“And move the stick back and forth to steer,” Haruto yelled over the wind.
“I know,” shouted Lenora, slightly annoyed. How did he think she’d managed to pilot this thing out here? “I just need help landing!”
Lucy stopped screaming. “F-fly up h-higher and I’ll j-jump down and help Lenora,” Lucy cried out, rather bravely, Lenora thought, as she sounded like that was absolutely the last thing in the world she wanted to do.
“NO!” shouted Lenora and Haruto at the same time.
Lenora continued, to Haruto, “Land on that boulevard down there and I’ll follow you in!”
Haruto looked down at the long, straight boulevard and nodded. He turned his glider and made a wide pass over the city, descending slowly all the while, Lenora doing her best to follow. The longer this went on, the better she was getting, and she was just starting to think she might want to fly around a bit more when she realized they had passed over the entire city. Haruto made a wide turn, Lenora following. Now they were headed straight for the boulevard. As they came back over the city, Lenora saw a giant arch with a sign that said CAHOKIA. Haruto flew lower and lower, until he landed right on his feet with a few running steps. For her part, Lucy proved that platform shoes and hang gliders do not mix, as she immediately stumbled over them and fell. Lenora touched down beside them and her glider rolled to a slightly bumpy stop. Feeling disappointed that the ride was over, she walked over to the others.
Lucy was picking herself up and dusting herself off like nothing had happened. “I’m fine! Good landing! That was fun!”
“Really?” replied Lenora. “Do you always scream in terror when you’re having fun?”
“I was screaming in fun,” cried Lucy, jumping up and down. “I want to go again! Can I get my own hang glider, pleeease?”
Then Lucy and Haruto both noticed the burning tower. “Is the Library on fire?” Lucy asked anxiously, forgetting all about the glider.
Lenora shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. Look, there’s no smoke coming from the flames, and it’s not spreading. I think there’s something in there. Something bad. It feels like it has to do with the Forces of Darkness.”
And then Lucy was screaming again, and Lenora and Haruto whirled around to find a giant monster emerging from a hole in the ground.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Lenora in Cahokia
Haruto and Lucy turned and ran as Lenora stood her ground and studied the creature emerging from the hole. She had, after all, seen much worse than this, this being something that looked like a very giant octopus. On its (—head? She didn’t know—) was a helmet that emitted a glittering field around its entire body. Each of its sixteen or so tentacles was holding advanced devices that were like nothing she had ever seen. Overall, she felt that this giant octopus-like creature had a scientific air about it and there was nothing to fear.
“Hello,” she said, hoping this impressive-looking being could communicate in English. “How may I help you?”
“Hello,” it replied (somehow) in a quite courteous and gentle tone. The voice seemed to come from its helmet area as the creature floated up and out of the hole and hovered about five feet above the ground. “I am relieved to see a librarian. I need help, but there are so few around, for some reason.”
“I will do my best, but I should warn you, I know absolutely nothing about this place, which seems to be called Cahokia.”
“Oh, have no fear about that. I am considered one of the galaxy’s leading experts on all the most significant North American cities.”
Now Lenora had a number of questions, as one might expect after hearing such a sentence. She decided to list them off. “The galaxy? Where are you from? What is Cahokia? And what shall I call you?”
“Ah, Lenora, my apologies for not introducing myself, as is your custom. My name is … well, why don’t you call me Rosa. And I’m from a planet known as Zarmina’s World by your scientists, in a star system they call Gliese 581. As for Cahokia, let’s discuss that while we go to the scene of the crime. Will your friends be coming with us, or are they going to stay hidden behind that copper workshop on Mound 34?”
After quickly scrawling Zarmina’s World—Gliese 581—Investigate into her notebook, Lenora called to her friends, “You can come out! It’s okay. This is Rosa!”
Lucy and Haruto popped their heads around the side of a building atop a nearby mound, then walked cautiously down its steps. Reaching Lenora and Rosa, they both gulped and said, “Hello,” in slightly shaky voices.
“Are you an octopus? You look like an octopus,” added Lucy.
“Oh no, not at all,” Rosa answered. “Although their DNA is so very strange that a few Earth scientists have suggested one explanation might be that they are descended from alien DNA, so it’s within the realm of possibility that we are related to Earth octopuses.”
“It’s octopi,” said Haruto.
“No, it isn’t,” said Lenora absently. “Octopus comes from Greek, not Latin, so it’s not pluralized with an i.”
“What?” asked Lucy.
“Remind me to lend you my copy of Latin versus Greek: Battle to the Finish,” said Lenora, and, after scribbling Possible alien DNA in octopuses? Must research into her notebook, she said to Rosa, “You mentioned a crime?”
“Yes,” said Rosa, floating down the avenue while Lenora tagged along, Lucy and Haruto staying a few cautious feet behind her. “You see, I am an archeologist who came here to study the Library’s full-scale re-creation of Cahokia. Cahokia was one of the largest cities in the world during your thirteenth century, rivaling cities such as London and Paris at the time. Though it was later abandoned, no city in North America was larger until Philadelphia toward the end of your eighteenth century. Fascinating place.”
Lenora was writing wildly in her notebook. “Really? Who built it?”
“Your anthropologists know them as the Mississippian culture. They thrived for eight hundred years or so, their lands and cities stretching from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, and far to the west as well. I intended to write a book about them, but a thief has stolen my notes and I have no idea how to track them down, and with my return vessel arriving soon, I don’t have time to repeat my studies.”
“Hmm,” said Lenora. She didn’t know much about solving crimes, but she was determined to give it her best shot.
They reached the foot of the very largest of the hundreds of mounds, and either ascended the steps or floated up, depending on whether they had feet or not. The mound was really quite tall and the humans were panting heavily by the time they got to the top, where they found many large buildings and terraces all around. Rosa led them into the largest of them all, which it explained had probably been the residence of Cahokia’s leader.
Rosa pointed to a copper table. “I left my notes right here. Rather stupid of me, but I never imagined anyone would bother stealing them.”
“Hmm,” said Lenora again, thinking hard. “I suppose one of the first things you do when you are trying to solve a crime is dust for fingerprints. But I don’t know how to do that and we don’t have any … fingerprint dust or whatever, anyway.”