The Crown of the Bandit King Read online

  She rolled her eyes.

  “Sorry. I forgot about the tablecloth,” I said. “Just anything.”

  Deeter left his breakfast at the table and crashed onto the sofa cushion next to me, sending a cloud of dust whooshing into the air.

  “Listen up, Rookie. I feel sorry for you, so I’ll give you some advice. There’s something important you gotta know about the Collectible you’re supposed to find.”

  “I’m sure everything will be okay,” Sweet Pea said. “He probably won’t even meet her, or have anything to do with her.”

  “Her who?” I asked.

  “The Librarian,” Deeter whispered. “She is one mean Artisan. She cares for most of the Collectible books, and she’s not going to give up the encyclopedia without a fight.”

  “Like a guardian?” I asked.

  Deeter snorted. “Like a death wish.”

  “Is she armed? Does she have weapons or something?”

  “Naw. She doesn’t need weapons.”

  “Then why is she so dangerous?”

  Sweet Pea shook her head at Deeter, but he pretended not to notice.

  “She’s dangerous,” he said, “because she’s the Librarian.”

  What exactly was that supposed to mean? A lot of help he was. If there was any Collectible that could make a person shut up, I’d go find it to use on Deeter. The world would probably thank me, too.

  I stood and walked over to Sweet Pea. “Are you almost done yet?”

  “Deeter, you’re only scared of her because you stole the Phone Book from her,” Sweet Pea said. “The Librarian doesn’t like it when Finders steal her books. Who would?”

  Sweet Pea offered me the canvas bag. It was full and heavy now.

  “Here. This should be everything you’ll need. If not, there’s this.”

  She handed me a key.

  “What’s this for?” I asked.

  “It’s a key to the house. All of the Ragman’s Finders have one. If you get in a pinch, find a door with a lock and use this key to open it. The door will lead back here.”

  “But how is that possible? This key’s not a Collectible.”

  I examined the key in the palm of my hand. How did I know that?

  Sweet Pea nodded.

  “You’re catching on quick,” she said. “The key’s normal. It’s the house that’s a Collectible. This house doesn’t occupy space like an ordinary house does. It’s nowhere, and it’s everywhere. That’s one of its magical abilities. So all you have to do is use the house’s key in any door lock. It doesn’t matter where because the house is already there on the other side of the door.”

  My head had just stopped hurting earlier this morning. Now it suddenly throbbed again. “The house is a Collectible?”

  “Sure. You sound surprised.”

  “Well, I thought Collectibles were small things.”

  “Most Collectibles are small things. Some are bigger, though. This house was made by the Architect, and it was his idea about the keys. The front door is special, too. Come on. I’ll show you.”

  She led me into the hallway, with Deeter trailing behind us. But before we reached the front door, I paused to look around.

  “What’s with the clocks?” I asked.

  There were hundreds of them—grandfather clocks, alarm clocks, wall clocks, cuckoo clocks—filling the hallway’s walls and corners. Each clock was set to its own individual time, ticking discordantly against the others. I hadn’t really noticed them last night.

  “The house uses them to tell the time,” Sweet Pea said.

  “Oh.”

  Was the weirdness ever going to end in this place?

  Sweet Pea gestured at the front door. “The house is everywhere, right? So when you need to leave, the front door tries to take you where you want. You could visit hundreds of different places in a single day. From France to Australia to China….”

  “You think jet lag is bad after flying in an airplane,” Deeter said. “That’s nothing compared to house lag.”

  “Exactly. The house uses the clocks to make it easier on its occupants. It can’t change time, but it can…adjust itself. So we don’t feel the effects as badly.”

  “The front door,” I said, “it will take me wherever I want?”

  “As close as it can get, at least. It’s not a perfect science.”

  I tucked the house key into my coat pocket, and I slung the canvas bag over my shoulder. But when I opened the front door, the view outside was a huge dirt field. All the way to the horizon. Miles and miles of dirt.

  Definitely not a perfect science.

  “Nice knowin’ ya, Rookie.” Deeter slapped me on the back.

  I glared at him. “Stop calling me Rookie. It’s not my name.”

  Not like that mattered to him.

  “Follow your instincts,” Sweet Pea said. “If you feel like you should go left, then go left. If you feel like you should go upstairs, or downstairs, or get on a bus, or on a train, then do it. Just promise you’ll come back in one piece, okay?”

  I hesitated. Why should it matter to her what happened to me? We’d only met yesterday.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Maybe this Sweet Pea girl wasn’t so bad.

  I took a deep breath and stepped out the door. A hot wind blew dust in my face while a gray sky loomed overhead like a thunderstorm was rising. There weren’t any buildings or landmarks. I didn’t even have a map.

  I turned back. “Hey, Sweet Pea….”

  Where the front door had been, there was only the open field full of gopher holes and a dirt road full of ruts. I didn’t even see any signs that a house had ever been here—just empty space and the faint scent of Sweet Pea’s rose perfume fading away.

