oh!” she exclaimed to no one in particular. “That was loud!”

“Tugs Button,” bellowed Mrs. Goiter, stalking heavily through nonfiction and reaching Tugs in fewer than eight strides. She put her hands on her hips. “I’m trying to run a library here. This is a house of quiet and decorum. What are you doing and what do you want?”

Tugs wavered. She backed up to the pedestal table and rested her hand on the dictionary. “I . . .” she started.

“Well, out with it!” Mrs. Goiter barked, stepping close enough now that Tugs could smell her stale breath.

“N-n-newspaper?” Tugs stammered. “Old newspapers? I want to see pictures that the Thompson twins took.”

“Humph.” Mrs. Goiter shook her head and rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “Would you look at the dust on those lights? Do I have to do everything myself?” She shook her head again and walked away.

“Well?” she called in a sharp, very not-library voice, and turned with her hands on her hips. “This way.”

Tugs hurried after her. They went down the curved stairway to a basement room that Tugs had not been in before. There were shelves and shelves of magazines and newspapers in stacks.

Mrs. Goiter motioned with a ruler. “Back issues. Locals on the right, more exotic fare to the left.” She handed Tugs the ruler.

“To mark your place in the stack. Get anything out of order in here and it will be your last visit.”

Tugs approached the rightmost shelf and ran her hand across a stack of papers. Tentatively, she pulled the top one out partway and stood on her tiptoes to read the date. The Cedar Rapids Tribune, “A Newspaper Without a Muzzle.” Friday, June 28, 1929. She skimmed the headlines. “No Excuse for Mine Disasters Says Uncle Sam,” she read. She pulled the paper off the shelf. Near the bottom was a drawing of children watching fireworks, with the caption “Safe and Sane.” Tugs wanted to explore the rest of the pages, but the Cedar Rapids Tribune wasn’t what she was looking for. She slid it back on the stack and looked on a lower shelf. Tribune, Tribune, Tribune. Tugs moved left to another stack, then another, cautiously lifting papers and squaring them back so Mrs. Goiter wouldn’t notice they’d been disturbed.

The Gazettes would be older than all of these papers. Or maybe they were counted in Mrs. Goiter’s more exotic fare. She slid a paper off the top shelf. It was a Chicago paper. Nope. Then Tugs pulled it out again. A Chicago paper, right there in the Goodhue library. Now, that was something. Aunt Fiona was the only Button brave enough to have explored a city larger than Cedar Rapids. What went on in Chicago that didn’t go on in Cedar Rapids or Goodhue?

Tugs took the paper, laying the ruler in its place. She laid it flat on the table, admiring the large, smart type of the headlines.

“Scouts to Entertain Community” and “Two Escape Death as Train Hits.” There was a cartoon of a man with a suitcase labeled “agriculture” buying a train ticket to Washington, D.C. She opened the newspaper. There were several photographs here. Her eyes skipped from one to another. She was about to turn the page when her eyes went back to a photograph in the corner. There was something familiar about it. The headline above it read “Dapper Jack Disappears with Dough.” It was something about the smile. . . . Tugs read the article below it.

Tugs looked again at the photograph. Could it be? He wasn’t wearing a hat in the picture, but that too-wide smile was all too familiar. Harvey Drew, Jack Door. Harvey Moore. Tugs looked up from the paper. She was alone in the room. She could hear the heavy clump of Mrs. Goiter’s shoes above her head. Tugs carefully tore the picture and article out of the paper, folded it, and put it in her pocket. Then she closed the paper, checking the edges to make sure it looked as if it hadn’t been disturbed. Her hands shook as she carried it back to the shelf, removed the ruler, and laid the paper carefully on the stack where she’d found it.

Upstairs, she slid the ruler onto the checkout desk and walked as fast as she could toward the door, then ran three blocks before slowing down.