I’M IN the library the day before the big charity game, flipping through James and the Giant Peach. The oldest copy they have. It’s been read hundreds of times—you can tell by the worn pages.
I remember thinking how unbelievable it was when the peach rolled over Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker and flattened them into human pancakes. And how cool it was when the peach floated out to sea and ended up on the Empire State Building.
If I had a giant peach, maybe it could take Ally and me to England to visit Rose. Ha. Rose would freak out if the giant peach rolled up in front of her house and Ally and me got out. Especially if we brought along Miss Spider and the Old-Green-Grasshopper.
Rose is packing and Ally is practicing. Dad took Zora to play miniature golf. He’s trusting me again to be alone at the library and this time he can. I sit at a cubicle near the front. Out the window, I can see the fabric store. No need to go there today. No need to go there ever again. Meg was never at the fabric shop. Lucy doesn’t know a Meg and neither do I. Girl Detective’s Meg might as well be a ghost.
I feel like being alone today. I watch big white cumulus clouds roll in and think about Ally. She’s been practicing with the Broncos since Joey asked her to pitch for him. She’s getting a second chance, and even her brother Mark is helping her get ready.
Ally is getting what she wants.
Rose is getting what she wants, too. In a way. She has liberated herself from her violin. I think about that poor, burned-out violin lying abandoned somewhere in our creek. And although Mrs. Ashcroft has assured her there will be a new violin once they get to London, for now Rose is free. At least for a little while longer.
So I’m left wondering—what do I want?
The summer is almost over and what have I done? I’ve followed these crazy clues to nowhere. Yeah, it was exciting to find the clue box on the island. It was pretty amazing that the knife was actually hidden under the bird in the Gillans’ mailbox. And I found them. I did that.
But since then, it’s been a giant waste of summer. My detecting skills have failed me completely. Sneaking over to the fabric store. Taking the bus trip to Decatur. We could have been swimming. We could have been hanging out. Soon we’ll be heading to Chicago to visit Grandma before school starts. And Rose will be gone for good.
I close James and the Giant Peach and carry it back to the shelf. The fabric shop was a dead end. I see that so clearly now. But I can’t help thinking about Meg. It’s not a common name. I don’t know any Megs. I’ve never met anybody named that.
I slip James back in its place on the shelf and lean against the Roald Dahl section feeling defeated. I’ve spent so much time wandering this long row of books. Most of them I have read. They can whisper to me because I know their secrets.
I stand there staring at nothing. Just the Ls, those books across from me whose authors’ names begin with the letter L. I’m about to walk away, when I realize what I am looking at.
Her.
My mouth falls open. Because, of course, I know a Meg. I’ve known a Meg for years. She’s one of my favorite people. But this Meg?
I pull out a copy of A Wrinkle in Time from the shelf across from me. In it, Meg Murry goes on a journey through time and space to rescue her father. Like me, she has a scientist mother. Like me, she feels different from the rest of her family. Like me, she is dealt an incredible mystery to solve over one stormy summer.
I look at the cover—the one with the centaur—and remember the clue and the words I didn’t understand: But here’s the Wrinkle. That was what Girl Detective wrote right before Meg is waiting.
When I read it before, I had thought it meant there’d be a complication. A wrinkle. I had noticed she capitalized the W but I didn’t think it meant anything. But it did. Because Wrinkle is part of the name of a book that happens to be about a girl named Meg.
I gaze at the book and wonder. What if she wasn’t sending me to the fabric store? What if she’s been sending me to the library all along?
To Meg.
It hits me like a wave.
Sweeping all six copies of A Wrinkle in Time from the shelf, I rush them to a nearby table and lay them before me. Three have the Centaur cover, two show the night sky surrounded by book images, and the last one is a picture of a dove sitting atop an egg filled with three children.
A Wrinkle in Time is old. Flipping to the copyright page, I see it was first published in 1963.
The timeline works.
One by one, I strum through the pages of each book, searching for a clue. But nothing. Then I realize why. None of these editions is old enough. These books were published after Girl Detective was here.
Even if I’m right and Meg Murry is the Meg I’m looking for, the A Wrinkle in Time that Girl Detective entrusted with her next clue is long gone—lost or recycled in the forgotten dump heap of old library books. My heart sinks. Too late. I’m too late.
Closing my eyes, I search for Girl Detective through time and space. I see her blue eyes. The ones from the bottom of the creek. And tell her I’m sorry.
With a tip of my finger, I shut the cover of the last book before me. It falls onto its pages like a freshly cut tree collapsing onto a leafy forest floor. It’s finally time to close the book on Girl Detective. To close the book on all of it.
After returning all the Wrinkles back to the shelf, I pick up James and the Giant Peach again. It feels like comfort food in my hand as I carry it to the checkout counter.
“Get everything you need?” Mrs. Thompson asks.
“Not really,” I say.
Mrs. Thompson stops mid-scan. “What’s the matter? You never look like this when you’re checking out a book.”
I force a smile. “I’m fine.” But I’m not fine. A part of me wants to tell Mrs. Thompson all about it. How I can’t find Girl Detective because I was born too late.
“Okay, but I’ve seen that troubled look before,” she says. “At some point, you’ll need to unload it.”
I nod and take James in my arms. “Thanks,” I say and start to turn but don’t. I look up at the librarian. “Mrs. Thompson?”
She peers over her computer. “Yes, Birdie.”
“What happens to old books that the library doesn’t want anymore?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, the old ones. The special ones that got too old or too fragile to stay. What happens to them?”
Mrs. Thompson grins oddly. “Oh, dear.” She glances over her shoulder, then leans in conspiratorially. “We do have a little secret.”