Book Scavenger: Chapters 17-32

Comparing texts word by word turned out to be quite the consuming task.

“I’m almost at the end of the story, so I better have them all. This is tedious.”

James took a stab at reading it aloud, “‘Forth em’—no...‘For the most wildy—wild yet home...homely narrative which I am about to open in either expect nor solicit belief…’”

James took a stab at reading it aloud, “‘Forth em’—no...‘For the most wildy—wild yet home...homely narrative which I am about to open in either expect nor solicit belief…’”

‘“One good story deserves another,’” Emily said with an incredulous laugh.

They worked their way through the dining area, lifting tablecloths and peering under chairs, scrutinizing wall hangings and the small clusters of carnations on every table.

Bright red pagoda-style awnings covered picnic tables.

Bright red pagoda-style awnings covered picnic tables.

“What, no plucky retort?” Maddie asked.

“I concede defeat! But there’s only one way to find out for sure.”

The bottom of the page was cut into fringe with a number printed on each tab:
(978) 067-9722 X649

To get an idea of where she might hide a book, Emily did an online search for images of the music concourse and discovered there would be a fountain.

Even the stage looked dressed in costume as something out of Ancient Rome with an ornate dome carved with angels and columns flanking either side, but Emily knew from photos that that was how it always looked.

Even the stage looked dressed in costume as something out of Ancient Rome with an ornate dome carved with angels and columns flanking either side, but Emily knew from photos that that was how it always looked.

“No, Bacon was the guy who came up with it. With the Baconian Cipher, you use a combination of As and Bs to represent every letter of the alphabet. I was thinking about how computer programming is a type of cipher—it’s called coding after all—and then I came across this Baconian stuff, and it gave me the idea to combine it with binary code.”

She looked from Emily to James then said, “No problem,” and flounced back to her table.

James warily watched the retreating mushroom head bob across the room.

“I said enough! It’s clear something is amiss here, but there’s no time to get to the bottom of this. You know how I feel about cheating.”

A car honked behind them, followed by others like a cacophony of quarreling geese.

James yelled, “Go, go, go!” but she was transfixed.

The camera owner—a burly man twice the size and height of the one chasing Emily and James—steadied his tripod with one hand and grabbed the pursuer with his other.

Distant horns honked—reassuring bleats that the men were still being held back.

She would have walked right past and never guessed a swing set, toddler’s slide, and teepee play structure were hiding behind the wall of foliage.

Leaf shadows and sunlight dappled the backs of her hands as she crawled after James into the teepee.

“Okay, fine. Be coy,” Emily muttered.

“Yes, ma’am,” Emily said meekly.

When she reached the top of her stairs, she found her brother skulking about in the hallway and guessed he might have overheard her conversation with Ms. Lee.

There was a Jack Kerouac quote their dad loved to repeat when the family deliberated weekend plans.

But they walked back and forth multiple times along the Leavenworth side and the Sacramento side, studying every nook and cranny for a spot where you could hide a book.

There were no planter boxes or benches tucked next to the building, and the entry alcove was tidy and clear of anything booklike.

It made her feel sick to think she might have been dismissing James, a new friend she wanted to impress, the same way she’d felt her brother had been dismissing her.

She didn’t need him anyway—she’d quickly formed a new clique with the seagulls who hovered near her at lunchtime.

Raven was such a stickler with the whole “ask in the form of a question” rule.

She spun the dial and tugged the door open, ducking her head inside under the pretext of sorting things into and out of her backpack.

Hollister pulled a piece of twine from a spindle attached to his counter while Emily rearranged more magnetic words.

Hollister nodded, and his wizard cap skewed to an angle.

Was it possible to feel nostalgic for something you never experienced?

“This was before Bayside Press, of course. We were young. Too young to be a part of the Beat movement, but old enough to be influenced by it. But—also like Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Peter Martin—our partnership eventually severed. Ours less amicably, I’m afraid.”

Money changes your circumstances, but it can’t change your core. A spiteful person becomes a spiteful person with money. A kind person, a kind person with money.

The drilling next door reverberated dully through the shared wall.