  The house was nowhere.

  Right then seemed like a pretty good time to consider my options.

  Option one? Wake up. That option hadn’t been very successful so far, though, which led me to option two. If I was truly free to leave, then why not go tell the police everything? Forget the Ragman. I could go home now.

  Then again…Finders and Collectors and Artisans? Magical hidden objects called Collectibles? I might have to leave that out. The police wouldn’t believe that stuff—hey, I hardly believed it—but at least they’d help me find my family.

  But what about my memories?

  I shuffled my foot in the dust. Without my memories, I’d return to a family of strangers.

  Option three…find the Ragman his ten Collectibles. One problem, though. What if he went back on his word, or I couldn’t find them?

  There had to be a fourth option.

  Maybe I could use the Collectibles against the Ragman. Use their magic to make him give me back my memories.

  Somehow.

  A rumble of thunder sounded overhead. Time to get moving.

  I followed the dirt road until it became a paved road, and I followed the paved road until it became a highway, and I followed the highway until it became a town. Crownsville, the road sign said. Population, two thousand. Didn’t seem like much of a town—a couple of gas stations, a general store, and a small public library.

  But that library gave me an idea.

  “Can I help you young man?” the librarian asked the moment I walked in. She was an older lady wearing a brown wool dress, and her back was humped slightly. She’d been stacking books on a cart by the main desk, but now she paused.

  “I’m looking for a certain encyclopedia,” I said. “You probably won’t have it here. But I was hoping to check your records. Maybe I could find out where it is.”

  The librarian tipped up her glasses and stared at me like she’d never seen a kid before. Or at least not one with spiked hair. As if I was some kind of mythical monster.

  “Do you have a library card with this establishment?” she asked.

  “No. I—”

  “Access to our card catalog is restricted to library members only.”

  A card catalog? Exactly how old was this place?

&nb
sp; “Could I borrow your card?” I asked.

  “I don’t have one. You’ll have to obtain your own.”

  “Okay. What do I have to do to get one?”

  The woman pursed her lips as if I’d given the wrong answer on a test. Then she walked behind her desk and hefted out a huge stack of forms, which she placed before me on the counter.

  “You’ll need to fill these out in triplicate. Also, I’ll need to see three forms of identification, one of which must be an original copy of your birth certificate. Additionally, since you’re a minor, I will need a signed permission form from a legal guardian, along with proof of guardianship. The library will be closing soon, and all forms must be filled out in my presence, in blue or black ink….”

  Yikes. The woman rambled on, but I stopped listening. So much for fostering a love of reading. No kid would stick around for this torture simply to check out a bunch of dusty books or look at a card catalog.

  “No thanks,” I said. “I’m not that interested.”

  She smiled for the first time since I’d walked in. “I suppose you’ll be going, young man. Have a pleasant day.”

  She hobbled back to her book cart, and I started to leave. But right as I reached for the door handle, something made me halt and spin around. I felt jumpy again. Like someone was watching me. Creeping up on me. There was a Collectible nearby. Maybe even more than one.

  Sweet Pea was right—I could feel magic at work here somewhere.

  “Is something wrong, young man?” The librarian paused at her cart.

  “I think I might want that library card after all,” I said.

  The woman’s smile thinned, then vanished.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Definitely.”

  She turned away, sighing, with her back towards me—exactly what I’d been waiting for. Now was my chance. I dashed down the nearest aisle before that weird librarian could stop me. If she even was a real librarian. I was starting to have my doubts.

  After all, what librarian doesn’t have a library card?

  The aisle around me was filled with a bunch of science books. Then came a bunch of history books. A bunch of hobby books. A bunch of philosophy books. The shelves kept going and going and going. I quickened my pace until I was nearly running.

  Where was the aisle’s end?

  With each new section I passed, the books looked newer, brighter. The old book smell went away. So did the old mildew smell, and the old carpet smell.

  Finally, I found the end.

  Here was another main desk with another librarian behind it, completely different from the first lady I’d met. This librarian was younger and fuller figured, with dark brown skin, purple eye shadow, and silver hoop earrings. She wore this bright leopard print blouse and a black skirt. I stared at her for a moment.

  Two front desks? Two librarians? What was going on?

  “Um, excuse me?” I approached the desk. “I think I’m lost.”

  The woman set down her stamp and pushed the small stack of books in front of her aside.

  “Which book is it you want?”

  “I doubt you’ll have it. I was told it’s really rare—”

  “Of course I have it in my collection. Doesn’t matter if it’s rare. What’s the book’s title?”

  I fumbled in my coat pocket for the slip of paper and gave it to her. She studied the paper for a whole minute, while that jumpy feeling inside me grew stronger and stronger. Then, she glared at me.

  “Who’re you working for?” she asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your Collector. Who is it?”

  “My Collector?”

  She handed me back the paper and put her hands on her hips.

  “How did you find my library?”

  “Um…I walked….”

