The Story Collector--A New York Public Library Book Read online

  She paused, for pausing is a great tool of storytellers.

  Finally Eva, ever her trusted partner, said, “Why?”

  “It’s the tears of the prisoners!” Here, she pretended to sob, muttering, “Drip. Drip. Drip.”

  Viviani’s schoolyard audience clapped. All but one.

  “Rubbish,” Merit said.

  “Is not!” Viviani yelled.

  “Then show me,” Merit said. “Show me the river. I want to see those dungeons.”

  The crowd gasped. Viviani fumbled. “You can’t go down there,” she said to the ground.

  “And why not?” Merit demanded.

  “You just can’t.” Viviani didn’t want to admit that she’d just been scolded for going into the basement. She also didn’t want to admit that after hearing her papa’s story, she didn’t care to go into the basement. Just the thought of Big Red made her hair stand on end. Viviani felt downright comfortable sharing a story she knew to be creepy but false. Sharing a story she considered creepy but true felt terrifying.

  “Why?”

  Viviani’s voice shook in a way that made her angry at herself. “There’s a ghost down there. A red-whiskered ghost. With a hammer.”

  Eva’s eyes widened. “A what? You never told me about a ghost, Viv.” Her fingers knotted. Viviani knew she was thinking of the shadow they’d seen in the hallway when they were being inventors.

  Merit’s eyes narrowed. “Of course she didn’t, Eva. Because it isn’t true. The ghost, the river, the dungeons—none of it is true.”

  “It is true! The librarians, the staff—everybody! They all know about him. They call him Big Red.”

  “Red?” Jake Joseph smirked. “Isn’t that what your family calls you? Red?” The rest of the crowd shuffled and mumbled.

  “Yeah, that’s your nickname.”

  “I’ve heard them say it.”

  “Can’t you see?” Merit said. “She’s lying.” She huffed and crossed her arms. “Viviani Joffre Fedeler is a liar.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Collectors & Collecting,

  Dewey Decimal 790.1

  SEE ALSO: collectibles, hobbies

  Being labeled a liar is a little like being labeled a person who has infectious cooties. At the word liar, Viviani’s classmates scattered as if they were avoiding lice. Viviani slunk to a bench, Eva by her side. But Viv saw Eva’s fingers twitch as some kids scratched a marble arena into the dirt with a stick across the way. Eva was a deadeye at marbles; no one could beat her, and she had won all the best ones.

  “Go on,” Viviani said, lifting her chin at the game.

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure,” Viviani said.

  Eva stood, dug a stick of Juicy Fruit gum from her pocket, and tore it in half. She gave half to Viv, then bolted, the marbles in her pockets clacking. “Wait for me!”

  Viviani popped the gum in her mouth. It was stale.

  Can a person feel like chewed, flavorless gum?

  Because Viviani felt like chewed, flavorless gum.

  * * *

  After school that day, and after chores after that, Viviani went to the map room to cheer herself up. But all the krakens and all the sea dragons and all the giant squid in the world couldn’t wash away her bad mood. So she marched up two flights of stairs to see the Inverted Jenny.

  What it must be like to fly! Far above the rooftops, far into the clouds, far away from words like liar and the giggles of the others when Merit called her that. The very idea of it made her breathless.

  Through the fingerprint-smudged, fogged-up glass of the display case, Viviani spotted a familiar face. Rather, a familiar coat. A horrid pea-soup coat. “Hey, you’re that reporter!”

  As it was almost closing time for the library, the gentleman in the terrible coat was the only other patron in the room looking at the stamps. His head shot up, but his eyebrows shot down. “Excuse me?”

  “The day this exhibit opened. You asked me some questions. But I—” Viviani didn’t want to admit she had been at a loss for words when he’d asked about her. “Hey! What’s it like to be a reporter? Have you met any celebrities? I bet you have! Oh! You’ve met Buster Keaton, haven’t you? Did Buster tell you all about his gags and stunts and pratfalls?”

  The man in the pea-soup coat shook his head. “I—”

  “Or are you a restaurant critic? Those fellas have the best job. What’s your favorite restaurant in the city? My brother’s friend Carroll? His dad is the chef at the Algonquin Hotel. Have you eaten there? It’s fancy.”

