your summer adventure starts here! chapter sampler

1

EMBARK on aquest to triumph over ancient evil

HERE!

BLAST OFF on a mission to save the world

DECODE a mysterious cyber-puzzle

NAVIGATE a dangerous destiny

DISCOVER a library full of ideas

ESCAPE to uncharted territory

GET READY...Your summer adventure starts

48

2

Whether you’re ready to blast off on an intergalactic expedition or start exploring the

world on a quest for sacred relics, or you’re more comfortable decoding secrets on the Internet, let these summer reads inspire your next adventure.

Your adventures await . . . START READING NOW!

Will Wilder: The Relic of Perilous Falls

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14

25

51

37

95

WHERE WILL YOUR SUMMER ADVENTURE

TAKE YOU?

Voyagers: Project Alpha

Click Here to Start

Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library

Knights of the Borrowed Dark

The City of Ember

3

R A Y M O N D A R R O Y O

CROWN BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

NEW YORK

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,

events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2016 by Raymond ArroyoJacket art copyright © 2016 by Jeff Nentrup

Illustrations copyright © 2016 by Antonio Javier Caparo

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Crown Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of

Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

Crown and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

Visit us on the Web! randomhousekids.com

Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication DataArroyo, Raymond.

The relic of Perilous Falls / Raymond Arroyo. — First edition. pages cm. — (Will Wilder ; [1])

Summary: “A thrill-seeking twelve-year-old boy with a mysterious family heritage who discovers ancient objects of rare power—and must protect them from the terrifying demons

who will do anything to possess them” —Provided by publisher.ISBN 978-0-553-53959-2 (trade) — ISBN 978-0-553-53960-8 (lib. bdg.) —

ISBN 978-0-553-53961-5 (ebook)[1. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 2. Relics—Fiction. 3. Supernatural—Fiction.

4. Families—Fiction. 5. Prophecies—Fiction.] I. Title.PZ7.A74352Re 2016 [Fic]—dc23 2015006124

Printed in the United States of America10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

First Edition

Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.


ATTENTION, READER: THIS IS AN UNCORRECTED ADVANCE EXCERPT.

A ll Will Wilder meant to do was ride the donkey at his eight- year- old brother’s backyard birthday party . He

didn’t mean to hurt anyone, he didn’t mean to unlock his destiny, and he certainly didn’t mean to see the shadows. But that is exactly what happened . Life often came at Will while he was focused on something else .

Since Will was twelve and nearly five feet tall, his par-ents thought he had outgrown riding the donkey they had rented for his brother Leo’s birthday .

“Aren’t you a little old for a donkey ride, Will? It’s for the kids . C’mon,” Deborah Wilder said, playfully mussing his spiky black hair in their sweltering backyard . She had a thin face like Will’s, full lips, and blue- purple eyes that even the hardest of hearts could not resist for long . It was no wonder her TV show, Supernatural Secrets, had so many

CHAPTER 1

A Ride in the Yard


5

10 Will Wilder: The Relic of Perilous Falls

fans. “You’re getting so big, the donkey could ride you! Why don’t you and your friends go finish that catapult thing you’ve been working on?” She gave him a quick one- armed hug and made her way back toward the party guests.

“Mom, please, just one time around the yard— or maybe down the block,” Will begged.

“No, you’ll kill it, you big ox!” she said over her shoulder with a smirk. Deborah swept back her straight brown hair and bent down to fix Will’s six- year- old sister Marin’s pink dress.

“So now donkey rides have age restrictions?” Will yelled after her. “I didn’t know that, Mom! Is there a height limit too?” But Deborah Wilder paid him no attention. She had already mingled back into the crush of family, children, and neighbors in the fun part of the yard.

Marin stuck her tiny pink tongue out at Will, both hands on her hips. “Follow the rules, mithter. Follow the rules,” she scolded with a lisp before cartwheeling away.

Sulking in defeat, Will shuffled back toward his three friends, two boys and a girl, who were watching closely from the fence at the rear of the yard. Since when am I too big? Will believed he had at least another year, maybe two, before he would officially outgrow amusements like donkey rides. He knew he had to let them go eventually. But not now— especially when money and prestige were on the line.

“Strike one, Will- man,” Andrew Stout, a massive kid with blazing red hair, and one of Will’s closest friends, bellowed. “Where’s my five dollars?”

“I’m not finished yet,” Will said.

Arro_9780553539592_3p_all_r1.indd 10 9/15/15 3:30 PM

6

11A Ride in the Yard

“Oh, no . You’re finished . I said you couldn’t get on the donkey, and you ain’t on the donkey . So pay up . If you want to try again, it’ll be double or nothing .”

“Can we check the law on this?” interrupted a rail- thin boy with eyes that looked like black BBs behind his rectan-gular glasses . Simon Blabbingdale lightly poked Andrew’s side with one of the thick paperbacks he always seemed to be carrying . “Is it legal for Sheriff Stout’s adolescent son to bet on ponies at a birthday party?” Simon unleashed a se-ries of high- pitched snorts, which he considered laughter . Nobody joined him . Simon and Will had been friends since the first grade . When no one in the cafeteria would sit next to the scrawny, curly- haired kid with glasses, Will did .

“Can it, Simon .” Andrew flicked the paperback from his ribs and focused on Will . “We made a deal, Will- man, so pay up . I need the money for our trip .” The big kid extended his open palm .

The Wilders had invited Andrew and Simon to join them in Florida at the National Pee- Wee Karate Championships . Leo, an accomplished brown belt, was to compete at the tournament in two weeks’ time . Will and his friends would tag along for moral support and hit a few amusement parks between matches .

“What if I told you that I just came up with a new way to get on the donkey?” Will mysteriously threw out, his hands clasped behind his back .

“Let’s see it . Double or nothing,” Andrew said .Camilla Meriwether, a girl with wide green eyes, a long


7


chestnut- colored ponytail, and braces, rapped her knuckles on the fence behind her . “Guys . Can we please try to act a little more mature? I mean, it’s embarrassing . If Will’s par-ents don’t want him riding the donkey, why can’t we just have some cake and enjoy the party?”

Andrew and Will eyeballed each other, then in unison turned to Cami . “Uh, no .”

Cami was the only girl Will spoke to in his entire class . She was kind, sort of cute, and always spoke her mind— even if he rarely listened to her . “Okay, well, while you little guys play your cowboy games, I’m going to get some punch .” She marched over to one of the refreshment tables .

When Cami was out of earshot, Andrew spoke up . “All right, get onto the donkey’s back, I’ll give you ten bucks . If you don’t, you have to pay up . Deal?”

Will furrowed his brow and got in Andrew’s face . “Deal .” They shook on it and Will started to leave, but a swift tap on the arm from Simon stopped him .

“I was thinking, as long as everybody’s making wagers,” Simon said, looking over the top of his glasses, “I’ll buy you the first souvenir of our trip— no more than five dollars— if you race the donkey around the yard . You can’t just ride it . I’m talking a full gallop . If there’s no gallop, you pick up the souvenir .”

Will considered the offer for barely a second . “I’m going to be ten dollars richer and score a free souvenir . You’re on too .” He shot the boys a crooked smile, then ran off to ap-peal the donkey ban to the authority of last resort .


8


Dan Wilder, Will’s father, with his tortoiseshell glasses and blue apron, stood at the barbecue pit on the deck me-thodically tending his perfectly spaced burgers . He laid them out like houses on a map at one of his city planning meetings . Dan Wilder was an architect, a city councilman, and a planner for the town of Perilous Falls . He had a re-fined sense of order even when it came to grilling— patties were restricted to the lower grill, veggies on the top .

As dads went, Dan was a handsome one . He had a strong, square jaw, and aside from three slight scars on the left side of his face, Dan could have been on the cover of any grocery checkout aisle magazine . A dad of few words, he usually kept to himself, attentively watching while others chat-tered on . Indeed, he had overheard Will’s donkey pleas all day by the time the boy made his approach .

“Dad, I was wondering . . .”Without looking up from the smoldering patty at the

end of his spatula, Mr . Wilder announced, “The answer . . . son . . . is no .” Then, brightening, he added, “Do you want a burger?”

“Unless it can ride me around the yard, no thanks .” Will stalked away in a huff to plot his next move .

He climbed onto a picnic table close to his house and studied the landscape like a general planning an invasion . How to get on that donkey?

On the opposite side of his yard stood the squinty- eyed, mustached Heinrich Crinshaw . The Wilders’ bow- tied next- door neighbor was chairman of the Perilous Falls City


9


Council and a constant if disagreeable presence at fam-ily events . On the surface Mr . Crinshaw seemed a refined gentle man, even warm .

Until he opened his mouth .In a flat drone, he advised the neighborhood kids to stay

on the Wilders’ side of the fence, worried that they might leap into his garden and ruin the rare flowers and herbs he spent thousands of dollars maintaining .

“There’s nothing over there for you,” he croaked to the kids when their parents were out of earshot . Then, bending down to their level, with a smile he added, “Though my dog, Suzy, might like to see you all . She so enjoys children . She ate two last year— bones and all .”

Mr . Crinshaw turned away as a couple of the little girls immediately burst into tears .

Will spied Aunt Freda, Deborah Wilder’s blond rela-tive, who had made herself snack guardian . Looking like an albino elephant caught in a kelly- green bedsheet, Freda jealously protected the table from approaching guests, gob-bling cheese squares and chips as she made her way toward the cake at the other end of the table .

Across from Aunt Freda, near the drink station, Mayor Ava Lynch held a circle of parents spellbound . Her red suit and helmet of hard black hair seemed out of place at a back-yard summer party . With the help of some sort of greasy youth cream, her skeletal face was quite animated that day . “No, no . . . this city has got to move beyond the shackles of its history or we will never grow,” she brayed, as if giving a


10


campaign speech . At nearly seventy years old, the mayor’s booming voice could still fill a yard, even reaching Will . “That’s why I decided to cancel this year’s Jacob Wilder Day celebrations . The world is changing, and it is high time Per-ilous Falls evolves with it . We can’t pretend we’re in the era of Jacob Wilder anymore,” she said, chuckling .

Will saw his great- aunt Lucille Wilder’s face flush with color at the mention of Jacob Wilder . Fireworks were com-ing . The compact woman with strawberry- blond hair spun on her heels to face the mayor .

“Who are you to cancel a forty- five- year tradition?” Aunt Lucille asked in a sharp voice, her curls trembling as if to emphasize the point . “My father gave his life for this town, and I’ll be stewed if you are going to stamp out his mem-ory . Find another punching bag for your campaign, Ava— preferably someone living . You should all remember, there would be no Perilous Falls were it not for my father, Jacob Wilder .” Those watching the little woman with fire in her arresting blue eyes fell silent .

“Oh, Lucille . You have to admit that your father’s super-stitious tales were wearing thin even when we were chil-dren . All that devil stuff . . .” Mayor Lynch laughed, trying to win over the crowd . “I know that your father founded the town— and it is wonderful that you run his little museum, bless your heart— but those antique trinkets and all your daddy’s stories won’t make a safe and prosperous future for Perilous Falls . We’re in the twenty- first century now, honey . People no longer believe the things our parents did .


11


And we just don’t have the resources to celebrate old fables, or even the one who created them .”

The red hue of Aunt Lucille’s face clashed with the powder- blue silk pantsuit she wore . Like loose pajamas, the material swallowed up Lucille’s trim frame— but not her hands, which had balled into fists .

“Your eyes see nothing, Ava, dear. They never did . My father was a visionary who had courage and virtues you’ve never possessed . If you don’t agree with his beliefs, or his warnings, say so . But don’t disparage a man you never knew . Without my family, you might still be seating cus-tomers at Belle’s Lounge .” Lucille stared holes into the mayor . “My grandfather Abe opened his first iron ore mine here when it was nothing but wilderness . My father tamed that wilderness with a purpose . He established schools and churches, and the city hall that you profane . He always said Perilous Falls was to be the last stronghold against the dark madness of the world . Our faith and our traditions are what sustain this town, Ms. Mayor. It is who we are . It is who we will always be . That is the legacy of Jacob Wilder, and I will celebrate him with or without mayoral approval . Now, if you’ll excuse me .” Aunt Lucille turned a withering glance on the mayor and bolted toward the house .

“Poor woman’s lost her mind,” Mayor Lynch whispered to those nearest her .

Though in her sixty-sixth year, Aunt Lucille looked far younger as she strode across the yard with the ease and


12

Order your copy of

By RAYMOND ARROYO

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14

PROJECT ALPHA

D. J. MacHale

Random House New York

1

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#VoyagersHQVoyagersHQ.com

KEEP READING FOR A SNEAK PEEK. . . .

15

To all the loyal members of The Little Click Club

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to

actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2015 by PC Studios Inc.Full-color interior art, puzzles, and codes copyright © Animal Repair Shop

Voyagers digital and gaming experience by Animal Repair Shop

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books,

a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.



VoyagersHQ.com

Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication DataMacHale, D. J.

Project Alpha / D.J. MacHale.— First edition.pages cm.— (Voyagers ; book 1)

Summary: Eight boys and girls compete for a spot on the space voyage that will search for a source to solve Earth’s energy crisis.

ISBN 978- 0- 385- 38658- 6 (trade)— ISBN 978- 0- 385- 38660- 9 (lib. bdg.) ISBN 978- 0- 385- 38659- 3 (ebook)

[1. Interplanetary voyages— Fiction. 2. Competition (Psychology)— Fiction. 3. Power resources— Fiction. 4. Science fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.M177535Pr 2015 [Fic]— dc23 2014031772


First Edition




16

1

ark.Pitch-dark.

