Marc stood in the doorway.
“You two know each other, right?” said Dr. Rust.
“Yeah, we met downstairs,” said Marc.
“Actually, we’re in health ed together,” I said. “With Ms. Reider.”
Marc had the grace to look embarrassed.
“Good,” said Dr. Rust. “Take Elizabeth up to Stack 9 and show her the ropes.”
“But the ropes are on Stack 2.”
“I meant metaphorically.”
Could it be possible—did Marc wink at me? The great and famous Marc Merritt winking at me? If so, he did it very quickly.
“And send Martha Callender a pneum,” continued Dr. Rust. “She’ll want to do her orientation thing and work out the schedules. Glad to have you with us, Elizabeth. We’ve been shorthanded lately—we can really use the help. If you have any questions, you know where to find me.”
I had a billion questions, in fact, but I followed Marc down the hallway and through a door marked Staff Only.
“What’s a stack?” I asked.
“A floor where the holdings are stored.”
“And what’s a pneum?”
“Pneumatic tube carrier,” said Marc.
“Okay, what’s a pneumatic tube carrier, then?”
“You’ll see. Watch your head here.”
We went through a low door—Marc had to duck, but my head was in no danger—and up a staircase, flight after flight after flight. The brownstone couldn’t possibly have so many floors—we must have gone way past the roof, into some sort of penthouse addition. I was panting hard, but Marc looked as cool as ever, like the black king in my chess set.
At last he opened a door marked Stack 9. We stepped out into the middle of a long room with rows of cabinets stretching away on both sides. Near the door was a pair of desks facing a trio of elevators: a tiny one the size of a microwave, another the size of a dishwasher, and a third the size of a small refrigerator. Beyond them thick pipes snaked off in several directions. These were painted white, black, and red, and each had a small oblong door at elbow height. One of the pipes ended like a bathtub faucet over a wire basket.
“The staging area is basically headquarters on each floor,” said Marc. “You can hang up your coat over there.” He took a white slip of paper from a tray of different-colored slips, wrote something on it, and folded it in half.
As I stood looking around, one of the pipes began to cough and thump, as if a tiny elephant were panicking inside. Something hurtled out of the open end of the pipe and landed with a thud in the wire basket beneath. Marc held it up to show me: a transparent plastic tube like a skinny soda can, with thick felt padding on both ends.
“See? A pneum.”
The pneum had a sliding panel in its side. Marc slid it open, reached into the pneum, extracted a piece of paper, and replaced it with the note he’d written. He pulled open a door in one of the pipes. I heard a soft roaring, like a wind in a canyon. He slipped in the pneum and let the door clap shut. The pipe banged as the pneum shot through it.
“Where did it go?” I asked.
“Upstairs to the pneum routing station.”
“How does it work?”
“The pipes are full of pressurized air. It’s like a tiny hurricane inside the pipe. The air pushes the pneums through the pipes, all around the building.”
“So you could send that pneum anywhere?”
“It goes where the pipe takes it. You have to pick a pipe that’s going where you want to send the pneum. I better run that call slip,” he said. “Wait here. If Ms. Callender shows up, tell her I’ll be right back.” He headed off down a row of file cabinets.
I hung up my coat, wandered over to a cabinet stenciled with letters and numbers, and peeked in. Inside I saw shelves of tea-cups. The next cabinet had shelves of coffee mugs. From time to time I heard a pneum gallop through the pipes in the ceiling.
Soon Marc came back with a pair of packages each the size of a shoe box. He put the first one in the smallest elevator, shut the door, and pressed a button.
“Was that a book?” I asked.
“What? No, it’s a chocolate pot. Sorry, I should have showed you. The patron requested a hot-chocolate set. Here’s the cream and sugar.” He opened the second box and showed me a fancy, swirly cream pitcher and sugar bowl packed in fluffy stuff, like cotton. He delicately tucked the fluff back around the set.
“Can I ask you a question?” I asked.
“Uh-huh. Like Doc says, ‘The one who asks questions does not lose his way,’” he answered in a credible imitation of Dr. Rust’s high-low voice.
“Okay, so this job. What am I supposed to be doing? Am I like a dishwasher?”
“A dishwasher!” He hooted with laughter. “Why would you be a dishwasher?”
I bristled. Being laughed at was bad enough—being laughed at by Marc Merritt felt doubly bad. Besides, it didn’t seem like such an unreasonable question to me. “Well, Dr. Rust asked me how often I do the dishes and if I break a lot of china. And there’s all this china around. What is the job, if I’m not washing dishes?”
“You’re a page.”
That made less sense than a dishwasher. Was he making fun of me? “You mean a medieval page, like an entry-level knight? Are there swords and dragons hidden away in some of these cabinets?”
He hooted again, but I didn’t feel as bad. At least this time you could argue he was laughing at my joke. “A library page,” he said. “When a call slip comes, you go get the item the patron requested. Did you ever use the reference library on Forty-second Street? You know how they keep the books locked up and bring them to you when you request them? Did you ever wonder who gets the books? That’s the pages.”
