“What is a fingerprint?” asked Rosa. Lenora showed hers to the alien.
“Ah, that’s no trouble, then,” said Rosa, and pointed at the top of the table with one of the many devices carried in its tentacles. Immediately, several fingerprints shone brightly. “Now what?”
“Ummm,” said Lenora, who hadn’t thought that far ahead. “I’m not sure. We’d need a … fingerprint database or something. Something to match the prints with a person.”
“No trouble, either,” Rosa replied, and touched another device to its helmet. The device glittered for five seconds or so. “That’s odd,” it said, lowering the device. “No person matching these fingerprints is anywhere in the area. But my notes were only stolen a short time ago, and I began searching for them right away.”
Lenora was crestfallen. If she could not solve this mystery, then Rosa would never be able to write its book, and it sounded like a book Lenora would very much like to read. She snapped her fingers. “You said the prints didn’t match a person. But what about something else? Something not a person, I mean.”
“Don’t only people have fingerprints?” asked Lucy skeptically.
“I don’t know,” said Lenora. “But it’s worth a shot.”
Rosa put the device to its helmet again, and immediately it lit up brightly. “Yes! I have a match. The fingerprints appear exactly like your human ones, but their owner is a small, furry creature with no tail, a large head with fluffy ears, and a nose shaped like a spoon.”
Lenora snapped her fingers again. “I knew there was something suspicious about that koala.”
“Yeah, me, too!” said Lucy, crossing her arms. “They’ve always looked a little suspicious to me. I bet they can steal anything with their little fingerprint trick.”
Lenora continued, “We saw it outside the Flight section a little while ago, wearing a green backpack. Do you think you can catch it?”
“Absolutely,” replied the alien. “I can locate anyone once I have their image.”
Lenora scribbled Human and koala fingerprints look exactly alike, k’s could be master thieves into her notebook and dropped it into a pocket. “Let’s go get your research, then. Which way to the koala?”
“Oh,” said Rosa. “I can teleport us all right to him. The trip will take no time at all.” And the alien raised another of its devices.
“Wait,” said Haruto. “I’d love to go … wherever … with you, Lenora, but I have to return these aircraft.”
“I understand,” said Lenora. “But Haruto—there is a reason you aren’t seeing many librarians around. We have to catch that koala, so I don’t have time to explain, but if you … run into any trouble, or you want to help the Library, find the Googology section. A librarian there named Milton Sirotta can explain.”
Haruto, looking a bit surprised, nodded. “I will.” Then he and Lucy and Lenora hugged their goodbyes, and Haruto departed.
Lenora nodded to Rosa.
Rosa activated its device, and the three of them vanished.
The ancient city of Cahokia vanished, too, and Lenora suddenly found herself in what appeared to be a completely empty section of the Library. But there was no time to study their surroundings, for the extremely shocked-looking koala was crouched in a corner right in front of them.
The koala bolted for the exit.
“Get him!” cried Lenora, and she and Lucy threw themselves upon the thieving marsupial, each grabbing it by one of its forearms.
The koala grabbed for something wrapped around its arm as Lucy clung on.
Lenora recognized it.
“Uh-oh,” she said.
Rosa made a strangled, panicked noise, and whipped something through the air into Lenora’s pocket.
Everything vanished again.
A hard, thick rain pelted them. Lightning bolts cracked the sky all around. Men were running about on the deck of the wooden sailing ship upon which Lenora and Lucy were now standing, men who were shouting to one another in an unknown language as dark, massive waves crashed over the railings, soaking the girls through and through.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Lenora Hunts a Thief
As one might expect when one suddenly finds oneself on the pitching deck of a sailing vessel amid a terrifying storm, Lenora and Lucy immediately lost the koala they were holding as it took the opportunity to break free from their grasp and race across the soaked deck and down an open hatch.
It certainly looks like it knows where it’s going, thought the part of Lenora’s brain that wasn’t immediately engaged in finding something to hang on to. Another pitch of the deck threw the girls into a railing, and both grabbed hold desperately.
“Where are we?” screamed Lucy over the howling wind as spray from another wave crashed over them.
“I don’t know!” yelled Lenora, and was about to add We’ve traveled in time! But she quickly realized this would require too much explaining about how she was able to recognize the time machine strapped to the koala’s forearm (she’d seen one before on the wrist of her time-traveling robot friend), and they really had more important concerns at the moment, such as recapturing the koala and not dying in a shipwreck.
A man in a short white robe carrying a coil of rope came stumbling by. He spotted Lenora and Lucy and stopped dead in his tracks, eyes wide. He shouted something at them, and then another pitch of the deck sent him staggering back off in the direction he’d come.
“I think we’re in the ancient past or something!” screamed Lucy.
“Good guess!” yelled Lenora. Could they make their way over to the hatch and follow the koala belowdecks, she wondered, if even these men, who must be professional sailors, could barely walk? But catch the koala they must, for not only did it have Rosa’s notes, but it had a time machine, and if it vanished again they’d be stranded here in the past in what looked like entirely dire circumstances.
That problem was partially resolved when the koala popped back up out of the hatch, this time carrying a wooden box that was rather too large for it to handle easily, especially when it was being chased by another sailor in a short robe, who was yelling something angrily.
“It’s stealing something else!” screamed Lucy.
Obviously, thought Lenora, also thinking that whatever it was, it must be quite important, for the koala was hanging on to it tightly even though this meant it could not move very easily and could not activate its time machine. Only the wildly pitching deck was preventing it from being snatched up immediately by the man giving pursuit.
Lenora made a decision. She threw herself forward once more, this time not at the koala itself but at its green backpack, which she was sure contained Rosa’s notes on the ancient North American city of Cahokia. She was also certain the koala would not be willing to give up its prizes in the backpack and box, and if she could just get control of the time machine somehow she could use it to get her and Lucy and the notes out of here and back to when they’d come from.
She grabbed hold of the backpack with a cry of victory. But the koala surprised her. It dropped the box, wriggled free from the backpack, and, as the sailor was almost upon it, evidently made the decision that its cause was lost, because it jabbed at its time machine and vanished immediately.