The kind where you can’t tell if you’re next to a thousand

other people, standing totally alone . . .

. . . or about to step off a cliff.

“We should stay close,” Dash Conroy said, his voice echo-

ing in the vast empty space.

“I’m fine on my own,” Anna Turner replied curtly.

Anna wasn’t about to show weakness or fear, especially

not in front of Dash. There was too much at stake. This was a

competition she was determined to win.

“We can help each other,” Dash argued. “At least until we

figure out what the real challenge is.”

Their assignment was clear: retrieve the golden flag. Who-

ever got it first would be the winner. Simple, except navigating

their way through the darkness wasn’t their only task. Some-

thing else would be waiting for them. An obstacle. A puzzle.

A test.

Danger was out there. They both knew it.

They just couldn’t see it.


17

2

“I’m gonna shuffle ahead slowly,” Dash said. “If I hit some-

thing, I’ll let you know.”

“If you hit something, I’ll hear it,” Anna shot back.

Walking into the unknown had Dash’s stomach in a knot.

There was no way to know if there was a hundred yards of

nothing between him and the golden flag or if he was inches

away from something sharp waiting to skewer him.

“Are you behind me?” Dash asked, trying not to let his

voice crack with tension.

“Why? You nervous?” Anna asked coyly. “Maybe you

should sit this one out.”

“No, I’m okay— Ow!”

Dash pulled his hands back quickly.

“What is it?” Anna asked anxiously.

“I hit something.” He tentatively put his hands out to dis-

cover a smooth, flat surface. “It feels like a tall desk. There’s a

flat top and . . . uh- oh.”

“What?” Anna asked.

“I think it’s a control panel,” Dash said with growing excite-

ment. “This could be how to turn the lights on.”

“No!” Anna screamed in Dash’s ear, making him jump with

surprise.

“Whoa! Why not?”

“What if it’s a trap? Those switches could electrify the floor.

Or open up a canyon we can’t jump over. Or— ”

“Or it could turn on the lights,” Dash said calmly. “If some-

thing’s out there, we have to see it.”

Dash put one finger on each of the switches and flipped

them.


18

3

Instantly, powerful overhead lights kicked on, illuminat-

ing the giant space to reveal they were inside a massive, eight-

story- high white tent. Dash was right. Turning on the lights

allowed them to see what was out there.

It was a fifty- foot- tall dinosaur with a long snout filled with

multiple rows of teeth. Sharp teeth.

The two stood looking up at the beast in wide- eyed, stunned

amazement.

“Oh, that’s not good,” Anna said, dumbfounded.

The monster reared back and let out a chilling bellow that

shook the overhead lighting grid.

“Move!” Dash yelled, and pushed her behind a pile of

wooden crates next to the control panel.

“I told you not to flip those switches,” Anna said in a

strained whisper.

“Seriously?” Dash whispered back. “You’d rather we just

walked into that thing?”

“It’s a dinosaur! Why is there a dinosaur?”

Dash peered around the edge of the crates to see the

behemoth clawing at the floor with its huge, birdlike feet,

scraping the surface with lethal talons. It stood in the center of

the giant tent, thirty yards away, twisting its head one way

and then the other like a curious dog that just heard a strange

sound.

“What’s it doing?” Anna whispered.

“It seems bothered,” Dash replied.

Dash raised his hand. Strapped to his wrist was a wide,

flexible band that held a small, flat computer monitor. His fin-

gers moved quickly over the soft touch pad that covered most


19

4

of his forearm until an image appeared on the small screen. It

was an exact drawing of the creature.

“That’s it!” Anna said, staring at the image over Dash’s

shoulder.

“It’s a Raptogon,” Dash said, reading the info. “It eats

meat.”

“Of course it does.”

“It’s got a superior sense of smell and can run up to thirty

miles an hour,” Dash read. “But it has poor peripheral vision

and is ultra sensitive to bright light.”

The Raptogon let out another bellow. Dash stole a quick

peek to see that the animal was bobbing its head and chuffing

angrily.

“What’s happening?” Anna asked.

“I think the lights are bothering it.”

“Perfect,” Anna said sarcastically. “An angry carnivorous

monster.”

Dash scanned the rest of the vast space, calculating their

next move. There were random stacks of wooden crates scat-

tered throughout the tent, which could be used to hide behind,

but running from one to the next would leave them exposed to

the predator. On the far side of the huge tent, nearly a hundred

yards away, was a raised platform with the golden flag hanging

from a pole. That was the target. Whichever of them got to it

first would win the challenge.

“There’s a locker,” Dash said, pointing.

Anna looked to see a coffin- sized container lying flat,

twenty yards to their right.

“They must have put something in there to help us,” Dash

said. “Like a weapon.”


20

5

“Man, that thing’s big,” Anna said, staring at the fidgety

creature.

They both sat back behind the crates.

“We can’t outrun it,” Dash said. “But maybe it can be dis-

tracted. Let’s work together.”

“No,” Anna said sharply. “This is a contest.”

“It’s about getting that flag,” Dash shot back. “I don’t think

either of us can do that alone.”

Anna stared straight into Dash’s eyes, calculating her next

move.

“All right,” she said flatly. “But I don’t take orders from

anybody.”

“I won’t give you any. I just want to get the flag and not get

eaten in the— ”

A dark shadow slipped over them, blocking out the light.

They both slowly looked up to see the head of the Raptogon

looming above them.

Dash instantly scrambled backward, knocking over the

crates that had been their screen. The wooden boxes tumbled

like dice at the feet of the dinosaur, forcing the beast to dance

out of the way.

Anna was already up and running for the locker. Dash

scrambled to his feet and was right after her. Anna got there

first, threw it open, and peered inside.

“Nothing!” she exclaimed. “No weapons.”

Dash arrived and looked inside. “No, this is good!” he ex-

claimed.

Inside were two high- powered flashlights with six- inch

lenses.

“It’s sensitive to light,” he added, breathless. He grabbed


21

6

both and handed one to Anna. “We’ll hit its eyes from both

sides. Whichever way it turns, it’ll be blinded and we can work

our way to the flag.”

Anna looked back to the Raptogon. It had regained its bal-

ance and was scanning for them.

“You sure about this?” she said, showing a rare hint of un-

certainty.

“Yes,” Dash replied calmly. “It has bad lateral movement,

so keep moving to the side.”

The Raptogon zeroed in on the two, shrieked, and charged.

Its massive claws pounded the floor as it stormed toward its

prey.

Dash quickly pressed the button on his flashlight and a

powerful beam of white light shot out.

“I’ll go left; you go right,” Dash said, and darted away.

The Raptogon bared its teeth. Somebody was about to get

chewed.

Dash hit it in the face with the light beam.

The monster immediately stopped and let out a hideous

screech that made the hair on Dash’s neck stand up.

“Hit it!” Dash screamed to Anna.

Anna turned on her flashlight and aimed it at the Rap-

togon’s face.

The massive creature snapped its head from side to side as

if trying to shake off the painful light.

“It’s working!” Dash exclaimed. “Keep moving to the side.”

Dash moved laterally, doing his best to keep the light fo-

cused on the Raptogon’s sensitive eyes.

The beast pounded at the ground in pain and anger, and

charged for Dash.


22

7

“Stay on it!” Dash commanded.

Dash had to run for his life. The Raptogon was fighting

through the pain to get to its tormentor. It shrieked. It snarled.

It shook its head in anguish, but it kept coming.

“Help!” Dash screamed. “Anna! Keep the light on it!”

The beast would not be denied. Dash tried desperately to

move out of the charging monster’s path, but he was running

out of room. The dinosaur had him cornered. Dash banged

into a stack of crates, knocking them down and then trip-

ping over the tumbling boxes. He couldn’t keep the flashlight

steady, and the monster knew it. Again it bared its teeth, sens-

ing the kill.

Dash fell flat on his back. He kicked at the boxes, hoping

they might slow the beast down.

They didn’t.

He was trapped.

“Anna!” Dash yelled in desperation.

The monster screamed, opened its mouth, lunged at

Dash . . .

. . . and vanished.

Dash was left cowering in the corner with his arms over his

head for protection.

A harsh horn sounded, signaling the end of the competi-

tion.

The Raptogon was a hologram. It may have seemed authen-

tic, but there was never any real danger.

A cheer went up, followed by applause.

Dash slowly lowered his arms to see a group of kids observ-

ing the competition from a catwalk high above the floor. Several

of them cheered and clapped. Others watched silently. Standing


23

8

with them was an adult man who was surveying the scene with

his hands on his hips.

“We have a winner!” he announced, his amplified words

booming through the cavernous space.

Dash wasn’t sure what he meant. How could there have

been a winner? They had failed miserably and were nearly

eaten.

That’s when the truth hit him.

He looked to the platform on the far side of the tent to see

Anna standing on top, waving the golden flag in triumph.

It was a harsh lesson. He had to be careful about who to

trust. It was a mistake he vowed not to make again. That is, as

long as he wasn’t knocked out of the competition for having

lost the golden flag.

Not all of them could win the ultimate prize. The odds had

been against Dash from the beginning, but that didn’t stop him

from giving it a shot.

Project Alpha meant too much.

To him.

To his family.

And to the future of the entire world.


Order your copy of



Voyagers: Project Alpha By D. J. MacHale


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25

Dave Rudden

Random House New York

Rudd_9780553522976_3p_all_r1.indd 1 2/12/16 2:54 PM

Determine your destiny. Keep reading for a sneak peek. . . .

To Eilish, because I promised

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are

used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2016 by Dave RuddenJacket logo copyright © 2016 by Jason CookJacket art copyright © 2016 by Kerem Beyit

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of

Penguin Random House LLC, New York. Originally published in hardcover by Penguin Books Ltd., a division of Penguin Random House LLC, London, in 2016.

Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.



Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication DataNames: Rudden, Dave, author.

Title: Knights of the Borrowed Dark / Dave Rudden.Description: First American edition. | New York : Random House, [2016]

| Summary: A young orphan learns that monsters can grow out of the shadows in our world, and there is an ancient order of knights who keep

them at bay.Identifiers: LCCN 2015031377 | ISBN 978-0-553-52297-6 (hardback) |

ISBN 978-0-553-52298-3 (hardcover library binding) | ISBN 978-0-553-52299-0 (ebook)

Subjects: | CYAC: Orphans—Fiction. | Monsters—Fiction. | Knights and knighthood—Fiction. |

BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Fantasy & Magic. | JUVENILE FICTION / Action & Adventure / General. | JUVENILE FICTION / Family / General

(see also headings under Social Issues).Classification: LCC PZ7.1.R828 Kn 2016 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015031377


First American Edition




27

13

1

Absentee Aunts

Four months later— October 2

“i don’t Have an aunt.”

Denizen Hardwick stared down skeptically at

the note in his hand. That was the way he looked

at most things, and he had a face built for it— thin

cheeks, a long nose, eyes the color and sharpness of a

nail.

The note, left on his bed in Dormitory E that morn-

ing, was the object of a special amount of skepticism,

so much so that he was surprised it hadn’t started to

char at the edges.

Your aunt has been in contact. She is taking you away for a few days. You will be collected at 6 p.m. Pack a bag.

Director Ackerby


28

14

“I don’t have an aunt,” Denizen said again. It didn’t

sound any less stupid the second time round.

“Well, that’s not exactly true,” said his best friend,

Simon Hayes, also staring at the note. “You just don’t

have any aunts you’re aware of.”

Dormitory E was a long room with a high ceiling

built for spiderwebs. Massive windows invited the

weak October sunlight in to die, their frames rattling

occasionally with the wind.

There were twelve beds, and at this particular

lunchtime ten of them were empty. Most of Cross-

caper’s orphans were outside because sunlight in

October was a rare gift and they hadn’t been given a

mysterious note to stare at.

Denizen ran a hand through his shaggy red hair. He

was small for his age, and barring a late growth spurt, he

would be small for every other age as well. The freckles

that swarmed his cheeks and nose in summer had now

faded in winter to lost and lonely things, all but the one

on his lip.

He hadn’t been aware you could have a freckle on

your lip. Maybe Denizen was the only person a lip

freckle had ever happened to. Maybe it was a mark

of destiny, singling him out for great things . . . but

he doubted it. Denizen Hardwick wasn’t the kind

of person to believe in special circumstances— in


29

15

distinguishing freckles or meaningful birthmarks or

fortuitous aunts.

Denizen Hardwick was a skeptic.

“I don’t have a— Look, if I do have an aunt, where

has she been for the last eleven years?”

“Can you get any clues from the paper?” Simon

asked. The new library had a collection of detective

novels, and Simon was very interested in what one

could learn from the smallest details.

Gamely, Denizen inspected the note. Unfortu-

nately, all he could see was that it was on yellow paper,

which meant it had come straight from the director’s

desk and was therefore not to be argued with, in the

same way you didn’t argue with gravity. Apart from

that, it was inconsiderately devoid of clues.

“No,” he said. “Sorry.”

Simon’s and Denizen’s beds were beside each other

and had been since they were both three years old

in Dormitory A downstairs. That had started their

friendship. Furtive book trades at night, an inquisitive

nature in common, and a shared dislike of sports had

continued it.

There were a lot of things Denizen liked about

Simon, but first and foremost was how he radiated

calm the way the sun radiated heat. It was impos-

sible to be annoyed at Simon. It was impossible to be


30

16

annoyed around Simon. A conversation with Simon

had the soothing effect of the cool side of the pillow.

Through either blind luck or best- friend osmo-

sis, Simon had snagged all the height Denizen lacked.

His giant winter coat did little to bulk out his slender

frame, and splayed as he was across his bed, he looked

like a crow in a scarf.

