One of them continued, “But you see, sir—as you know, libraries can be very dangerous. And allowing Princess to run around with this girl who keeps finding herself in bad situations—well, sir, Princess could get hurt, you see. Or even worse.”
The Director sighed. “I suppose you are right. We must look out for Princess.”
“But Daddy!” Lucy pouted. “I learned so much from Lenora. Did you know that people used to work computers by hand? And that—”
“Now, now, Princess,” her father interrupted. “You know that if you want to learn anything, you don’t need to read any books or ask any silly librarians. You can just ask me! I know everything.”
And for the first time, Lenora could see just the smallest bit of doubt creep over Lucy’s face, even though she still seemed to love the hair tousling. (Lenora wondered how she could possibly stand five seconds of it.)
Lenora grasped the opportunity. “That’s true, sir. The Philosophy section, for example. I love what you’ve done with it. All of those great … great … books, all written by you. What else could anyone need?”
“That’s exactly what I said,” the Director replied. “Didn’t I?” He looked around, and the Forces nodded with extraordinary reluctance.
Lenora felt she was really getting the hang of this. “Yes, all those old, really, really famous philosophers, stretching back thousands of years. You always knew someone was great when you saw their name alongside great, big philosophers, like Plato and Aristotle and those other famous Greek guys. Even though we don’t really need them anymore.”
“That’s right,” mused the Director, who seemed to be struggling with something. A thought, perhaps.
Lenora waited. The Forces were all looking on in extreme alarm.
The Director snapped his fingers. “You know, I just had another great idea. We should put all those old philosopher guys back up. It will make me look even better, and no one is going to read their dumb books anyway when they can read mine.”
“What a great idea,” said Lenora.
“But sir!” said one of the Forces in horror. “The Board has directly ordered—”
The Director waved his hand absently. “The Board, the Board, the Board. You know what? I’m bored.” He paused to laugh uproariously at his own joke, then continued, “The Board, look, they work for me, okay? They do what I say. I’m the Director.”
“The Board does not work—” began one of the Forces, then stopped as he saw all the rest of them shaking their heads wildly.
The Director began to get red-faced, then quickly became purple-faced. The veins on his neck bulged. Lenora got the distinct impression the man was about to lose his temper quite dramatically. “What did you say?”
“Never mind him. It’s a great decision, sir,” said a woman soothingly. “He just means that we will have to inform the Board, of course. It’s merely standard policy.”
“Fine,” fumed the Director. “Tell them. Make sure they know who’s boss around here.”
“Of course,” said the woman, casting a triumphant look at Lenora.
Lenora began to get a rather worse feeling about the Board than she’d even had before, and she was not as confident as the Director that he was quite as much in control of them as he seemed to think.
“Good,” said the Director. “Now get down to Philosophy and put all those old guys back up. And mix them around a bunch so they’re always next to my books.”
The librarian in Lenora shuddered at this lack of order. But at least the books would be back on the shelves. And then she was extremely surprised at what the Director said next.
“And she’s in charge of it,” he said, pointing at Lenora. “I like her. You guys leave her alone. She’s cooperating.”
Several of the Forces hissed at these words.
“Can I go with her, Daddy?” cried Lucy. “Lenora is so much fun.”
“Anything for my Princess!” said the Director, and Lucy leapt from his lap and ran to Lenora, who turned to leave. She could feel the Forces gathering behind her, ready to follow.
“And I’m going to make an announcement to the Philosophy section about my great idea!” said the Director, walking over to the transmission console. “Message to Philosophy,” he began. “No,” he said. “The whole Library should know about this. It’s genius.” He flipped another switch from Off to Live and went straight into one of his speeches, his face appearing on every monitor, happy as could be.
“Hello, patrons!” he exclaimed, face abeam. “As you know, I have been removing many unnecessary and expensive books in order to make the Library a more exciting and entertaining experience for all of you!”
Lenora felt her left eye begin to twitch.
“And of course my policy has been incredibly successful and is making you all much smarter. But I have decided to bring back a few of those books, by some of those famous Greek guys, like uh … uh ..….….….….….….….…. .”
The agonizing pause continued until Lenora whispered, “Plato and Aristotle!”
“Uh, yes, Platotle and all the rest…”
Lenora couldn’t take it anymore. She went straight down the steps to the Tube, the Forces following, as the Director continued blathering away in the background.
There was a man ascending the steps. A man wearing a green raincoat. And he was smiling serenely at Lenora as he ascended.
Goose bumps rose on her arms.
Lenora felt hate surge inside her, hate she had never felt before. Her blood was pounding in her veins, and her breaths were coming faster and faster. By the time the man in the green raincoat was next to her on the steps, still smiling at her pleasantly, she wanted nothing more in the world than to hurl herself at him, hitting him with her fists, and then to do the same to every single one of the Forces following her. A kind of red blindness came over her, and, fists curled, she threw herself at him—
Or would have, had arms not wrapped around her from behind. “Lenora!” Lucy was shouting. “What’s wrong? Lenora, stop!”
Lenora fought, pulling at Lucy’s arms, wanting to fight Lucy, too, even though the deepest part of her brain was telling her stop you don’t want this stop stop stop …
And then the man in the green raincoat leaned down and whispered in Lenora’s ear, so softly that even Lucy could not hear, a whisper that slithered and writhed like a cobra about to strike, a voice that was not at all human: You won, little girl. But only for a moment. There are thousands of us everywhere here, and soon enough we will eat you and that giantess and everything else, and burn this Library to the ground just like we did the others.
And then there were several popping sounds. The man and the rest of the Forces vanished.
Lenora sagged in Lucy’s arms, her desire to fight gone. She felt only a deep weariness, like a sickness had passed through her. Lucy released her, and Lenora slumped onto the steps.
“Lenora, what happened?” cried Lucy, sounding almost in tears. “Are you okay?”
“I’m … sorry,” Lenora said, hardly able to muster words. “I … don’t know. It was … was like … like I wasn’t myself.”