  The man’s face lifted slightly into a grin. “Well, I—”

  “Or do you report on bad guys? Gangsters and bootleggers and whatnot? Do you know Al Capone’s secret handshake? Can you teach it to me?”

  The man circled the glass case with all the rare, valuable stamps inside. “Has anyone ever told you you’re like a real-life Anne of Green Gables?”

  Viviani’s shoulders slumped. “Yes. All the time. She asks too many questions.”

  “What? No. She’s the bee’s knees!” the man in the pea-soup coat said. He had a slanted grin. “She has quite the imagination, and she’ll believe just about anything!”

  “Sounds pretty gullible to me.”

  The man laughed. “Do you make up stories for everyone you meet?”

  Viviani shrugged. “I guess so. I just have so many questions about everyone, and Mama says it’s rude to ask someone thirty questions when you first meet them. Go figure.”

  “Go figure.”

  Viviani smiled. “Everyone else’s stories all seem so … interesting, that’s all. I just want to fill in the blanks.”

  “Noble work, that.” The man in the pea-soup coat nodded and narrowed his eyes at Viviani. And so Viviani narrowed her eyes back.

  “You’re here a lot?” he asked. “At the library, I mean.”

  “I live here.”

  The man’s face lit up. “No!”

  His no made Viviani smile despite herself. For his wasn’t an I don’t believe you no. A no like that sounds sharp and quick, like a scissor slice. Rather, this was an incredulous no, a WOW, really? breathless kind of no. This gentleman’s no was filled with awe. Funny how two small letters can communicate so many different meanings, no?

  “I do! My papa’s the superintendent.”

  “You don’t say.”

  Viviani folded her arms across her chest and thrust her chin skyward. “I do so say.” The man’s laugh echoed about the cavernous, quiet space. Viviani decided she could forgive him his terrible taste in coats.

  A librarian poked her head in the Stuart Room. “Five minutes, folks. The library closes in five minutes.”

  The fellow extended his hand for a handshake. “What’s your real name, Anne Shirley?”

  Viviani gripped the gentleman’s hand. “Viviani Joffre Fedeler. At your service, and always at the ready with a good yarn.”

  “I don’t doubt it. I’m Mr. Uh … Hill,” he said, touching the brim of his hat.

  “Quite a first name you got there, Uh!” Viviani laughed. The fellow did as well.

  Mr. Hill jerked his head at the collection. “Are you a stamp collector?”

  Viviani shook her head. “No. I just like the stories behind them. I’m a … a story collector.”

  The man smiled ear to ear. “A story collector. I like that.” They stood in silence for a moment more, admiring the tiny, colorful stamps.

  “What do you collect?” Viviani asked the fellow. “Oh! Lemme guess. Arrowheads! No. Baseball cards! No. Coins!”

  The man didn’t look up from the glass display case. He sighed deeply. “Me? I collect bad luck.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Lying,

  Dewey Decimal 363.25

  SEE ALSO: falsehoods, tall tales

  After her encounter with Mr. Uh Hill, who seemed charmed by the fact that she loved stories, Viviani asked herself: Is there a difference between a liar and a storyteller?

  That’s one of t
hose tricky questions one must answer for oneself. It depends, doesn’t it, on the situation, on the story, on the intent, on the person? Viviani knew her intentions were good—why couldn’t Merit see that? Unlike books, people cannot be neatly assigned a Dewey decimal number and lined up on a shelf in an orderly manner.

  The more Big Red slunk through Little Red’s mind, hammer in fist, the more Viviani completely, totally, and thoroughly believed in him. And when she had tried to talk to Eva about it, the one person who had seen Big Red with her, Eva just shook her head furiously. “I don’t wanna talk about that, Viv. It’s too scary.”

  Eva was not turning this could into impossible, as Viviani had hoped she would.

  Viviani thought ghosts were not only possible but probable, so why not here, in the library? The more she thought about it, she’d even seen it. Sort of. It could be true.