“But why now?” Denizen said. “Why is she getting

in contact now?”

“Maybe it took her ages to find you,” Simon said.

“Or she was waiting for you to be older?” He thought

for a moment. “Maybe she travels a lot and you have to

be old enough to travel with her. Or to be left on your

own in her giant house.”

“Giant house?”

“You never know.”

“I doubt she has a giant house.”

“It’s not impossible. She could be a super- rich spy.

It would explain where she’s been all this time. Or

maybe she’s a chocolatier.”

Denizen rolled his eyes.

“A spy- chocolatier,” Simon insisted, grinning. “Solv-

ing international crises through the subtle application

of nougat.”

Part of Denizen knew that he should probably be

more excited. A relative appearing out of nowhere to


31

17

take him away? Most of the other children and teen-

agers in Crosscaper had spent their entire lives dream-

ing of something like this.

That was what worried Denizen. Dreams were

tricky things. He’d only ever really had the one, at least

until the past couple of months.

Since the summer, his sleep had been haunted by

Crosscaper’s dark corridors, a figure in white drifting

down them like a moth made of glass. In the dream, the

figure had lingered, its milk- skinned hands caressing

the door of each dormitory in turn before finding his

and slipping in. . . .

He shook his head. Definitely not a dream he wanted

spilling over into real life.

Maybe Simon was right. Maybe his aunt was a

chocolate- spy. Maybe Denizen’s life was about to

change. Less skepticism. More weaponized hazelnut

creams.

His bed creaked as he sat down heavily on it. Like

everything in Crosscaper, it was falling apart. The

orphans relied on castoffs and donations, and since

neither Simon nor Denizen fell into the realm of

average height, they had the worst of it— more hold-

me- togethers than hand- me- downs, skewered with a

fortune of safety pins so that when the boys moved,

they clicked like ants.


32

18

The creaking of his bed didn’t worry Denizen—

there were too many books underneath it to let him

fall.

One of Simon’s fictional detectives had commented

that you could tell a lot about a person from the con-

tents of his bookshelf, but an inspection of Denizen’s

collection would simply tell you he loved words. Love

on the High Seas sat next to The Politics of Renaissance

Italy. (Crosscaper’s books were all donations, and it had

bothered Denizen for years wondering who donated

books on ancient politics to an orphanage.) And while

some volumes were more well- thumbed than others,

each one had been read until the covers frayed.

My aunt might have books, Denizen thought, and

immediately quashed the idea before it had a chance

to grow.

He was not going to a new family. He was not going

to a new life. He was being brought out so a stranger

could have a look at him. If afterward this mysterious

aunt decided she wanted to meet him again, fine, but

he was not getting his hopes up just to be disappointed.

And the first thing she was going to do was answer

his questions.

Simon hadn’t brought it up. He hadn’t needed to—

he knew Denizen too well. Denizen was one of only a

few children in Crosscaper who didn’t know anything

about their parents. Oh, he knew their last name. He


33

19

knew that they were . . . Well, he knew he was in an

orphanage for a reason, but he had no idea what that

reason was.

Simon did. His parents had been killed in a car

crash. Mr. Colford, their English teacher, drove Simon

to their grave on the anniversary of their deaths every

year. Michael Flannigan, two beds down from Simon

on the left, had lost his parents in a fire. Samantha

Hastings’s mum had died of . . . Well, she wouldn’t say,

and the unspoken rule of Crosscaper was that if you

didn’t want to share, nobody had a right to pry.

But Denizen simply didn’t know.

It was the only other dream he’d ever had. A

woman— small like him, though it was hard to tell

because he was looking up at her. Her arms were

around him. She smelled of strawberries. Her song . . .

something about the dark . . .

Denizen didn’t remember his father at all.

Simon flashed him a faint, sympathetic smile. He

knew exactly where Denizen’s thoughts were.

“Listen,” he said as the bell announced the end of

lunch, “I should get down to class. I’ll tell Ms. Hynes

you can’t make it because you have to pack.”

“That’ll take like ten minutes. I don’t need to— ”

“You’re right,” Simon said. “I’ll tell her you’ll be along

shortly. Maybe you could ask for some extra home-

work to take with you.”


34

20

“Ah,” Denizen said, grinning. “Cool.”

They stared at each other awkwardly.

“It’s just a day or two,” Denizen said. “I’ll probably

be home tomorrow.”

“Sure,” Simon said. “Yeah. Look. Enjoy yourself,

all right? Have a chat with her. Try not to overthink

things. Let her spoil you if she feels guilty about not

being around. See what you can find— yeah? Best of

luck.”

Denizen loved words, but that didn’t mean he could

always find the ones he needed. Instead, he wrapped

his arms round Simon in a tight, quick hug.

And then he was alone, note crumpled in his hand.

Outside, the courtyard quieted. Denizen sighed. As

nice as it was to take a few hours off class— he wouldn’t

have been able to concentrate anyway, the words

absentee aunt bouncing round his skull like a bee in a

jar— he wouldn’t have minded some company. Now he

was alone with his thoughts, and he couldn’t help turn-

ing them over and over in his head.

Denizen Hardwick had an aunt. So where had she

been all this time?

Maybe she hadn’t known he existed. Families fell

out all the time— that had been the main theme in

both Love on the High Seas and The Politics of Renaissance

Italy— so maybe she was only tracking him down now.


35

21

Was she his mother’s sister or his father’s? What had

happened that had made them lose touch?

His stomach knotted. There was so much he wanted

to ask her. Would she cry? He wasn’t going to cry— that

would be terrible. But she might. Were there going to

be hugs? Would that be weird?

Denizen tried to imagine what it would be like. The

woman would be . . . small, he supposed, maybe with

his eyes and hair. His imagination had very little to

go on. A hazy image formed in his mind of a chubby

woman with red hair, her features a strange mix of

his and those of Crosscaper’s cook, Mrs. Mollins— the

most auntish woman he knew.

In his imagination, the hybrid Mollins- aunt fell

to her knees and started sobbing when she saw him.

Denizen squirmed. That image just made him uncom-

fortable. Then again, if awkward aunt- hugging led to

answers about his past . . .

As far as Denizen was concerned, six p.m. couldn’t

come quick enough.


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37

a novel

DENIS MARKELL

DELACORTE PRESS

Mark_9781101931875_2p_all_r1.indd 3 12/14/15 12:07 PM

Turn the page and keep reading for a sneak peek. . . .

38

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2016 by Denis MarkellJacket art and interior illustrations copyright © 2016 by Octavi Navarro

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.



Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication DataMarkell, Denis.Click here to start (a novel) / Denis Markell. — First edition.pages cmSummary: When Ted inherits his uncle’s apartment “and all the treasure within,” he realizes the apartment is set up like a real- life video game and must solve the puzzles with his friends to discover the treasure. ISBN 978- 1- 101- 93187- 5 (hardcover) — ISBN 978- 1- 101- 93189- 9 (glb) — ISBN 978- 1- 101- 93188- 2 (ebook)[1. Buried treasure— Fiction. 2. Video games— Fiction. 3. Friendship— Fiction.] I. Title. PZ7.M339453Cl 2016 [Fic]— dc23 2015011782

The text of this book is set in 11- point Amasis MT.Book design by Stephanie Moss

Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1First Edition




39

1

It looks like something from a science- fiction movie, with so many machines and tubes going into and out of bags hung on poles.

For a moment, it doesn’t register that all those tubes and hoses are connected to a person.

I have no memory of what he looked like when I was little, and the only photo of Great- Uncle Ted in our house is from ages and ages ago. It shows a burly man with a crew cut, sit-ting in a living room in the 1960s. He’s got a cigarette in one hand and a lighter in the other. I wonder if he hadn’t smoked so many cigarettes maybe he wouldn’t be here now. He’s looking at the camera with a confident grin that says this is not a man to mess with. The only other place I’ve ever seen Asian men with kick- butt expressions like that is in samurai or martial- arts movies.

WHO KNEW A MAN WITH TUBES IN HIS NOSE COULD BE FUNNY?

CHAPTER 1

WHO KNEW A MAN WITH TUBES IN HIS NOSE COULD BE FUNNY?


40

2

Not that I watch them all that much.I mean, it’s bad enough other people make assumptions

about us Asian kids. No need for me to help out.But I gotta say, that photo can’t be further from the old man

lying in this bed. The grossest thing is the tube going right up into his nose. It looks horrible, and is attached to a machine that does who knows what.

I go and stand awkwardly by the window, unsure of what to do. I wish Mom had come in with me, but she said Great-Uncle Ted wants to see me alone. Dying man’s last wish and all, I guess. I clear my throat and sort of whisper, “Um, hi?”

“Arwhk.”The two veiny sacs of his eyelids slowly open, and when he

sees me, he gestures, beckoning me over with one hand.I gingerly approach the chair next to his bed, careful not

to disturb any of the wires and tubes snaking around him. It’s hard— I have visions of knocking into some hose or other just as I’m supposed to be having a nice visit.

“Gghhh . . .” Great- Uncle Ted catches my eye and reaches out.

Without thinking, I f linch. I have a f lashback to a movie I saw where a guy laid out like this had a monster burst out of his chest and jump on someone’s face. I’m not saying I expect that to happen here, but hey, it does go through my mind.

Great- Uncle Ted’s eyes change. He points impatiently to something on the table.

A pad and paper. There is spidery writing on it.“You want me to . . . give you the pad?” I ask.Now there’s a flash of fire in Great-Uncle Ted’s eyes. I know


41

3

when someone’s ticked off. The message is clearly Yes, you idiot. Give me the pad.

I hand the pad to my great- uncle, who winces in pain as he presses a button on the side of his bed that raises him to a seated position.

Slowly, he writes something and then hands me the pad.

Hurts too much to talk. You Amanda’s boy, Ted?

I start to write an answer on the pad.The next thing I know, Great-Uncle Ted yanks the pad out

of my hands. The old dude is surprisingly strong!BEEP BEEP BEEPGreat. Now the heart- rate machine is going a lot faster. That

can’t be good.He scribbles something and hands the pad back to me.

I’m not deaf, you little dope. Talk to me.

I laugh in spite of myself. Of course. Duh.“Yes, uh, sir . . . I’m Ted.” I feel a little weird introducing

myself, since he knows who I am, but since I don’t remember him, it feels like the right thing to do. And I’m pretty sure he seems like a “sir.”

The old man writes some more. He’s writing with more en-ergy now.

You got big. Do you still like playing games?

“What games do you mean, sir?” I ask.


42

4

Kissing games.

What th— ?“Uh, no, sir,” I begin. “I don’t enjoy kissing games. That is,

I’ve never played them. Maybe I would enjoy them if I did. I mean, you never know about something until you try it, right?” I’m babbling now. Trying to look casual, I lean against some-thing, then realize it’s a pole holding some fluid going into my great- uncle (or maybe coming out of him— hard to tell). Gross. I attempt to cross my legs, but I dare anyone to try to do it while wearing these ICU snot- green- colored clown pants they made me wear over my jeans to come in here. It’s not so sim-ple. So my leg sort of hovers half hoisted.

Meanwhile, Great- Uncle Ted is scribbling away.

I know you like computer games, you little twerp. I just wanted to see your face.

I laugh, and I see a hint of a smile under all the machinery.

You like the ones where you shoot people?

“I’m not allowed to play those,” I say, which is the truth.

I didn’t ask if you were allowed to. I asked if you liked them.

I smile and nod. This guy is pretty sharp. “Um . . . yeah, I play them sometimes.”

Great- Uncle Ted looks at me with an expression I can’t make out.


43

5

A lot of fun, huh?

“I guess.” I shrug.

I hope that’s the only way you ever have to shoot and kill a man. The other way is a lot less fun.

“You’ve killed a man?” I try to ask casually, but it kind of comes out in a squeak. Not my most macho moment, but give me a break, I wasn’t ready for this.

Quite a few, yes.

What did Uncle Ted do before he retired? I wonder what sort of professions call for killing men. Or more precisely, “quite a few” men. Was he a soldier? A hit man?

Let’s talk about something else. Why do you like these games so much?

I’m happy to move on. “I don’t think the shooting games are all that— and that’s the truth. It’s more something to do with my friends when we hang out. What I really like is what are called escape- the- room games.”

Tell me about them.

Sure, why not? “They’re kind of puzzles, where you’re stuck in a room and have to figure a way out.”

Great- Uncle Ted’s eyes survey the space around him.


44

6

There’s only one way to escape this room.

“Well, I don’t agree,” I say eagerly, standing up to look around. “There are all sorts of exits, if you look carefully. Not just the door. There’s that window. You could tie your sheets together and climb down there, or maybe there’s an air- conditioning duct— ”

TAP TAP TAP.My brilliant analysis is interrupted by the sound of my great-

uncle’s pencil tapping loudly on the pad to get my attention.

I was actually referring to dying, Ted. Try to keep up.

I sit down, deflated. “I guess I didn’t think of that,” I say honestly, “because you seem so alive.”

Great- Uncle Ted does his best to roll his eyes.

Don’t bother sucking up to a dying man, Ted. You any good at these room games?

“Never seen a game I couldn’t solve or beat. I’m always the top scorer— that means I’ve solved them quicker than anyone else. I guess that makes me the best,” I say, before realizing how obnoxious it sounds. “That sounds like bragging. Sorry.”

You ever heard of Dizzy Dean?

Okay, that’s a little random. But old people do that some-times. The name does sound kind of familiar, but I can’t place it. I shake my head.


45

7

One of the best pitchers in the history of baseball.When you go home, look up what he said about bragging.

Great- Uncle Ted settles back onto his pillow. He’s clearly tired.

