THE LIBRARY

Polly

Of course the Parliament Street Library is just about my favorite place in the whole world. A building full of books! What’s not to love? There’s a big old counter at the front where you check your books out, and then it opens up into this huge room, with windows all along one side looking out over Gerrard Street. In front of the windows are four long wooden tables with benches along each side. The tabletops are about a foot thick and so are the legs. I wouldn’t want to have to move one of them. That’s where you sit to read your books and fill out your cards for the ones you’re taking home.

On the other side are floor-to-ceiling shelves full of books, and in between are rows of bookshelves. In the farthest corner from the door there is a fireplace, AND armchairs. I’ve never actually seen a fire there, but it doesn’t take much to imagine one.

I went right to the fireplace and plonked myself down in a chair. This corner was hidden from the librarian at the front desk by the bookshelves, and it was quiet now. Strictly speaking, this was the adults’ section of the library, but Mrs. Gardner, the librarian, didn’t mind, and she let me take out grown-up books whenever I wanted. She liked me because I was there at least twice a week, and I took out lots of books and always brought them back on time. I liked to talk to her about them sometimes. She knew so much about books. I think I might want to be a librarian when I grow up, so I can spend all my time with books.

The children’s section was way over on the other side of the library, through a door beside the counter. It was cozy too, with low tables and small chairs and lots of great books, but it was always full of noisy little kids.

Today Mrs. Gardner didn’t even look up when I came in. She was busy checking out books for a mother with three little kids in tow.

Rose was late. She got off school way before me so I thought she’d beat me there. After a while I started to get bored, so I headed over to the children’s section to see if there were any Philomena Faraday books I hadn’t read yet.

The door to the children’s room had a big window in it. I was just about to push the door open when I saw something inside that made me freeze. Mark and Matthew, heads bent over a book at the table in the center of the room. I backed up slowly and then scuttled back to the fireplace. Whew. Close call. The last thing I needed was them bugging me some more about Rose.

I must have just missed her as I walked across the library, because there she was, perched on the edge of one of the armchairs, in her dark cloak with the hood thrown back over her shoulders and her hair wild and everywhere. She looked like someone from another time, as if she had just stepped off a windy moor.

“Hey, Rose!” I said, bouncing up to her and grinning. She looked up. Her eyes were so dark. Dark and troubled. If anything, the shadows underneath them were even darker today.

“Hey, Polly,” she replied with a wan little smile. “Sorry I’m late! I was … um … looking for something at home.”

“No problem, but I think I should warn you, the Horrors are here.”

She stood up and peered behind me.

“Where?”

“In the children’s section. Don’t worry, they probably won’t come out here. Mrs. Gardner’s been keeping a close eye on them ever since they built book towers and then knocked them over …”

“Oh. Okay. If you think it’s safe.”

She sat down in the chair but kept glancing over her shoulder, as if she thought they would jump out of the bookshelves at any moment.

“Why are you so worried about them, anyway?” I asked curiously.

“They make me nervous,” she replied, examining her nails suddenly. “They call me Ghost Girl. I don’t like that.”

Hmmm. Something there. She wasn’t going tell me, and I certainly wasn’t going to tell her what they’d said to me that morning. I thought it better just to leave it for the moment.

“So, what’s new?” I said, settling into a chair and putting my feet up on the low table. Mrs. Gardner wouldn’t like that, but then Mrs. Gardner couldn’t see me from the front desk. “What were you looking for that made you late?”

Rose smiled.

“You’re going to love this, Polly,” she said. “A key. A key to a secret box I found in my grandmother’s room this morning.”

Rose

I hadn’t spent a lot of time at this library. My mother had brought me one Saturday after we moved in last summer and introduced me to the librarian so I could get access to the adult books. I’d been back a few times. I did like the quiet, secluded little corner by the fireplace. There were ghosts in the library, of course, but they were strangely contented, for ghosts, and I didn’t mind them. Sometimes I wondered if they oozed out of the books. Today there was a little boy in dark wool knickerbockers and a big cap who looked kind of hungry and shy. Something familiar about him. A character from Dickens? Or maybe a Parliament Street urchin from a hundred years ago? A young woman in an old-fashioned, long red dress stood gazing out the window, and a man in a black coat sat at a table, his work-worn hands turning the pages of a book with pictures.

They didn’t bother me. What was bugging me was the thought of the twins just thirty yards away. If they saw me with Polly they might come after me again. I didn’t want her to hear them accusing me of hurting her and putting her in danger. I felt bad enough about that already.

“Tell me about the box,” said Polly breathlessly, pulling her feet off the table and sitting up straight. “What do you think is in it? Where do you think the key is? Did it belong to Winnifred? Do you think it has a secret compartment?”

“The whole box is a secret compartment until I figure out how to get it open,” I replied. “I looked through my grandmother’s dresser drawers, in her jewelry box, in my parents’ bedroom, all through the drawers in the kitchen. I couldn’t find a key that fit.”

“It’s got to be somewhere,” said Polly. “Maybe she kept it in a hidden drawer in her dresser, or under a loose floorboard in her room, or inside a false book—”

“I could try the study …” I said doubtfully.

Polly jumped to her feet. “Come on, let’s go look right now!” she said, shrugging on her coat and then pulling me along by the arm.

I grinned, in spite of myself. Ever-enthusiastic Polly, always ready to leap into the next adventure.

“Now wait a minute,” I said. “I don’t want you—”

“Not so fast,” said a squeaky voice behind her.

“You’re not going anywhere!” said another.

Polly whirled and there were the Horrors, blocking our way and looking as fierce as two grubby eight-year-old boys can when they’re dressed in snowsuits and flap-eared caps. One of them was clutching a book and the other was pointing his finger at me.