  Perhaps Viviani was so fond of coulds because Papa was an inventor, and inventors by their very nature see the world as it could be. Inventors are fond of saying things such as, “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.” Henry Ford, the American automobile manufacturer, said that. Or: “I have not failed. I’ve just found ten thousand ways that won’t work.” That one was from Papa’s friend Thomas Edison.

  Between her father’s inventor idealism and her natural proclivity for stories, Viviani Joffre Fedeler was able to see fiction in a slightly more true light than most. Merit’s doubts and finger-pointing earlier felt a little bit like a hammer, chipping away at Viviani’s sincerity.

  * * *

  In class the following day, Laurel Rudolph leaned way over in her desk and poked Viviani in the arm with her pen nib. “What are some of the weird things that library ghost does?” she whispered.

  “Well, sometimes piles of books will mysteriously appear on the floor where someone had walked just five minutes before,” Viviani whispered back, and the two kids seated next to Laurel shuddered. “There won’t be a crash, no loud noise, just a stack of books where there wasn’t one a moment ago.”

  Laurel gasped and was quickly shushed by Miss Hutch.

  On the way to the restroom that morning, Helen Hoogland murmured over her shoulder to Viv, “Say, that ghost—it ever touch anybody?”

  Viviani nodded. “Sometimes the librarians say they feel someone—or something—stroking their hair. Something very cold. Slimy.”

  The nearby classmates in the line for the restroom shuddered and whispered in delight.

  Miss Hutch quieted them down.

  And out in the schoolyard at recess, James Ziegler asked, “Does the ghost moan? You know, you ever hear anything odd?”

  “Besides Big Red’s hammer?” Viviani asked, and Jake Goodman smiled and nudged Cory Stout. Was it because he believed her, or was it in jest? “Sure. Creaking doors, and footsteps, and—”

  “All of those things can be explained by the fact that you live in a library,” Merit interrupted. Her arms crossed her chest; her toe tapped. “People coming and going all the time.”

  “And sometimes, the librarians say, they hear crying,” Viviani said loudly.

  “Crying?” Eva’s fingers knotted.

  Viviani swallowed, her throat dry. “Crying. Like a child who lost his mother.” Her classmates were wide-eyed and listening. She was winning them back!

  “Book carts will roll down the aisle slowly—v e r y slowly, mind you—so that you wouldn’t even notice them moving, except you’re sure they aren’t where they were fifteen minutes before. Lights flicker all the time, on off, on off. Typewriter keys clacking, but no typewriter is in use. And once”—here Viviani gulped—“a single book flew off a shelf, narrowly missing a patron’s head.”

  All of this was true, mind you, to the degree that all these things had indeed been reported in the library. Viviani had done some digging recently, trying to decide if Big Red was real, and had been told all of the above. But, Edouard had reminded her, just because these things were reported doesn’t mean they’re actually true. Sometimes people just want to feel like they’re a part of a bigger story.

  Viviani’s classmates huffed warm, wet clouds onto their cold hands and shivered with the deliciousness of it all. Everyone except Merit. Her huffs looked more like a storybook dragon’s.

  “Malarkey,” said Merit. “All of these things happened to you, Viviani?”

  “No, but—”

  “Who did they happen to?”

  “Librarians, like I said. Patrons. Other library workers.”

  Merit’s lips knotted as if they were yanked by a single string to the side of her face. “That’s all ghost stories are—someone thinking they saw something or heard something, when it’s just their imagination running away with them.” Here, she arched an eyebrow at Viviani. “Imaginations can be dangerous.”

  “Well, yeah! Without imagination, nothing is dangerous,” Viviani shot back. “Danger is just your brain imagining the worst that could happen and hopping up and down and shouting, Warning! That could hurt you!” Now her arms were crossed and her eyebrows furrowed.

  How could two people agree and yet still see things so differently?

  It seemed their classmates could feel how strongly the two girls repelled each other, as if they were two like ends of a magnet. And Viviani noticed by the looks on some of their faces that not everyone agreed with her. It was surprising and hurtful.

  “What a load of applesauce,” Cory muttered as Viviani turned to walk away.

  “She’s all wet,” Jake agreed.