I stare out the window, watching the headlights of the traf-fic below making patterns on the ceiling. “Yeah. That’s about the one thing I am good at,” I say softly, almost to myself. I hear scratching, and he’s up and writing more.

Don’t ever sell yourself short, Ted. Your mother says you’re very smart.

I nod my head and laugh. “Yeah, I know, I just don’t ‘apply myself.’ She’s always saying that. Lila’s the smart one.”

Lila is my big sister, the bane of my existence. Lila the straight- A student, Lila the president of the student body. Lila, who got the highest Board scores in La Purisma High’s history. Lila, who gave the most beautifully written senior address at her graduation, currently crushing it in her freshman year at Harvard. I mean, seriously. Why even try to compete with that?

Your mother told me you’re smarter than your sister. You just don’t know it.

Oh, snap! I hope there’s a burn unit at Harvard, because Lila just got smoked. Big- time!

I’m starting to like Great- Uncle Ted. But I feel bad. We’ve been talking about me the whole time I’ve been here. Well,


46

8

except for the part about him killing a lot of people. I’m pretty sure I don’t want to hear more about that.

“So I guess you knew my mom when she was a little kid,” I begin. “What was she like?”

Amanda was a pain in the a

He stops and his eye drifts up to my face and back down to his pad.

Amanda was a pain in the a behind, if you’ll excuse my French.

I can’t believe I thought this was going to be boring. This is great! “Seriously? How so?” It takes all the self- control I can muster to get this out without cracking up.

He writes for a long time, then hands the pad to me.

When she was nine, she had this thing where no matter what you would ask her she’d say, “That’s for me to know and you to find out.”Like you’d ask her, “What flavor ice cream do you want?”“That’s for me to know and you to find out.”“What movie do you want to see?”“That’s for me to know and you to find out!”“Do I have lung cancer?”“That’s for me to know and you to find out!”

I choke at that last one.Great- Uncle Ted waves his hand wearily.


47

9

I made that last one up. But she did say it all the time. She thought it was cute. It stopped being cute after the first day. Then it was annoying as heck.

Great- Uncle Ted pauses.

But she was always smart. And I’m very proud of her.

Great- Uncle Ted was the one who paid for Mom to come to California from Hawaii and go to nursing school. She’s been working here at La Purisma General Hospital for as long as I can remember.

Great- Uncle Ted looks up from the paper, and his wise, half- lidded eyes meet mine. He scrawls on the page and holds up the pad.

Please tell me about the games you play. How you solve these puzzles.

Wait. Is a real, live adult person actually asking me details about the games I play? This is unheard of.

So I go on and on, explaining how the games work, how at first nothing seems to make sense. But then, as I put my mind to it, a little click goes off in my head and the pieces begin to fit. It’s an awesome feeling when it all comes together and you get it right.

Great- Uncle Ted seems genuinely interested, especially when I tell him about a particularly tricky puzzle, where if you look carefully at what appears to be a bunch of random drink-ing glasses on a tray, you realize they actually resemble the


48

10

hands of a clock set to a particular time. Which is one of the main clues to solving that game.

“You know, maybe if they let me, I can come back tomor-row with my laptop and show you some,” I’m saying, when I see that his head has fallen back onto the bed and his eyes are closed. “Great- Uncle Ted! Are you all right?” I gasp. “Should I get Mom?”

He wearily reaches for the pad and writes carefully.

I’m just tired. But I’m happy to see you again, Ted.

“I— I’m so glad I could talk to you too, sir,” I say, feeling my breathing slow down again.

I feel so much better about everything now. You are ready.

Huh? What does that mean?“That’s good, sir.”The old man looks up at me. The energy is clearly draining

out of him.

You must promise me one thing.

“I know, sir. I promise I’ll work harder in school, and I’ll never tell Mom you thought she was a pain in the behind— ”

I think he’ll laugh at this, but instead, he gathers his strength and writes furiously across the pad.

No! Listen to me! You must promise me

He’s writing slower now, forcing the words out of the pen.


49

11

“Yes, sir?”Great- Uncle Ted falls back and throws the pad at me.

THE BOX IS ONLY THE BEGINNING. KEEP LOOKING FOR THE ANSWERS. ALWAYS GO FOR BROKE! PROMISE ME!

With great effort, he tugs on my sleeve. I lean toward him. He pulls me down until my ear is close to his face. I can just make out the word he is saying.

“Promise!” the old man croaks. He releases my sleeve. He looks peaceful now, like a weight has been lifted off his shoul-ders.

As my great- uncle falls asleep, I hear my own voice, sound-ing far away, whispering, “I promise.”


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51

Book 1

The

CITYof

EMBER

Jeanne DuPrau

A YEARLING BOOK

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Sale of this book without a front cover may be unauthorized. If the book is coverless, it may have been reported to the publisher as “unsold or destroyed” and neither the author nor the publisher

may have received payment for it.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to

actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2003 by Jeanne DuPrauCover art copyright © 2016 by Paul Sullivan

Logo art copyright © 2016 by JaceyMap by Chris Riely

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Yearling, an imprint of Random HouseChildren’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. Originally published in

hardcover in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, New York, in 2003.

Yearling and the jumping horse design are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.



The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition of this work as follows:DuPrau, Jeanne.

The city of Ember / by Jeanne DuPrau.p. cm.

Summary: In the year 241, twelve-year-old Lina trades jobs on Assignment Day to be a messenger, to run to new places in her beloved but decaying city,

perhaps even to glimpse Unknown Regions.ISBN 978-0-375-82273-5 (trade) — ISBN 978-0-375-92274-9 (lib. bdg.) —

ISBN 978-0-375-89080-2 (ebook)[1. Fantasy.] I. Title.

PZ7.D927 Ci 2003 [Fic]—dc21 2002010239

ISBN 978-0-375-82274-2 (pbk.)

Printed in the United States of America72 71 70 69 68 67 66 65 64 63 62 61 60 59 58

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53

When the city of Ember was just built and not yetinhabited, the chief builder and the assistant builder,both of them weary, sat down to speak of the future.

“They must not leave the city for at least two hun-dred years,” said the chief builder. “Or perhaps twohundred and twenty.”

“Is that long enough?” asked his assistant.“It should be. We can’t know for sure.”“And when the time comes,” said the assistant,

“how will they know what to do?”“We’ll provide them with instructions, of course,”

the chief builder replied.“But who will keep the instructions? Who can we

trust to keep them safe and secret all that time?”“The mayor of the city will keep the instructions,”

said the chief builder. “We’ll put them in a box with atimed lock, set to open on the proper date.”

1

The Instructions


54

“And will we tell the mayor what’s in the box?” theassistant asked.

“No, just that it’s information they won’t need andmust not see until the box opens of its own accord.”

“So the first mayor will pass the box to the nextmayor, and that one to the next, and so on downthrough the years, all of them keeping it secret, all thattime?”

“What else can we do?” asked the chief builder.“Nothing about this endeavor is certain. There may beno one left in the city by then or no safe place for themto come back to.”

So the first mayor of Ember was given the box,told to guard it carefully, and solemnly sworn to secrecy. When she grew old, and her time as mayor wasup, she explained about the box to her successor, whoalso kept the secret carefully, as did the next mayor.Things went as planned for many years. But the sev-enth mayor of Ember was less honorable than the oneswho’d come before him, and more desperate. He wasill—he had the coughing sickness that was common inthe city then—and he thought the box might hold asecret that would save his life. He took it from its hid-ing place in the basement of the Gathering Hall andbrought it home with him, where he attacked it with ahammer.

But his strength was failing by then. All he man-aged to do was dent the lid a little. And before he could

2


55

return the box to its official hiding place or tell his suc-cessor about it, he died. The box ended up at the backof a closet, shoved behind some old bags and bundles.There it sat, unnoticed, year after year, until its timearrived, and the lock quietly clicked open.

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In the city of Ember, the sky was always dark. The onlylight came from great flood lamps mounted on thebuildings and at the tops of poles in the middle of thelarger squares. When the lights were on, they cast a yel-lowish glow over the streets; people walking by threwlong shadows that shortened and then stretched outagain. When the lights were off, as they were betweennine at night and six in the morning, the city was sodark that people might as well have been wearingblindfolds.

Sometimes darkness fell in the middle of the day.The city of Ember was old, and everything in it,including the power lines, was in need of repair. Sonow and then the lights would flicker and go out.These were terrible moments for the people of Ember.As they came to a halt in the middle of the street orstood stock-still in their houses, afraid to move in the

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CHAPTER 1

Assignment Day


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utter blackness, they were reminded of something theypreferred not to think about: that someday the lightsof the city might go out and never come back on.

But most of the time life proceeded as it alwayshad. Grown people did their work, and younger peo-ple, until they reached the age of twelve, went toschool. On the last day of their final year, which wascalled Assignment Day, they were given jobs to do.

The graduating students occupied Room 8 of theEmber School. On Assignment Day of the year 241,this classroom, usually noisy first thing in the morning, was completely silent. All twenty-four students sat upright and still at the desks they hadgrown too big for. They were waiting.

The desks were arranged in four rows of six, onebehind the other. In the last row sat a slender girlnamed Lina Mayfleet. She was winding a strand of herlong, dark hair around her finger, winding andunwinding it again and again. Sometimes she pluckedat a thread on her ragged cape or bent over to pull onher socks, which were loose and tended to slide downaround her ankles. One of her feet tapped the floorsoftly.

In the second row was a boy named Doon Harrow. He sat with his shoulders hunched, his eyessqueezed shut in concentration, and his hands claspedtightly together. His hair looked rumpled, as if he hadn’t combed it for a while. He had dark, thick

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eyebrows, which made him look serious at the best oftimes and, when he was anxious or angry, cametogether to form a straight line across his forehead. Hisbrown corduroy jacket was so old that its ridges hadflattened out.

Both the girl and the boy were making urgentwishes. Doon’s wish was very specific. He repeated itover and over again, his lips moving slightly, as if hecould make it come true by saying it a thousand times.Lina was making her wish in pictures rather than inwords. In her mind’s eye, she saw herself runningthrough the streets of the city in a red jacket. She madethis picture as bright and real as she could.

Lina looked up and gazed around the schoolroom.She said a silent goodbye to everything that had beenfamiliar for so long. Goodbye to the map of the city ofEmber in its scarred wooden frame and the cabinetwhose shelves held The Book of Numbers, The Book ofLetters, and The Book of the City of Ember. Goodbye to the cabinet drawers labeled “New Paper” and “OldPaper.” Goodbye to the three electric lights in the ceiling that seemed always, no matter where you sat, to cast the shadow of your head over the page you were writing on. And goodbye to their teacher, MissThorn, who had finished her Last Day of Schoolspeech, wishing them luck in the lives they were about to begin. Now, having run out of things to say,she was standing at her desk with her frayed shawl

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clasped around her shoulders. And still the mayor, the guest of honor, had not arrived.

Someone’s foot scraped back and forth on thefloor. Miss Thorn sighed. Then the door rattled open,and the mayor walked in. He looked annoyed, asthough they were the ones who were late.

“Welcome, Mayor Cole,” said Miss Thorn. Sheheld out her hand to him.

The mayor made his mouth into a smile. “MissThorn,” he said, enfolding her hand. “Greetings.Another year.” The mayor was a vast, heavy man, so bigin the middle that his arms looked small and dangling.In one hand he held a little cloth bag.

He lumbered to the front of the room and facedthe students. His gray, drooping face appeared to bemade of something stiffer than ordinary skin; it rarelymoved except for making the smile that was on it now.

“Young people of the Highest Class,” the mayorbegan. He stopped and scanned the room for severalmoments; his eyes seemed to look out from far back inside his head. He nodded slowly. “AssignmentDay now, isn’t it? Yes. First we get our education. Then we serve our city.” Again his eyes moved back and forth along the rows of students, and again henodded, as if someone had confirmed what he’d said. He put the little bag on Miss Thorn’s desk and rested his hand on it. “What will that service be, eh? Perhaps you’re wondering.” He did his smile

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again, and his heavy cheeks folded like drapes.Lina’s hands were cold. She wrapped her cape

around her and pressed her hands between her knees.Please hurry, Mr. Mayor, she said silently. Please just letus choose and get it over with. Doon, in his mind, wassaying the same thing, only he didn’t say please.

“Something to remember,” the mayor said, hold-ing up one finger. “Job you draw today is for threeyears. Then, Evaluation. Are you good at your job?Fine. You may keep it. Are you unsatisfactory? Is therea greater need elsewhere? You will be re-assigned. It isextremely important,” he said, jabbing his finger at theclass, “for all . . . work . . . of Ember . . . to be done. Tobe properly done.”

He picked up the bag and pulled open the draw-string. “So. Let us begin. Simple procedure. Come upone at a time. Reach into this bag. Take one slip ofpaper. Read it out loud.” He smiled and nodded. Theflesh under his chin bulged in and out. “Who cares tobe first?”

No one moved. Lina stared down at the top of herdesk. There was a long silence. Then Lizzie Bisco, oneof Lina’s best friends, sprang to her feet. “I would liketo be first,” she said in her breathless high voice.

“Good. Walk forward.”Lizzie went to stand before the mayor. Because of

her orange hair, she looked like a bright spark next tohim.

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“Now choose.” The mayor held out the bag withone hand and put the other behind his back, as if toshow he would not interfere.

Lizzie reached into the bag and withdrew a tightlyfolded square of paper. She unfolded it carefully. Linacouldn’t see the look on Lizzie’s face, but she couldhear the disappointment in her voice as she read outloud: “Supply Depot clerk.”