“Okay, so if this is a library, where are all the books?”
“Books? There’s some on Stack 6. Most of them are in the Document Room or the Reference Room. And, you know, here and there.”
Not many books? “What kind of a library is this?”
Before he could answer, the staircase door opened and a woman walked in. “Hi, Marc,” she said. “Elizabeth, right? I’m Martha Callender.” She tucked a lock of straight brown hair behind a little round ear. Everything about her, in fact, was round: her cheeks, her figure, her collar, the big buttons on her jacket, even her haircut, which roundly framed her round face and kept getting in her round eyes.
“Welcome, welcome! It’s great to have you here,” she told me. “We’ve been very shorthanded—we lost two pages in the last two months—and Stan told Dr. Rust you’re a hard worker.”
“I love his class. It’s worth working hard in,” I said, flattered.
“I bet he’s a great teacher. How is he doing? And the Beast?”
“Mr. Mauskopf is fine. I’ve never, um, met the Beast.”
“No? Well, that’s something for you to look forward to.” She beamed at me. “Did Marc give you the grand tour?”
“Not yet, I was running a call slip,” said Marc.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll show you around, then. Did you have any questions to begin with?”
“Yes,” I said. “What is this place?”
“I’m not sure what you mean—which place? Stack 9? The Stack 9 staging area?”
“No, I mean the whole institution, the repository.”
I didn’t expect a real answer. Whatever this place was, it seemed to be full of people who told you to ask questions and then declined to answer them.
But Ms. Callender took a breath and began. “The New-York Circulating Material Repository is the oldest subscription library of its kind in the country. We’ve existed in one form or another since 1745, when three clock makers began sharing some of their more specialized tools. That collection became the core of the repository in 1837, when a group of amateur astronomers pooled their resources and opened shop. Our first home was on St. John’s Park, near Greenwich Street, but we moved uptown to East Twenty-fourth Street in 1852 and to our current location in 1921. Of course, we’ve expanded into the adjoining buildings since then. In fact, most of the stacks are part of the 1958 expansion. Lee’s office is in the original 1921 bequest, though.”
Informative, but not very enlightening. “Are the subscribers the people who come here to borrow books or whatever?” I asked.
“Books?” She looked taken aback. “No, not really. There are plenty of other libraries for that. I hope you’re not going to be disappointed, honey—if it’s books you’re after, I can put you in touch with Jill Kaufmann at the Lion Library. They can always use pages.”
Was I imagining things, or was Marc smirking a little?
“No, it’s just—Mr. Mauskopf said there was a job at a library, so I just assumed, you know, I would be working with books. If it’s not books, what is it?”
“What? Objects, of course. We’re just like a circulating book library but with far more varied collections.”
“What kind of collections? Collections of what?”
She took a breath and began again. It sounded as if she’d given this speech many times too. “Some of the more popular types of items we loan out these days include musical instruments, sports equipment, and specialized cooking tools. Many New Yorkers like to give the occasional fondue party, for example, but they don’t want to devote the cupboard space to a lot of fondue pots. Or if you’re thinking of learning to play the piccolo, you might borrow one to see how you like it. In the late nineteenth century, specialized silver services were very popular. In the 1970s, it was wood lathes. Lately there’s been a run on—oh dear!” She broke off as a girl around my age appeared from between a pair of cabinets with a slip of paper in her hand. “There’s another one, I bet.”
“Excuse me, Ms. Callender. Dr. Rust is out and there’s a patron who needs to borrow something from the Grimm Collection. Can you handle the deposit?” asked the girl.
“Of course. Thanks, Anjali.” Ms. Callender turned to me. “I’m sorry, hon, we’ll have to finish up later. Here, I need you to fill out these forms. You can leave them with Anjali when you’re done, and I’ll see you—let’s see, when’s your first shift? Tuesday. I’m so glad to have you with us, honey—it’ll be a big help. And I hope you’ll come to love the repository as much as we do.” She shook my hand vigorously and vanished between a pair of cabinets.
“She seems friendly,” I said.
“Ms. Callender? She’s a honey,” said Anjali.
Marc grinned at her.
I sat down at one of the heavy oak desks to fill out my forms. Anjali leaned against it. She was medium height, with cascades of black hair, amber-tan skin, and brown eyes under perfectly arched eyebrows. I had always wanted eyebrows like that. Mine are straight and kind of plain.
“I’m Elizabeth Rew,” I said.
“Nice to meet you, Elizabeth. I’m Anjali Rao.”
“Hey, can I ask a question?” I asked.
Anjali and Marc intoned in unison, “The one who asks questions does not lose his way!” Then they smiled at each other.
“What’s the Grimm Collection?”
The smiles vanished and they glanced at each other. “Don’t worry about that for now,” said Anjali.
“Oh. Okay,” I said, feeling a little snubbed. There was an awkward silence. “So,” I tried again, “what do they pay us around here?”
“Eighty-five percent of minimum wage,” said Marc.
“How can they call it the minimum, then?” I objected.
“It doesn’t seem fair, does it? We’re students, so they’re allowed to pay us less,” said Anjali.