  Viviani felt her chin begin to tremble. Not here, she told herself. Do NOT cry here. She raised her face to the low gray sky.

  Snow began to fall in fat, soft flakes, so recess story time quickly became recess snow time, with snowmen and snow angels and catching snowflakes on tongues. Viviani grew numb from the cold as she watched the fun around her.

  * * *

  The rest of the day, Viviani sat at her desk, damp with snow but steaming from the too-hot radiator. It was a woeful combination, coupled with the misery she felt from knowing some of her classmates doubted her. Even Eva’s little jokes couldn’t cheer her up.

  After school, several kids played in Bryant Park, just behind the library, in the deep, wet new-fallen snow. Viviani decided her mood could use the boost that only a good old-fashioned snowball fight could provide. She and Eva quickly joined forces with John Jr. and Carroll behind their snow fort near the courtyard fountain. They packed an arsenal of small, tight snowballs.

  Someone on the other team pointed up at a window on the back side of the library: a long, thin window that showcased the seven tiers of heavy iron bookstacks.

  “Look!” he shouted. It was Jake Joseph from Viviani’s class. “It’s Big Red!”

  Viviani couldn’t help herself: the itch of story, the pull of could was simply that strong for her. She stood, turned, and faced the library to get a glimpse of the red-whiskered ghost.

  Whack!

  A snowball walloped the back of her head, bits of ice dripping and sliding down her neck and into the collar of her dress.

  “Ha!” Jake yelled. “Look at that! I lied, too!”

  Normally, Viviani would let out a hoot and lob a snowball back, but today, her shoulders sagged. She shook the snow out of her coat and let her snowballs fall to the ground.

  “What a sap,” John Jr. said. “I’ll get him.”

  Viviani appreciated the promise with a small nod. She looked at Eva, who raised eyebrows as if to ask, Want me to come, too? Viviani shook her head. She wanted to be alone.

  Without another word, Viviani dragged her feet through the snow in Bryant Park, leaving long, lonely tracks behind her.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Data,

  Dewey Decimal 005.8

  SEE ALSO: data mining, data collection

  Viviani didn’t feel like going back to her room; if she did, she’d just sit there and sulk and wallow, and that sounded like exactly as much fun as guzzling pickle juice. She knew just
who she needed to find. But finding him inside the library wasn’t always easy. If Viviani saw the library as her playground, Edouard Fedeler saw the library as his cathedral, and he was usually as silent as a church mouse (which made him the frequent monthly winner at Master Thief, naturally).

  Inside the apartment, Viv grabbed a Charleston Chew and found her mother humming along to Duke Ellington and prepping flyers for her League of Women Voters meeting. “Edouard here?”

  Her mother shook her head. “Try the auditorium.”

  Viviani stuffed the sticky candy into her mouth and wound her way down to the first floor. According to the poster outside the door, the lecture was called “Patent Medicine Frauds.” Viviani poked her head inside and shout-whispered, “Edouard? Are you here?” The entire audience plus speaker scowled at the interruption, and she backed out of the room, surprised Edouard wasn’t there. Patent medicine frauds sounded right up his nonfiction aisle.

  She checked the genealogy room. No Edouard. The art and architecture room. No Edouard. The American history room. No Edouard. At last, she found him in the glass WJZ radio booth on the basement floor, arguing about the merits of jazz with Tommy Cowan, the radio announcer.

  “But it’s a perfect evolution of American music,” Edouard was saying.

  “Yes, however—” Mr. Cowan began, but suddenly the album that was playing skipped and skipped and skipped again. He held up a Quiet, please finger and flipped a switch on his microphone. “Sorry about that, listeners,” he said in a buttery tone. “Sometimes this music simply gets ahead of itself! Please enjoy this selection of chamber music from the Lenox String Quartet.” He deftly replaced the scratched record with a new one, and the music rolled out over the airwaves again. He flipped the microphone off.

  “I agree about the importance of the jazz movement,” Mr. Cowan continued, his voice far more nasal when he wasn’t crooning into a microphone. “But if I get caught playing something like Willie Smith? That’d be my head, ya know?” He ran his finger across his throat.