“Very good,” said the mayor. “A vital job.”Lizzie trudged back to her desk. Lina smiled at her,

but Lizzie made a sour face. Supply Depot clerk wasn’ta bad job, but it was a dull one. The Supply Depotclerks sat behind a long counter, took orders from thestorekeepers of Ember, and sent the carriers down tobring up what was wanted from the vast network ofstorerooms beneath Ember’s streets. The storeroomsheld supplies of every kind—canned food, clothes,furniture, blankets, light bulbs, medicine, pots andpans, reams of paper, soap, more light bulbs—every-thing the people of Ember could possibly need. Theclerks sat at their ledger books all day, recording theorders that came in and the goods that went out. Lizziedidn’t like to sit still; she would have been better suit-ed to something else, Lina thought—messenger,maybe, the job Lina wanted for herself. Messengers ranthrough the city all day, going everywhere, seeingeverything.

“Next,” said the mayor.

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This time two people stood up at once, Orly Gordon and Chet Noam. Orly quickly sat down again,and Chet approached the mayor.

“Choose, young man,” the mayor said.Chet chose. He unfolded his scrap of paper.

“Electrician’s helper,” he read, and his wide face brokeinto a smile. Lina heard someone take a quick breath.She looked over to see Doon pressing a hand againsthis mouth.

You never knew, each year, exactly which jobswould be offered. Some years there were several goodjobs, like greenhouse helper, timekeeper’s assistant, ormessenger, and no bad jobs at all. Other years, jobs likePipeworks laborer, trash sifter, and mold scraper weremixed in. But there would always be at least one or twojobs for electrician’s helper. Fixing the electricity wasthe most important job in Ember, and more peopleworked at it than at anything else.

Orly Gordon was next. She got the job of buildingrepair assistant, which was a good job for Orly. She wasa strong girl and liked hard work. Vindie Chance wasmade a greenhouse helper. She gave Lina a big grin asshe went back to her seat. She’ll get to work with Clary,Lina thought. Lucky. So far no one had picked a reallybad job. Perhaps this time there would be no bad jobsat all.

The idea gave her courage. Besides, she hadreached the point where the suspense was giving her a

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stomach ache. So as Vindie sat down—even before themayor could say “Next”—she stood up and steppedforward.

The little bag was made of faded green material,gathered at the top with a black string. Lina hesitated amoment, then put her hand inside and fingered thebits of paper. Feeling as if she were stepping off a highbuilding, she picked one.

She unfolded it. The words were written in black ink, in small careful printing. PIPEWORKS LABORER,they said. She stared at them.

“Out loud, please,” the mayor said.“Pipeworks laborer,” Lina said in a choked

whisper.“Louder,” said the mayor.“Pipeworks laborer,” Lina said again, her voice

loud and cracked. There was a sigh of sympathy fromthe class. Keeping her eyes on the floor, Lina went backto her desk and sat down.

Pipeworks laborers worked below the storeroomsin the deep labyrinth of tunnels that containedEmber’s water and sewer pipes. They spent their daysstopping up leaks and replacing pipe joints. It was wet,cold work; it could even be dangerous. A swift under-ground river ran through the Pipeworks, and everynow and then someone fell into it and was lost. Peoplewere lost occasionally in the tunnels, too, if theystrayed too far.

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Lina stared miserably down at a letter B someonehad scratched into her desktop long ago. Almost any-thing would have been better than Pipeworks laborer.Greenhouse helper had been her second choice. She imagined with longing the warm air and earthysmell of the greenhouse, where she could have workedwith Clary, the greenhouse manager, someone she’dknown all her life. She would have been content as adoctor’s assistant, too, binding up cuts and bones.Even street-sweeper or cart-puller would have beenbetter. At least then she could have stayed aboveground, with space and people around her. Shethought going down into the Pipeworks must be likebeing buried alive.

One by one, the other students chose their jobs.None of them got such a wretched job as hers. Finallythe last person rose from his chair and walked forward.

It was Doon. His dark eyebrows were drawntogether in a frown of concentration. His hands, Linasaw, were clenched into fists at his sides.

Doon reached into the bag and took out the lastscrap of paper. He paused a minute, pressing it tightlyin his hand.

“Go on,” said the mayor. “Read.”Unfolding the paper, Doon read: “Messenger.” He

scowled, crumpled the paper, and dashed it to thefloor.

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Lina gasped; the whole class rustled in sur-prise. Why would anyone be angry to get the job ofmessenger?

“Bad behavior!” cried the mayor. His eyes bulgedand his face darkened. “Go to your seat immediately.”

Doon kicked the crumpled paper into a corner.Then he stalked back to his desk and flung himselfdown.

The mayor took a short breath and blinked furi-ously. “Disgraceful,” he said, glaring at Doon. “A child-ish display of temper! Students should be glad to workfor their city. Ember will prosper if all . . .citizens . . . do . . . their . . . best.” He held up a stern finger as he said this and moved his eyes slowly fromone face to the next.

Suddenly Doon spoke up. “But Ember is not pros-pering!” he cried. “Everything is getting worse andworse!”

“Silence!” cried the mayor.“The blackouts!” cried Doon. He jumped from his

seat. “The lights go out all the time now! And theshortages, there’s shortages of everything! If no onedoes anything about it, something terrible is going tohappen!”

Lina listened with a pounding heart. What waswrong with Doon? Why was he so upset? He was taking things too seriously, as he always did.

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Miss Thorn strode to Doon and put a hand on hisshoulder. “Sit down now,” she said quietly. But Doonremained standing.

The mayor glared. For a few moments he saidnothing. Then he smiled, showing a neat row of grayteeth. “Miss Thorn,” he said. “Who might this youngman be?”

“I am Doon Harrow,” said Doon.“I will remember you,” said the mayor. He gave

Doon a long look, then turned to the class and smiledhis smile again.

“Congratulations to all,” he said. “Welcome toEmber’s work force. Miss Thorn. Class. Thank you.”

The mayor shook hands with Miss Thorn anddeparted. The students gathered their coats and capsand filed out of the classroom. Lina walked down theWide Hallway with Lizzie, who said, “Poor you! Ithought I picked a bad one, but you got the worst. I feellucky compared to you.” Once they were out the door,Lizzie said goodbye and scurried away, as if Lina’s badluck were a disease she might catch.

Lina stood on the steps for a moment and gazedacross Harken Square, where people walked briskly,bundled up cozily in their coats and scarves, or talkedto one another in the pools of light beneath the greatstreetlamps. A boy in a red messenger’s jacket rantoward the Gathering Hall. On Otterwill Street, a manpulled a cart filled with sacks of potatoes. And in the

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buildings all around the square, rows of lighted win-dows shone bright yellow and deep gold.

Lina sighed. This was where she wanted to be, uphere where everything happened, not down under-ground.

Someone tapped her on the shoulder. Startled, sheturned and saw Doon behind her. His thin face lookedpale. “Will you trade with me?” he asked.

“Trade?”“Trade jobs. I don’t want to waste my time being a

messenger. I want to help save the city, not run aroundcarrying gossip.”

Lina gaped at him. “You’d rather be in thePipeworks?”

“Electrician’s helper is what I wanted,” Doon said.“But Chet won’t trade, of course. Pipeworks is secondbest.”

“But why?”“Because the generator is in the Pipeworks,” said

Doon.Lina knew about the generator, of course. In some

mysterious way, it turned the running of the river intopower for the city. You could feel its deep rumble whenyou stood in Plummer Square.

“I need to see the generator,” Doon said. “Ihave . . . I have ideas about it.” He thrust his hands intohis pockets. “So,” he said, “will you trade?”

“Yes!” cried Lina. “Messenger is the job I want

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most!” And not a useless job at all, in her opinion.People couldn’t be expected to trudge halfway acrossthe city every time they wanted to communicate withsomeone. Messengers connected everyone to everyoneelse. Anyway, whether it was important or not, the jobof messenger just happened to be perfect for Lina. Sheloved to run. She could run forever. And she lovedexploring every nook and cranny of the city, which waswhat a messenger got to do.

“All right then,” said Doon. He handed her hiscrumpled piece of paper, which he must have retrievedfrom the floor. Lina reached into her pocket, pulledout her slip of paper, and handed it to him.

“Thank you,” he said.“You’re welcome,” said Lina. Happiness sprang up

in her, and happiness always made her want to run.She took the steps three at a time and sped downBroad Street toward home.

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Lina often took different routes between school andhome. Sometimes, just for variety, she’d go all the wayaround Sparkswallow Square, or way up by the shoerepair shops on Liverie Street. But today she took theshortest route because she was eager to get home andtell her news.

She ran fast and easily through the streets ofEmber. Every corner, every alley, every building wasfamiliar to her. She always knew where she was, thoughmost streets looked more or less the same. All of themwere lined with old two-story stone buildings, thewood of their window frames and doors long unpainted. On the street level were shops; above theshops were the apartments where people lived. Everybuilding, at the place where the wall met the roof, wasequipped with a row of floodlights—big cone-shapedlamps that cast a strong yellow glare.

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CHAPTER 2

A Message to the Mayor


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Stone walls, lighted windows, lumpy, muffledshapes of people—Lina flew by them. Her slender legsfelt immensely strong, like the wood of a bow that flexesand springs. She darted around obstacles—broken furniture left for the trash heaps or for scavengers, stoves and refrigerators that were past repair, peddlerssitting on the pavement with their wares spread outaround them. She leapt over cracks and potholes.

When she came to Hafter Street, she slowed a little. This street was deep in shadow. Four of its streetlamps were out and had not been fixed. For a second, Lina thought of the rumor she’d heard aboutlight bulbs: that some kinds were completely gone. She was used to shortages of things—everyone was—but not of light bulbs! If the bulbs for the streetlampsran out, the only lights would be inside the buildings.What would happen then? How could people findtheir way through the streets in the dark?

Somewhere inside her, a black worm of dreadstirred. She thought about Doon’s outburst in class.Could things really be as bad as he said? She didn’twant to believe it. She pushed the thought away.

As she turned onto Budloe Street, she sped upagain. She passed a line of customers waiting to getinto the vegetable market, their shopping bags drapedover their arms. At the corner of Oliver Street, shedodged a group of washers trudging along with bags oflaundry, and some movers carrying away a broken

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table. She passed a street-sweeper shoving dust aroundwith his broom. I am so lucky, she thought, to have the job I want. And because of Doon Harrow, of allpeople.

When they were younger, Lina and Doon had beenfriends. Together they had explored the back alleys anddimly lit edges of the city. But in their fourth year ofschool, they had begun to grow apart. It started one dayduring the hour of free time, when the children in theirclass were playing on the front steps of the school. “Ican go down three steps at a time,” someone wouldboast. “I can hop down on one foot!” someone elsewould say. The others would chime in. “I can do a hand-stand against the pillar!” “I can leapfrog over the trashcan!” As soon as one child did something, all the restwould do it, too, to prove they could.

Lina could do it all, even when the dares gotwilder. She yelled out the wildest one of all: “I canclimb the light pole!” For a second everyone just staredat her. But Lina dashed across the street, took off hershoes and socks, and wrapped herself around the coldmetal of the pole. Pushing with her bare feet, sheinched upward. She didn’t get very far before she losther grip and fell back down. The children laughed, andso did she. “I didn’t say I’d climb to the top,” sheexplained. “I just said I’d climb it.”

The others swarmed forward to try. Lizzie wouldn’t take off her socks—her feet were too cold,

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she said—so she kept sliding back. Fordy Penn wasn’tstrong enough to get more than a foot off the ground.Next came Doon. He took his shoes and socks off andplaced them neatly at the foot of the pole. Then heannounced, in his serious way, “I’m going to the top.”He clasped the pole and started upward, pushing withhis feet, his knees sticking out to the sides. He pulledhimself upward, pushed again—he was higher nowthan Lina had been—but suddenly his hands slid andhe came plummeting down. He landed on his bottomwith his legs poking up in the air. Lina laughed. Sheshouldn’t have; he might have been hurt. But helooked so funny that she couldn’t help it.

He wasn’t hurt. He could have jumped up,grinned, and walked away. But Doon didn’t take thingslightly. When he heard Lina and the others laughing,his face darkened. His temper rose in him like hotwater. “Don’t you dare laugh at me,” he said to Lina. “Idid better than you did! That was a stupid idea anyway,a stupid, stupid idea to climb that pole. . . .” And as hewas shouting, red in the face, their teacher, Mrs. Polster, came out onto the steps and saw him. She tookhim by the shirt collar to the school director’s office,where he got a scolding he didn’t think he deserved.

After that day, Lina and Doon barely looked ateach other when they passed in the hallway. At first itwas because they were fuming about what had hap-

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pened. Doon didn’t like being laughed at; Lina didn’tlike being shouted at. After a while the memory of thelight-pole incident faded, but by then they had got outof the habit of friendship. By the time they weretwelve, they knew each other only as classmates. Linawas friends with Vindie Chance, Orly Gordon, andmost of all, red-haired Lizzie Bisco, who could runalmost as fast as Lina and could talk three times faster.

Now, as Lina sped toward home, she felt immenselygrateful to Doon and hoped he’d come to no harm inthe Pipeworks. Maybe they’d be friends again. She’dlike to ask him about the Pipeworks. She was curiousabout it.

When she got to Greystone Street, she passedClary Laine, who was probably on her way to thegreenhouses. Clary waved to her and called out, “Whatjob?” and Lina called back, “Messenger!” and ran on.

Lina lived in Quillium Square, over the yarn shop run by her grandmother. When she got to theshop, she burst in the door and cried, “Granny! I’m amessenger!”