I thought about it. “I guess it could be worse.”
“You could get more flipping burgers—but then you’d have to flip burgers,” said Marc. “This place smells a lot better.”
“Except Stack 8,” said Anjali.
They both snorted. I wanted to ask what Stack 8 was, but I didn’t want to risk being told to mind my own business again.
“So, Elizabeth,” said Anjali, “where did you put the memorial button?”
“The what?”
“The button with human hair.”
“It’s downstairs with Dr. Rust.”
“No, I mean what category did you put it in?”
“With the things made of animal parts. Why, where did you put it?” I asked Anjali.
“Mid-nineteenth century. But now I think it should have gone in eighteenth. Doesn’t matter, I still got the job. What about the barrette?”
“What barrette? There was no barrette, just buttons. Oh, and a zipper.”
“A zipper! How interesting. I wonder what that means. What about you, Merritt, did you get a zipper or a barrette? Do you remember?”
“I got a belt buckle and an electric switch,” said Marc. “And the memorial button.”
“Really? That’s two extras besides the button box. I only got one.”
“Yeah, I don’t think Doc was too happy when I put the belt buckle in with the nails. I think the electric switch was like giving me a second chance to prove myself.”
“What nails?” I said.
“Oh, you didn’t get any nails?” said Anjali. “I did. They were in the button box.”
A pneum thumped into the basket. She went to get it.
“Are you on 9 with us now?” Marc asked her. “I thought you were down in the Dungeon today.”
“I am, but it’s okay, I’m on break. I have another ten minutes.” She handed Marc the slip. “Do you think Doc ever flunks anybody for sorting the buttons wrong?”
“Wrong how?” asked Marc.
“I don’t know, maybe if you did something really obvious, like lining them up by size.”
Marc looked a little embarrassed; I wondered whether he’d lined the buttons up by size. I knew how he felt—I’d done it myself. Well, I’d used size and color together, but close enough.
He studied the slip and headed off down the room. I gazed after him, admiring his walk.
“So you go to Fisher with Merritt?” asked Anjali.
“Yes, where do you go?”
“Miss Wharton’s School,” she said. It was a fancy all-girls’ private school near Fisher. When I went to Chase, we used to be in the same sports league for the girls’ teams. I wondered whether she would be stuck up—Miss Wharton’s had that reputation. But she seemed nice enough so far.
I finished the forms and handed them to her. “That’s it, I guess. How do I get out of here? This building’s a little confusing, and I don’t have a great sense of direction,” I said.
“Just take the elevator to the lobby.”
I looked at the three little elevators doubtfully. “What elevator?” I asked.
Anjali laughed. “Oh, did Merritt make you climb up all those stairs? He’s such a he-man! I didn’t mean the dumbwaiters—I meant the real, live, person-size elevator. Come on, I’ll show you.”
I put on my coat and followed her through a fire door. “I’m glad you’re here. It’s about time they finally hired somebody,” she said.
That made two people today who’d told me they were glad to have me around—the first two in years. I had a feeling I was going to like this place.
“It’s been extra busy since Mona disappeared, and sort of spooky,” Anjali whispered.
“Someone disappeared?” I asked.
“Mona Chen, one of the pages.”
“Where’d she go?”
“I don’t know. Ms. Callender thinks she went back to Taiwan with her family, but she never said good-bye, and that’s not like her. Marc and I are trying to find out what happened to her. We think it may have something to do with . . .” She stopped.
“With what?”
“I’m sorry. Never mind. You’re going to think I’m crazy. And I don’t want to scare you away before you’ve even started! But I did think I should warn you.”
“Warn me about what? Scare me how?” There was something almost gothic about this place, with the mysterious collection Anjali and Marc wouldn’t tell me about and now a disappearing page. I was less scared than intrigued.
Anjali paused. “Well, there are some wild rumors about a—about a flying creature that’s been following some of the patrons and pages around. They even say it snatched a repository object right out of a patron’s hands.”
“A flying creature? What do you mean?” This did sound crazy. Was Anjali fooling with me? She looked serious.
“I’ve heard it’s like a giant bird,” Anjali said. “At least that’s what they say. I don’t know if it’s true. But then Mona disappeared, and she was really scared about the bird and so I thought . . .”
“Wait,” I said. “Have you seen this bird yourself?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. But sometimes I get the feeling something’s watching me.”
“That sounds pretty scary,” I said, not knowing how seriously to take her.
“Yeah, well . . .” She punched the elevator call button. “I don’t mean to freak you out. Just, watch out for . . .” Anjali looked at me and smiled.
“For enormous birds that steal objects and kidnap pages,” I finished.
“Yeah, I know it sounds nuts. But after you work at this place for a while, you’ll start to get used to some pretty unlikely stuff.”
The elevator arrived and I got in. “See you Tuesday!”
“See you Tuesday, have a good weekend!”
Anjali waved as the doors closed. New friend or weirdo? I wondered. She seemed nice, anyway. It wouldn’t be so bad, I decided, if she turned out to be both.