“YO, IT’S SOCK man!”
I hear the voice as soon as I walk into the children’s section at the library, and when I turn around, a group of guys bust up laughing. All of them except for Sneaky. I glare at him, and he stares at the table. Why’s he still hangin’ with them?
“You got any more socks in that bag?”
I recognize one guy from school but don’t know his name. I also see Angel’s cousin Alex. His friend nudges him, and they all laugh some more.
My chest is getting tight, but my feet take me right over to the table.
“What you say?” I ask.
“Nothin’.”
“I know y’all stole my stuff!” My voice is pretty loud, and I hear the “shhhs!” right away.
“What’s wrong with you?” says Alex.
“Yeah, shhh! It’s the library!” says the guy from my school. He smirks.
Everybody’s laughing, pretending that they don’t know what I’m talking about. But I know they did it. Sneaky does, too, but he doesn’t say anything.
“What you gonna do, candy boy?”
I decide in a second to do what Angel would do. I ball my fist up and swing as hard as I can. Everything feels like it’s in slo-mo. I see Sneaky’s eyes get big, and the guy from my school isn’t expecting my fist to meet his face.
But then somebody grabs my arm.
“Whoa, whoa! Isaiah, what’s going on?”
“They stole money from me!” I yell, snatching away from Mr. Shephard.
“You lyin’!” says one of the guys, standing up.
“Hey, you need to sit down,” Mr. Shephard says, pointing at the guy.
“They took the money from my backpack,” I tell Mr. Shephard, ignoring the mean mugs they’re giving me.
Mr. Shephard waves the security guard over and tells the guys he’s glad the library has cameras they can go back and look at.
“Aww, man,” says the guy from my school, making a face.
While the guard deals with the thieves, Mr. Shephard walks me to a small room and unlocks the door.
“Look, Isaiah, why don’t you calm down in here. I’ll be right back, okay?”
I throw my backpack on the floor and kick one of the boxes in the room. That makes me feel pretty good, so I kick another box. And another. Pretty soon, there are boxes everywhere.
“Well, at least you’re taking it out on the box and not that guy’s face,” Mr. Shephard says when he comes into the room.
“Sorry,” I say.
“It’s all good,” Mr. Shephard says. He sits on one of the boxes, so I do, too. “Why didn’t you tell me you had something stolen here at the library?”
I shrug. Mr. Shephard probably doesn’t know the rules when it comes to snitching. Mr. Shephard asks me how much money was stolen, and he whistles when I tell him.
“That’s not chump change, Isaiah,” he says.
“I was saving up.”
Mr. Shephard sighs. “It’s gonna be all right; we’ll get it all figured out.”
“Do you guys really have cameras in the library?” I ask. I’m pretty sure I picked my nose a few times at my table by the window.
Mr. Shephard grins.
“We do have cameras,” he says, “but I’m not sure we’d still have the footage from mid-May.”
“Aww, man, then we have no proof!” I say, wondering why Mr. Shephard is still smiling.
“Are you kidding me? They’re out there confessing right now. It’s a secret librarian trick to mention cameras,” he says, holding up his fist for dap. I think about something else.
“Sneaky wasn’t one of the dudes who took my money,” I tell Mr. Shephard.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, he wasn’t here that day.”
Mr. Shephard nods and stands up. “Give me one sec.”
When he comes back, Sneaky’s with him. I’m both happy and mad to see him, so I just stare at him hard.
“I’ll let you two have some space,” Mr. Shephard says, patting Sneaky’s shoulder before leaving the doorway.
“Dang, why you look like that?” Sneaky asks.
“You still hangin’ with them? You sure you didn’t help them take my money?”
“What?” Sneaky frowns. “Why you think that? I already told you I didn’t know.”
“Then why you—” I stop talking when Sneaky reaches in his bag and pulls out a video game case. He glances around before showing me.
“I told you to watch and see what happens, bro,” Sneaky says with a grin. “I don’t know how much you’ll get, but you can take it to GameStop or put it on eBay or something.”
“How you get this?” I ask, also wondering how Sneaky knew Alex bought a game with my money. Guess Alex runs his mouth to everybody.
“Hey, the master can’t tell his secrets,” Sneaky says. He holds his fist out, and before I know it, we’re doing the candy boy shake.
“Looks like you two are having way too much fun,” Mr. Shephard says, clapping his hands when he comes into the room. “Can you dance and work? I mean, looks like you caused another fight in here, so the least you can do is restack the boxes, right?”
“Yeah,” I say. Sneaky groans, but he says yeah, too.
“What is this room for, anyway?” Sneaky asks.
“Storage for now,” Mr. Shephard says. “My guess is they’ll use it for a meeting room.”
Mr. Shephard tells us he’ll be back in a few, and me and Sneaky get to work rearranging the boxes.
“Think he’s gonna pay us for this?” Sneaky asks. He definitely doesn’t like working if no money is involved.
“Nah,” I say.
“Yo, were you really gonna hit Dontrel if library dude didn’t grab you?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I tell him. Sneaky looks proud.
“I woulda had your back,” Sneaky says. “You know that, right?”
I didn’t know it for sure, but it feels good to hear Sneaky say it.
I don’t get The Idea about the library room until I’m at Miz Rita’s, reading Charlie one of the Isaiah Dunn stories. It’s about how Isaiah gets locked out of the Beans and Rice Room, where he goes for his superhero meal. The Idea hits me so hard, I stop reading, and Charlie elbows me.
“ ’Saiah, keep reading!”
“Sorry, Charlie,” I say, closing Daddy’s notebook and jumping up to get mine. “I gotta do something else right now! I’ll finish the story soon!”
“Promise?”
“Promise!”
Charlie runs off to bother Miz Rita, and I open my notebook to a blank page and write in huge letters: The Gary Dunn Writing Room. The letters aren’t perfect and bubbly like Angel’s, but it’s enough to get started.