Granny’s shop had once been a tidy place, whereeach ball of yarn and spool of thread had its spot in thecubbyholes that lined the walls. All the yarn and threadcame from old clothes that had gotten too shabby to beworn. Granny unraveled sweaters and picked apart

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dresses and jackets and pants; she wound the yarn intoballs and the thread onto spools, and people boughtthem to use in making new clothes.

These days, the shop was a mess. Long loops andstrands of yarn dangled out of the cubbyholes, and thebrowns and grays and purples were mixed in with theochres and olive greens and dark blues. Granny’s cus-tomers often had to spend half an hour unsnarling therust-red yarn from the mud-brown, or trying to fishout the end of a thread from a tangled wad. Grannywasn’t much help. Most days she just dozed behind thecounter in her rocking chair.

That’s where she was when Lina burst in with hernews. Lina saw that Granny had forgotten to knot upher hair that morning—it was standing out from herhead in a wild white frizz.

Granny stood up, looking puzzled. “You aren’t amessenger, dear, you’re a schoolgirl,” she said.

“But Granny, today was Assignment Day. I got myjob. And I’m a messenger!”

Granny’s eyes lit up, and she slapped her handdown on the counter. “I remember!” she cried. “Mes-senger, that’s a grand job! You’ll be good at it.”

Lina’s little sister toddled out from behind thecounter on unsteady legs. She had a round face andround brown eyes. At the top of her head was a sprigof brown hair tied up with a scrap of red yarn. Shegrabbed on to Lina’s knees. “Wy-na, Wy-na!” she said.

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Lina bent over and took the child’s hands. “Poppy!Your big sister got a good job! Are you happy, Poppy?Are you proud of me?”

Poppy said something that sounded like,“Hoppyhoppyhoppy!” Lina laughed, hoisted her up,and danced with her around the shop.

Lina loved her little sister so much that it was likean ache under her ribs. The baby and Granny were allthe family she had now. Two years ago, when thecoughing sickness was raging through the city again,her father had died. Some months later, her mother,giving birth to Poppy, had died, too. Lina missed herparents with an ache that was as strong as what she feltfor Poppy, only it was a hollow feeling instead of a fullone.

“When do you start?” asked Granny.“Tomorrow,” said Lina. “I report to the messen-

gers’ station at eight o’clock.”“You’ll be a famous messenger,” said Granny. “Fast

and famous.”Taking Poppy with her, Lina went out of the shop

and climbed the stairs to their apartment. It was asmall apartment, only four rooms, but there wasenough stuff in it to fill twenty. There were things that had belonged to Lina’s parents, her grandparents,and even their grandparents—old, broken, cracked,threadbare things that had been patched and repaireddozens or hundreds of times. People in Ember rarely

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threw anything away. They made the best possible useof what they had.

In Lina’s apartment, layers of worn rugs and car-pets covered the floor, making it soft but unevenunderfoot. Against one wall squatted a sagging couchwith round wooden balls for legs, and on the couchwere blankets and pillows, so many that you had totoss some on the floor before you could sit down.Against the opposite wall stood two wobbly tables thatheld a clutter of plates and bottles, cups and bowls,unmatching forks and spoons, little piles of scrappaper, bits of string wound up in untidy wads, and afew stubby pencils. There were four lamps, two tallones that stood on the floor and two short ones thatstood on tables. And in uneven lines up near the ceil-ing were hooks that held coats and shawls and night-gowns and sweaters, shelves that held pots and pans,jars with unreadable labels, and boxes of buttons andpins and tacks.

Where there were no shelves, the walls had beendecorated with things of beauty—a label from a can ofpeaches, a few dried yellow squash flowers, a strip offaded but still pretty purple cloth. There were draw-ings, too. Lina had done the drawings out of her imag-ination. They showed a city that looked somewhat likeEmber, except that its buildings were lighter and tallerand had more windows.

One of the drawings had fallen to the floor. Lina

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retrieved it and pinned it back up. She stood for aminute and looked at the pictures. Over and over, she’ddrawn the same city. Sometimes she drew it as seenfrom afar, sometimes she chose one of its buildingsand drew it in detail. She put in stairways and street-lamps and carts. Sometimes she tried to draw the peo-ple who lived in the city, though she wasn’t good atdrawing people—their heads always came out toosmall, and their hands looked like spiders. One pictureshowed a scene in which the people of the city greetedher when she arrived—the first person they had everseen to come from elsewhere. They argued with eachother about who should be the first to invite her home.

Lina could see this city so clearly in her mind shealmost believed it was real. She knew it couldn’t be,though. The Book of the City of Ember, which all chil-dren studied in school, taught otherwise. “The city ofEmber was made for us long ago by the Builders,” thebook said. “It is the only light in the dark world.Beyond Ember, the darkness goes on forever in alldirections.”

Lina had been to the outer border of Ember. Shehad stood at the edge of the trash heaps and gazed intothe darkness beyond the city—the Unknown Regions.No one had ever gone far into the UnknownRegions—or at least no one had gone far and returned.And no one had ever arrived in Ember from theUnknown Regions, either. As far as anyone knew, the

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darkness did go on forever. Still, Lina wanted the othercity to exist. In her imagination, it was so beautiful,and it seemed so real. Sometimes she longed to gothere and take everyone in Ember with her.

But she wasn’t thinking about the other city now.Today she was happy to be right where she was. She setPoppy on the couch. “Wait there,” she said. She wentinto the kitchen, where there was an electric stove anda refrigerator that no longer worked and was used tostore glasses and dishes so Poppy couldn’t get at them.Above the refrigerator were shelves holding more potsand jars, more spoons and knives, a wind-up clock thatGranny always forgot to wind, and a long row of cans.Lina tried to keep the cans in alphabetical order so shecould find what she wanted quickly, but Granny alwaysmessed them up. Now, she saw, there were beans at theend of the row and tomatoes at the beginning. Shepicked out a can labeled Baby Drink and a jar of boiledcarrots, opened them, poured the liquid into a cup andthe carrots into a little dish, and took these back to thebaby on the couch.

Poppy dribbled Baby Drink down her chin. Sheate some of her carrots and poked others between thecouch cushions. For the moment, Lina felt almost per-fectly happy. There was no need to think about the fateof the city right now. Tomorrow, she’d be a messenger!She wiped the orange goop off Poppy’s chin. “Don’tworry,” she said. “Everything will be all right.”

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* * *The messengers’ headquarters was on Cloving Street,not far from the back of the Gathering Hall. WhenLina arrived the next morning, she was greeted byMessenger Captain Allis Fleery, a bony woman withpale eyes and hair the color of dust. “Our new girl,”said Captain Fleery to the other messengers, a clusterof nine people who smiled and nodded at Lina. “I haveyour jacket right here,” said the captain. She handedLina a red jacket like the one all messengers wore. Itwas only a little too large.

From the clock tower of the Gathering Hall camea deep reverberating bong. “Eight o’clock!” criedCaptain Fleery. She waved a long arm. “Take your sta-tions!” As the clock sounded seven more times, themessengers scattered in all directions. The captainturned to Lina. “Your station,” she said, “is GarnSquare.”

Lina nodded and started off, but the captaincaught her by the collar. “I haven’t told you the rules,”she said. She held up a knobby finger. “One: When acustomer gives you a message, repeat it back to makesure you have it right. Two: Always wear your red jacket so people can identify you. Three: Go as fast aspossible. Your customers pay twenty cents for everymessage, no matter how far you have to take it.”

Lina nodded. “I always go fast,” she said.“Four,” the captain went on. “Deliver a message

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only to the person it’s meant for, no one else.”Lina nodded again. She bounced a little on her

toes, eager to get going.Captain Fleery smiled. “Go,” she said, and Lina

was off.She felt strong and speedy and surefooted. She

glanced at her reflection as she ran past the window ofa furniture repair shop. She liked the look of her longdark hair flying out behind her, her long legs in theirblack socks, and her flapping red jacket. Her face,which had never seemed especially remarkable, lookedalmost beautiful, because she looked so happy.

As soon as she came into Garn Square, a voicecried, “Messenger!” Her first customer! It was oldNatty Prine, calling to her from the bench where healways sat. “This goes to Ravenet Parsons, 18 SelvertonSquare,” he said. “Bend down.”

She bent down so that her ear was close to hiswhiskery mouth.

The old man said in a slow, hoarse voice, “Mystove is broke, don’t come for dinner. Repeat.”

Lina repeated the message.“Good,” said Natty Prine. He gave Lina twenty

cents, and she ran across the city to Selverton Square.There she found Ravenet Parsons also sitting on abench. She recited the message to him.

“Old turniphead,” he growled. “Lazy old fleaface.He just doesn’t feel like cooking. No reply.”

28


81

Lina ran back to Garn Square, passing a group ofBelievers on the way. They were standing in a circle,holding hands, singing one of their cheerful songs. Itseemed to Lina there were more Believers than everthese days. What they believed in she didn’t know, but it must make them happy—they were always smiling.

Her next customer turned out to be Mrs. Polster,the teacher of the fourth-year class. In Mrs. Polster’sclass, they memorized passages from The Book of theCity of Ember every week. Mrs. Polster had charts onthe walls for everything, with everyone’s name listed. Ifyou did something right, she made a green dot by yourname. If you did something wrong, she made a reddot. “What you need to learn, children,” she alwayssaid, in her resonant, precise voice, “is the differencebetween right and wrong in every area of life. Andonce you learn the difference—” Here she would stopand point to the class, and the class would finish thesentence: “You must always choose the right.” In everysituation, Mrs. Polster knew what the right choice was.

Now here was Mrs. Polster again, looming overLina and pronouncing her message. “To AnnisetteLafrond, 39 Humm Street, as follows,” she said. “Myconfidence in you has been seriously diminished sinceI heard about the disreputable activities in which youengaged on Thursday last. Please repeat.”

It took Lina three tries to get this right. “Uh-oh, a

29


82

red dot for me,” she said. Mrs. Polster did not seem tofind this amusing.

Lina had nineteen customers that first morning.Some of them had ordinary messages: “I can’t come onTuesday.” “Buy a pound of potatoes on your wayhome.” “Please come and fix my front door.” Othershad messages that made no sense to her at all, like Mrs.Polster’s. But it didn’t matter. The wonderful partabout being a messenger was not the messages but theplaces she got to go. She could go into the houses ofpeople she didn’t know and hidden alleyways and littlerooms in the backs of stores. In just a few hours, shediscovered all kinds of strange and interesting things.

For instance: Mrs. Sample, the mender, had tosleep on her couch because her entire bedroom, almostup to the ceiling, was crammed with clothes to bemended. Dr. Felinia Tower had the skeleton of a person hanging against her living room wall, its bones all held in place with black strings. “I study it,”she said when she saw Lina staring. “I have to knowhow people are put together.” At a house on CallooStreet, Lina delivered a message to a worried-lookingman whose living room was completely dark. “I’m sav-ing on light bulbs,” the man said. And when Lina tooka message to the Can Café, she learned that on certaindays the back room was used as a meeting place forpeople who liked to converse about Great Subjects.“Do you think an Invisible Being is watching over us

30


83

all the time?” she heard someone ask. “Perhaps,”answered someone else. There was a long silence. “Andthen again, perhaps not.”

All of it was interesting. She loved finding thingsout, and she loved running. And even by the end of theday, she wasn’t tired. Running made her feel strong andbig-hearted, it made her love the places she ranthrough and the people whose messages she delivered.She wished she could bring all of them the good newsthey so desperately wanted to hear.

Late in the afternoon, a young man came up toher, walking with a sort of sideways lurch. He was anodd-looking person—he had a very long neck with abump in the middle and teeth so big they looked as ifthey were trying to escape from his mouth. His black,bushy hair stuck out from his head in untidy tufts. “Ihave a message for the mayor, at the Gathering Hall,”he said. He paused to let the importance of this beunderstood. “The mayor,” he said. “Did you get that?”

“I got it,” said Lina.“All right. Listen carefully. Tell him: Delivery at

eight. From Looper. Repeat it back.”“Delivery at eight. From Looper,” Lina repeated. It

was an easy message.“All right. No answer required.” He handed her

twenty cents, and she sprinted away.The Gathering Hall occupied one entire side of

Harken Square, which was the city’s central plaza. The

31


84

square was paved with stone. It had a few benches bolted to the ground here and there, as well as a couple of kiosks for notices. Wide steps led up to theGathering Hall, and fat columns framed its big door.The mayor’s office was in the Gathering Hall. So werethe offices of the clerks who kept track of which build-ings had broken windows, what streetlamps neededrepair, and the number of people in the city. There wasthe office of the timekeeper, who was in charge of thetown clock. And there were offices for the guards whoenforced the laws of Ember, now and then puttingpickpockets or people who got in fights into the PrisonRoom, a small one-story structure with a sloping roofthat jutted out from one side of the building.

Lina ran up the steps and through the door into abroad hallway. On the left was a desk, and at the desksat a guard: “Barton Snode, Assistant Guard,” said abadge on his chest. He was a big man, with wide shoul-ders, brawny arms, and a thick neck. But his headlooked as if it didn’t belong to his body—it was smalland round and topped with a fuzz of extremely shorthair. His lower jaw jutted out and moved a little fromside to side, as if he were chewing on something.

When he saw Lina, his jaw stopped moving for amoment and his lips curled upward in a very smallsmile. “Good day,” he said. “What business brings youhere today?”

“I have a message for the mayor.”

32


85

“Very good, very good.” Barton Snode heavedhimself to his feet. “Step this way.”

He led Lina down the corridor and opened a doormarked “Reception Room.”

“Wait here, please,” he said. “The mayor is in hisbasement office on private business, but he will be upshortly.”

Lina went inside.“I’ll notify the mayor,” said Barton Snode. “Please

have a seat. The mayor will be right with you. Or prettysoon.” He left, closing the door behind him. A secondlater, the door opened again, and the guard’s small fuzzy head re-appeared. “What is the message?” heasked.

“I have to give it to the mayor in person,” saidLina.

“Of course, of course,” said the guard. The doorclosed again. He doesn’t seem very sure about things,Lina thought. Maybe he’s new at his job.

The Reception Room was shabby, but Lina couldtell that it had once been impressive. The walls weredark red, with brownish patches where the paint waspeeling away. In the right-hand wall was a closed door.An ugly brown carpet lay on the floor, and on it stooda large armchair covered in itchy-looking red material,and several smaller chairs. A small table held a teapotand some cups, and a larger table in the middle of theroom displayed a copy of The Book of the City of

33


86

Ember, lying open as if someone were going to readfrom it. Portraits of all the mayors of the city since thebeginning of time hung on the walls, staring solemnlyfrom behind pieces of old window glass.

Lina sat in the big armchair and waited. No onecame. She got up and wandered around the room. She bent over The Book of the City of Ember and read afew sentences: “The citizens of Ember may not haveluxuries, but the foresight of the Builders, who filledthe storerooms at the beginning of time, has ensuredthat they will always have enough, and enough is allthat a person of wisdom needs.”

She flipped a few pages. “The Gathering Hallclock,” she read, “measures the hours of night and day.It must never be allowed to run down. Without it, howwould we know when to go to work and when to go to school? How would the light director know when toturn the lights on and when to turn them off again? Itis the job of the timekeeper to wind the clock every week and to place the date sign in Harken Squareevery day. The timekeeper must perform these dutiesfaithfully.”

Lina knew that not all timekeepers were as faithfulas they should be. She’d heard of one, some years ago,who often forgot to change the date sign, so that itmight say, “Wednesday, Week 38, Year 227” for severaldays in a row. There had even been timekeepers whoforgot to wind the clock, so that it might stand at noon

34


87

or at midnight for hours at a time, causing a very longday or a very long night. The result was that no onereally knew anymore exactly what day of the week itwas, or exactly how many years it had been since thebuilding of the city—they called this the year 241, butit might have been 245 or 239 or 250. As long as theclock’s deep boom rang out every hour, and the lightswent on and off more or less regularly, it didn’t seemto matter.

Lina left the book and examined the pictures ofthe mayors. The seventh mayor, Podd Morethwart, washer great-great—she didn’t know how many greats—grandfather. He looked quite dreary, Lina thought. Hischeeks were long and hollow, his mouth turned downat the corners, and there was a lost look in his eyes. Thepicture she liked best was of the fourth mayor, JaneLarket, who had a serene smile and fuzzy black hair.

Still no one came. She heard no sounds from thehallway. Maybe they’d forgotten her.

Lina went over to the closed door in the right-hand wall. She pulled it open and saw stairs going up.Maybe, while she waited, she’d just see where theywent. She started upward. At the top of the first flightwas a closed door. Carefully, she opened it. She sawanother hallway and more closed doors. She shut thedoor and kept going. Her footsteps sounded loud onthe wood, and she was afraid someone would hear herand come and scold her. No doubt she was not

35


88

supposed to be here. But no one came, and sheclimbed on, passing another closed door.

The Gathering Hall was the only building inEmber with three stories. She had always wanted tostand on its roof and look out at the city. Maybe fromthere it would be possible to see beyond the city, intothe Unknown Regions. If the bright city of her draw-ings really did exist, it would be out there somewhere.

At the top of the stairs, she came to a door marked“Roof,” and she pushed it open. Chilly air brushedagainst her skin. She was outside. Ahead of her was aflat gravel surface, and about ten paces away she couldsee the high wall of the clock tower.

She went to the edge of the roof. From there shecould see the whole of Ember. Directly below wasHarken Square, where people were moving this wayand that, all of them appearing, from this top-downview, more round than tall. Beyond Harken Square,the lighted windows of the buildings made checkeredlines, yellow and black, row after row, in all directions.She tried to see farther, across the Unknown Regions,but she couldn’t. At the edges of the city, the lights wereso far away that they made a kind of haze. She couldsee nothing beyond them but blackness.

She heard a shout from the square below. “Look!”came a small but piercing voice. “Someone on theroof !” She saw a few people stop and look up. “Who isit? What’s she doing up there?” someone cried. More

36


89

people gathered, until a crowd was standing on thesteps of the Gathering Hall. They see me! Linathought, and it made her laugh. She waved at thecrowd and did a few steps from the Bugfoot ScurryDance, which she’d learned on Cloving Square DanceDay, and they laughed and shouted some more.

Then the door behind her burst open, and a hugeguard with a bushy black beard was suddenly runningtoward her. “Halt!” he shouted, though she wasn’tgoing anywhere. He grabbed her by the arm. “What areyou doing here?”

“I was just curious,” said Lina, in her most inno-cent voice. “I wanted to see the city from the roof.” Sheread the guard’s name badge. It said, “Redge Stabmark,Chief Guard.”

“Curiosity leads to trouble,” said Redge Stabmark.He peered down at the crowd. “You have caused acommotion.” He pulled her toward the door and hustled her down all three flights of stairs. When theycame out into the waiting room, Barton Snode wasstanding there looking flustered, his jaw twitchingfrom side to side. Next to him was the mayor.

“A child causing trouble, Mayor Cole,” said thechief guard.

The mayor glared at her. “I recall your face. FromAssignment Day. Shame! Disgracing yourself in yournew job.”

“I didn’t mean to cause trouble,” said Lina. “I was

37


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looking for you so I could deliver a message.”“Shall we put her in the Prison Room for a day or

two?” asked the chief guard.The mayor frowned. He pondered a moment.

“What is the message?” he said. He bent down so thatLina could speak into his ear. She noticed that hesmelled a little like overcooked turnips.

“Delivery at eight,” Lina whispered. “FromLooper.”

The mayor smiled a tight little smile. He turned tothe guard. “Just a child’s antics,” he said. “We will let itgo this time. From now on,” he said to Lina, “behaveyourself.”

“Yes, Mr. Mayor,” said Lina.“And you,” said the mayor, turning to the assistant

guard and shaking a thick finger at him, “watch visitors much . . . more . . . carefully.”

Barton Snode blinked and nodded.Lina ran for the door. Outside, the small crowd

was still standing by the steps. A few of them cheeredas Lina came out. Others frowned at her and mutteredwords like “mischief” and “silliness” and “show-off.”Lina felt embarrassed suddenly. She hadn’t meant toshow off. She hurried past, out into Otterwill Street,and started to run.

She didn’t see Doon, who was among those watch-ing her. He had been on his way home from his firstday in the Pipeworks when he’d come across the

38


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cluster of people gazing up at the roof of the Gather-ing Hall and laughing. He was tired and chilly. Thebottoms of his pants legs were wet, and mud clung tohis shoes and smeared his hands. When he raised hiseyes and saw the small figure next to the clock tower,he realized right away that it was Lina. He saw her raiseher arm and wave and hop about, and for a second hewondered what it would be like to be up there, lookingout over the whole city, laughing and waving. WhenLina came down, he wanted to speak to her. But heknew he was filthy-looking and that she would ask himquestions he didn’t want to answer. So he turned away.Walking fast, he headed for home.

39


Order your copy of

THE CITY OF EMBER

By JEANNE DUPRAU




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JeanneDuprau.com

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“A satisfying mystery, a breathtaking escape over rooftops in darkness, a harrowing journey into

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94Start Reading at SummerAdventureBooks.com

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95Keep reading for a sneak peek....

CHRIS GRABENSTEIN

A YEARLING BOOK

Grab_9780307931474_4P_fm_r3.indd 1 8/26/15 3:16 PM

CHRIS GRABENSTEIN

A YEARLING BOOK

Grab_9780307931474_4P_fm_r3.indd 1 8/26/15 3:16 PM

ATTENTION, READER: THIS IS AN UNCORRECTED EXCERPT.

Sale of this book without a front cover may be unauthorized. If the book is coverless, it may have been reported to the publisher as “unsold or destroyed” and neither the author

nor the publisher may have received payment for it.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual

persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2013 by Chris Grabenstein Cover art copyright © 2013 by Gilbert Ford

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Yearling, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, New York, in 2013.

Yearling and the jumping horse design are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book MR. LEMONCELLO’S LIBRARY OLYMPICS by Chris Grabenstein.

This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.



The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition of this work as follows: Grabenstein, Chris.

Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s library / Chris Grabenstein. — 1st ed. pages cm.

Summary: “Twelve-year-old Kyle gets to stay overnight in the new town library, designed by his hero (the famous gamemaker Luigi Lemoncello), with other students

but finds that come morning he must work with friends to solve puzzles in order to escape.” —Provided by publisher.

ISBN 978-0-375-87089-7 (trade) — ISBN 978-0-375-97089-4 (lib. bdg.) — ISBN 978-0-307-97496-9 (ebook)

[1. Libraries—Fiction. 2. Books and reading—Fiction. 3. Games—Fiction.] I. Title. II. Title: Escape from Mister Lemoncello’s library.

PZ7.G7487Es 2013 [Fic]—dc23 2012048122

ISBN 978-0-307-93147-4 (pbk.)

Printed in the United States of America

10 9

First Yearling Edition 2014

Random House Children’s Books supports

the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

Grab_9780307931474_4P_fm_r3.indd 2 8/26/15 3:16 PM

971

1

This is how Kyle Keeley got grounded for a week.

First he took a shortcut through his mother’s favorite

rosebush.

Yes, the thorns hurt, but having crashed through the

brambles and trampled a few petunias, he had a five-

second jump on his oldest brother, Mike.

Both Kyle and his big brother knew exactly where to

find what they needed to win the game: inside the house!

Kyle had already found the pinecone to complete his

“outdoors” round. And he was pretty sure Mike had

snagged his “yellow flower.” Hey, it was June. Dandelions

were everywhere.

“Give it up, Kyle!” shouted Mike as the brothers dashed

up the driveway. “You don’t stand a chance.”

Mike zoomed past Kyle and headed for the front door,

wiping out Kyle’s temporary lead.

Grab_9780375870897_5P_all_r1_.indd 1 4/4/13 5:45 AM

982

Of course he did.

Seventeen- year- old Mike Keeley was a total jock, a

high school superstar. Football, basketball, baseball. If it

had a ball, Mike Keeley was good at it.

Kyle, who was twelve, wasn’t the star of anything.

Kyle’s other brother, Curtis, who was fifteen, was still

trapped over in the neighbor’s yard, dealing with their dog.

Curtis was the smartest Keeley. But for his “outdoors”

round, he had pulled the always unfortunate Your Neigh-

bor’s Dog’s Toy card. Any “dog” card was basically the

same as a Lose a Turn.

As for why the three Keeley brothers were running

around their neighborhood on a Sunday afternoon like

crazed lunatics, grabbing all sorts of wacky stuff, well, it

was their mother’s fault.

She was the one who had suggested, “If you boys are

bored, play a board game!”

So Kyle had gone down into the basement and dug

up one of his all- time favorites: Mr. Lemoncello’s Indoor-

Outdoor Scavenger Hunt. It had been a huge hit for Mr.

Lemoncello, the master game maker. Kyle and his broth-

ers had played it so much when they were younger, Mrs.

Keeley wrote to Mr. Lemoncello’s company for a refresher

pack of clue cards. The new cards listed all sorts of dif-

ferent bizarro stuff you needed to find, like “an adult’s

droopy underpants,” “one dirty dish,” and “a rotten

banana peel.”


99

(At the end of the game, the losers had to put every-

thing back exactly where the items had been found. It was

an official rule, printed inside the top of the box, and made

winning the game that much more important!)

While Curtis was stranded next door, trying to talk the

neighbor’s Doberman, Twinky, out of his favorite tug toy,

Kyle and Mike were both searching for the same two items,

because for the final round, all the players were given the

same Riddle Card.

That day’s riddle, even though it was a card Kyle had

never seen before, had been extra easy.

find two coins from 1982 that add up to thirty

cents and one of them cannot be a nickel.

Duh. The answer was a quarter and a nickel because

the riddle said only one of them couldn’t be a nickel.

So to win, Kyle had to find a 1982 quarter and a 1982

nickel.

Also easy.

Their dad kept an apple cider jug filled with loose

change down in his basement workshop.

That’s why Kyle and Mike were racing to get there first.

Mike bolted through the front door.

Kyle grinned.

He loved playing games against his big brothers. As the

youngest, it was just about the only chance he ever got to

beat them fair and square. Board games leveled the playing

field. You needed a good roll of the dice, a lucky draw of


1004

the cards, and some smarts, but if things went your way

and you gave it your all, anyone could win.

Especially today, since Mike had blown his lead by

choosing the standard route down to the basement. He’d

go through the front door, tear to the back of the house,

bound down the steps, and then run to their dad’s work-

shop.

Kyle, on the other hand, would take a shortcut.

He hopped over a couple of boxy shrubs and kicked

open the low- to- the- ground casement window. He heard

something crackle when his tennis shoe hit the window-

pane, but he couldn’t worry about it. He had to beat his

big brother.

He crawled through the narrow opening, dropped to

the floor, and scrabbled over to the workbench, where he

found the jug, dumped out the coins, and started sifting

through the sea of pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters.

Score!

Kyle quickly uncovered a 1982 nickel. He tucked it into

his shirt pocket and sent pennies, nickels, and dimes skid-

ding across the floor as he concentrated on quarters. 2010.

2003. 1986.

“Come on, come on,” he muttered.

The workshop door swung open.

“What the . . . ?” Mike was surprised to see that Kyle

had beaten him to the coin jar.

Mike fell to his knees and started searching for his own


1015

coins just as Kyle shouted, “Got it!” and plucked a 1982

quarter out of the pile.

“What about the nickel?” demanded Mike.

Kyle pulled it out of his shirt pocket.

“You went through the window?” said a voice from

outside.

It was Curtis. Kneeling in the flower beds.

“Yeah,” said Kyle.

“I was going to do that. The shortest distance between

two points is a straight line.”

“I can’t believe you won!” moaned Mike, who wasn’t

used to losing anything.

“Well,” said Kyle, standing up and strutting a little,

“believe it, brother. Because now you two losers have to

put all the junk back.”

“I am not taking this back to Twinky!” said Curtis. He

held up a very slimy, knotted rope.

“Oh, yes you are,” said Kyle. “Because you lost. Oh

sure, you thought about using the window. . . .”

“Um, Kyle?” mumbled Curtis. “You might want to

shut up. . . .”

“What? C’mon, Curtis. Don’t be such a sore loser. Just

because I was the one who took the shortcut and kicked

open the window and— ”

“You did this, Kyle?”

A new face appeared in the window.

Their dad’s.


1026

“Heh, heh, heh,” chuckled Mike behind Kyle.

“You broke the glass?” Their father sounded ticked

off. “Well, guess who’s going to pay to have this window

replaced.”

That’s why Kyle Keeley had fifty cents deducted from

his allowance for the rest of the year.

And got grounded for a week.


1037

2

Halfway across town, Dr. Yanina Zinchenko, the world-

famous librarian, was walking briskly through the cavern-

ous building that was only days away from its gala grand

opening.

Alexandriaville’s new public library had been under

construction for five years. All work had been done with

the utmost secrecy under the tightest possible security. One

crew did the exterior renovations on what had once been

the small Ohio city’s most magnificent building, the Gold

Leaf Bank. Other crews— carpenters, masons, electricians,

and plumbers— worked on the interior.

No single construction crew stayed on the job longer

than six weeks.

No crew knew what any of the other crews had done

(or would be doing).

And when all those crews were finished, several


1048

super- secret covert crews (highly paid workers who would

deny ever having been near the library, Alexandriaville, or

the state of Ohio) stealthily applied the final touches.

Dr. Zinchenko had supervised the construction project

for her employer— a very eccentric (some would say loony)

billionaire. Only she knew all the marvels and wonders

the incredible new library would hold (and hide) within its

walls.

Dr. Zinchenko was a tall woman with blazing- red hair.

She wore an expensive, custom- tailored business suit, jazzy

high- heeled shoes, a Bluetooth earpiece, and glasses with

thick red frames.

Heels clicking on the marble floor, fingers tapping

on the glass of her very advanced tablet computer, Dr.

Zinchenko strode past the control center’s red door, under

an arch, and into the breathtakingly large circular reading

room beneath the library’s three- story- tall rotunda.

The bank building, which provided the shell for the

new library, had been built in 1931. With towering Corin-

thian columns, an arched entryway, lots of fancy trim, and

a mammoth shimmering gold dome, the building looked

like it belonged next door to the triumphant memorials in

Washington, D.C.— not on this small Ohio town’s quaint

streets.

Dr. Zinchenko paused to stare up at the library’s most

stunning visual effect: the Wonder Dome. Ten wedge-

shaped, high- definition video screens— as brilliant as those

in Times Square— lined the underbelly of the dome like


1059

so many orange slices. Each screen could operate indepen-

dently or as part of a spectacular whole. The Wonder Dome

could become the constellations of the night sky; a flight

through the clouds that made viewers below sense that the

whole building had somehow lifted off the ground; or, in

Dewey decimal mode, ten sections depicting vibrant and

constantly changing images associated with each category

in the library cataloging system.

“I have the final numbers for the fourth sector of the

Wonder Dome in Dewey mode,” Dr. Zinchenko said into

her Bluetooth earpiece. “364 point 1092.” She carefully

over- enunciated each word to make certain the video art-

ist knew what specific numbers should occasionally drift

across the fourth wedge amid the swirling social- sciences

montage featuring a floating judge’s gavel, a tumbling

teacher’s apple, and a gentle snowfall of holiday icons.

“The numbers, however, should not appear until eleven

a.m. Sunday. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Dr. Zinchenko,” replied the tinny voice in

her ear.

Next Dr. Zinchenko studied the holographic statues

projected into black crepe- lined recesses cut into the mas-

sive stone piers that supported the arched windows from

which the Wonder Dome rose.

“Why are Shakespeare and Dickens still here? They’re

not on the list for opening night.”

“Sorry,” replied the library’s director of holographic

imagery, who was also on the conference call. “I’ll fix it.”


10610

“Thank you.”

Exiting the rotunda, the librarian entered the Chil-

dren’s Room.

It was dim, with only a few work lights glowing, but

Dr. Zinchenko had memorized the layout of the minia-

ture tables and was able to march, without bumping her

shins, to the Story Corner for a final check on her recently

installed geese.

The flock of six audio- animatronic goslings— fluffy

robots with ping- pongish eyeballs (created for the new

library by imagineers who used to work at Disney World)—

stood perched atop an angled bookcase in the corner.

Mother Goose, in her bonnet and granny glasses, was

frozen in the center.

“This is librarian One,” said Dr. Zinchenko, loud

enough for the microphones hidden in the ceiling to pick

up her voice. “Initiate story- time sequence.”

The geese sprang to mechanical life.

“Nursery rhyme.”

The geese honked out “Baa- Baa Black Sheep” in six-

part harmony.

“Treasure Island?”

The birds yo- ho- ho’ed their way through “Fifteen Men

on a Dead Man’s Chest.”

Dr. Zinchenko clapped her hands. The rollicking geese

stopped singing and swaying.

“One more,” she said. Squinting, she saw a book sit-

ting on a nearby table. “Walter the Farting Dog.”


10711

The six geese spun around and farted, their tail feath-

ers flipping up in sync with the noisy blasts.

“Excellent. End story time.”

The geese slumped back into their sleep mode. Dr.

Zinchenko made one more tick on her computer tablet.

Her final punch list was growing shorter and shorter,

which was a very good thing. The library’s grand opening

was set for Friday night. Dr. Z and her army of associates

had only a few days left to smooth out any kinks in the

library’s complex operating system.

Suddenly, Dr. Zinchenko heard a low, rumbling growl.

Turning around, she was eyeball to icy- blue eyeball

with a very rare white tiger.

Dr. Zinchenko sighed and touched her Bluetooth ear-

piece.

“Ms. G? This is Dr. Z. What is our white Bengal tiger

doing in the children’s department? . . . I see. Apparently,

there was a slight misunderstanding. We do not want him

permanently positioned near The Jungle Book. Check the

call number. 599 point 757. . . . Right. He should be in

Zoology. . . . Yes, please. Right away. Thank you, Ms. G.”

And like a vanishing mirage, the tiger disappeared.


10812

3

Of course, even though he was grounded, Kyle Keeley still

had to go to school.

“Mike, Curtis, Kyle, time to wake up!” his mother

called from down in the kitchen.

Kyle plopped his feet on the floor, rubbed his eyes, and

sleepily looked around his room.

The computer handed down from his brother Curtis

was sitting on the desk that used to belong to his other

brother, Mike. The rug on the floor, with its Cincinnati

Reds logo, had also been Mike’s when he was twelve years

old. The books lined up in his bookcase had been lined up

on Mike’s and Curtis’s shelves, except for the ones Kyle got

each year for Christmas from his grandmother. He still

hadn’t read last year’s addition.

Kyle wasn’t big on books.


10913

Unless they were the instruction manual or hint guide

to a video game. He had a Sony PlayStation set up in the

family room. It wasn’t the high- def, Blu- ray PS3. It was

the one Santa had brought Mike maybe four years earlier.

(Mike kept the brand- new Blu- ray model locked up in his

bedroom.)

But still, clunker that it was, the four- year- old gaming

console in the family room worked.

Except this week.

Well, it worked, but Kyle’s dad had taken away his TV

and computer privileges, so unless he just wanted to hear

the hard drive hum, there was really no point in firing up the

PlayStation until the next Sunday, when his sentence ended.

“When you’re grounded in this house,” his father had

said, “you’re grounded.”

If Kyle needed a computer for homework during this

last week of school, he could use his mom’s, the one in the

kitchen.

His mom had no games on her computer.

Okay, she had Diner Dash, but that didn’t really count.

Being grounded in the Keeley household meant you

couldn’t do anything except, as his dad put it, “think about

what you did that caused you to be grounded.”

Kyle knew what he had done: He’d broken a window.

But hey— I also beat my big brothers!

* * *


11014

“Good morning, Kyle,” his mom said when he hit the

kitchen. She was sitting at her computer desk, sipping cof-

fee and tapping keys. “Grab a Toaster Tart for breakfast.”

Curtis and Mike were already in the kitchen, chowing

down on the last of the good Toaster Tarts— the frosted

cupcake swirls. They’d left Kyle the unfrosted brown sugar

cinnamon. The ones that tasted like the box they came in.

“New library opens Friday, just in time for summer

vacation,” Kyle’s mom mumbled, reading her computer

screen. “Been twelve years since they tore down the old

one. Listen to this, boys: Dr. Yanina Zinchenko, the new

public library’s head librarian, promises that ‘patrons will

be surprised’ by what they find inside.”

“Really?” said Kyle, who always liked a good surprise.

“I wonder what they’ll have in there.”

“Um, books maybe?” said Mike. “It’s a library, Kyle.”

“Still,” said Curtis, “I can’t wait to get my new library

card!”

“Because you’re a nerd,” said Mike.

“I prefer the term ‘geek,’ ” said Curtis.

“Well, I gotta go,” said Kyle, grabbing his backpack.

“Don’t want to miss the bus.”

He hurried out the door. What Kyle really didn’t want

to miss were his friends. A lot of them had Sony PSPs and

Nintendo 3DSs.

Loaded with lots and lots of games!

* * *


11115

Kyle fist- bumped and knuckle- knocked his way up the bus

aisle to his usual seat. Almost everybody wanted to say

“Hey” to him, except, of course, Sierra Russell.

Like always, Sierra, who was also a seventh grader, was

sitting in the back of the bus, her nose buried in a book—

probably one of those about girls who lived in tiny homes

on the prairie or something.

Ever since her parents divorced and her dad moved out

of town, Sierra Russell had been incredibly quiet and spent

all her free time reading.

“Nice shirt,” said Akimi Hughes as Kyle slid into the

seat beside her.

“Thanks. It used to be Mike’s.”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s still cool.”

Akimi’s mother was Asian, her dad Irish. She had

very long jet- black hair, extremely blue eyes, and a ton

of freckles.

“What’re you playing?” Kyle asked, because Akimi

was frantically working the controls on her PSP 3000.

“Squirrel Squad,” said Akimi.

“One of Mr. Lemoncello’s best,” said Kyle, who had

the same game on his PlayStation.

The one he couldn’t play with for a week.

“You need a hand?”

“Nah.”

“Watch out for the beehives. . . .”

“I know about the beehives, Kyle.”

“I’m just saying . . .”


11216

“Yes!”

“What?”

“I cleared level six! Finally.”

“Awesome.” Kyle did not mention that he was up to

level twenty- seven. Akimi was his best friend. Friends

don’t gloat to friends.

“When I shot the squirrels at the falcons,” said Akimi,

“the pilots parachuted. If a squirrel bit the pilot in the butt,

I got a fifty- point bonus.”

Yes, in Mr. Lemoncello’s catapulting critters game,

there were all sorts of wacky jokes. The falcons weren’t

birds; they were F- 16 Falcon Fighter Jets. And the squir-

rels? They were nuts. Totally bonkers. With swirly whirl-

pool eyes. They flew through the air jabbering gibberish.

They bit butts.

This was one of the main reasons why Kyle thought

everything that came out of Mr. Lemoncello’s Imagination

Factory— board games, puzzles, video games— was amaz-

ingly awesome. For Mr. Lemoncello, a game just wasn’t a

game if it wasn’t a little goofy around the edges.

“So, did you pick up the bonus code?” asked Kyle.

“Huh?”

“In the freeze- frame there.”

Akimi studied the screen.

“Turn it over.”

Akimi did.

“See that number tucked into the corner? Type that in

the next time the home screen asks you for your password.”


11317

“Why? What happens?”

“You’ll see.”

Akimi slugged him in the arm. “What?”

“Well, don’t be surprised if you start flinging flaming

squirrels on level seven.”

“Get. Out!”

“Try it. You’ll see.”

“I will. This afternoon. So, did you write your extra-

credit essay?”

“Huh? What essay?”

“Um, the one that’s due today. About the new public

library?”

“Refresh my memory.”

Akimi sighed. “Because the old library was torn down

twelve years ago, the twelve twelve- year- olds who write

the best essays on ‘Why I’m Excited About the New Public

Library’ will get to go to the library lock- in this Friday

night.”

“Huh?”

“The winners will spend the night in the new library

before anybody else even gets to see the place!”

“Is this like that movie Night at the Museum? Will the

books come alive and chase people around and junk?”

“No. But there will probably be free movies, and food,

and prizes, and games.”

All of a sudden, Kyle was interested.


Order your copy of

ESCAPE FROM MR. LEMONCELLO’S

LIBRARYBy CHRIS GRABENSTEIN




http://links.penguinrandomhouse.com/type/affiliate/isbn/9780307931474/siteID/8001/retailerid/2/trackingcode/PRHF3C8804433







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