  “Look here, Finder. Only four other Finders in history have found my library. Ever. It takes some real talent to find this place. There are precautions. Illusions. Not to mention the guard!”

  Guard? She couldn’t mean that rude lady at the first front desk, could she? Didn’t seem like much in the way of security. Unless all those library card forms were meant to make intruders die of paper cuts.

  “If you think you can sneak in here and steal my books,” she said, “you’ve got another thing coming, Finder! You found your way in. You better pray real hard you can find your way out!”

  I took a step back.

  “You’re the Librarian,” I said.

  The real one. The Artisan.

  Not good.

  Right about then, facing certain doom, I realized that in all of Deeter’s warnings about the Librarian, he’d hadn’t mentioned what I should do when I finally met her. And it seemed doubtful that Sweet Pea had packed anything I might use to defend myself.

  Except maybe a few cheese sandwiches to throw.

  The Librarian’s eyes flashed with a strange glowing light like no human eyes ever could, and she gave me a look that made me want to duck behind the desk.

  Or run for the nearest exit.

  “No Finder trespasses into my library and gets away with it!” she cried.

  Then she seemed to rise up bigger somehow, or maybe the room started to draw in closer. All the pencils and stamps and papers on her desk rattled and shook. The chandelier above us swung back and forth, and some of the books on the nearby shelves fell to the floor.

  Deeter was wrong. The Librarian wasn’t an Artisan—she was an earthquake.

  And I had nowhere to hide.

  Chapter 4

  The Professor’s Map

  No wonder Deeter was scared of the Librarian. But after all, he’d stolen from her.

  “I don’t want to steal your books, ma’am,” I said. “Really.”

  “How am I suppose to believe that?” the Librarian asked. “You Finders are nothing but a bunch of thieves!”

  The ground rumbled harder, and a few more books toppled off the library’s bookshelves.

  “I promise,” I said. “I won’t steal the encyclopedia. Even if it means I have to be the Ragman’s housekeeper for the rest of my life.”

  “So, if you’re not going to steal it, Finder, how do you plan to get it?”

  Good question.

  “We could trade for it,” I said.

  I shifted the canvas bag on my shoulder. Probably I had nothing she’d want—unless she had a secret love for snack crackers. Still, it was worth a try.

  “I only care about books,” she said, “and I’ve got plenty of those.”

  She gestured beside her desk at the book cart. It was stocked with thousands of books waiting to be re-shelved. And beyond her desk was a marble staircase that led down to the main book collections with millions more. Not to mention the stacks of them by the rectangular slot on the desk’s front side for returning borrowed books.

  I grinned at the book-return slot. She was right about one thing. She had plenty of books. And she may have loved her books a lot, sure, but I could think of one thing she loved even more.

  To have them returned again.

  “This is a library, right?” I asked.

  The Librarian’s eyebrow lifted like she thought I was stupid or crazy, but she nodded.

  “So could I check the book out? Just for a day or two. The Ragman only said I was supposed to get the book. He didn’t say how.” I leaned against the main desk. “And more importantly, ma’am, he didn’t say for how long.”

  The ground stopped shaking, and a slow smile appeared on her face.

  “I like the way you think, Finder. You work for the Ragman, hmm? Well, he’s not as bad as some of the other Collectors out there. And won’t it be interesting when the book vanishes from his desk on its due-date? It’d pay him back for taking the Phone Book from me. I’d love to see his face when he realizes he’s been tricked!”

  She chuckled.

  “All right, Finder. Normally I don’t allow encyclopedias into circulation, but this one time I’ll make an exception.”

 
; Then she shuffled through some papers on her desk. When she turned back, she was holding a library card with that same strange encircled hand symbol. Next to that was her maker’s mark, the symbol of a book with wings.

  “This library card allows you to take books out of this building. I usually only give them to other Artisans. I never give them to Collectors. You understand, Finder?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She handed me the library card. “The reference books are down that staircase.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  From the top of the staircase, I could see hundreds of aisles and shelves and walkways that led to other places with other aisles and other shelves and other walkways. Endless books.

  “Take care not to lose your way, young man!” she called to me. “The last Finder who ended up in my library got lost, and it took me two days to find her.”

  “Two days?”

  The Librarian cocked her head. “She was lucky I found her so soon.”

  Great.

  I headed down the stairs, my footsteps echoing against the marble. But at the bottom of the staircase, my stomach started flipping somersaults. Like how I felt in the Ragman’s house, except a hundred times worse. Which could only mean one thing.

  Every book on every shelf was a Collectible.

  This could be a problem.

  I eased myself down onto the last stair and shut my eyes. If I sat real still, maybe the nausea would go away. Throwing up definitely wasn’t a good idea—I could just imagine the Librarian’s face if I did. How was I supposed to find this one magical book in a place where every book was magical?

  I held my head in my hands and groaned.

  “Research can be overwhelming, can’t it?” an old man said.

  I looked up. The old man stood right in front of me, studying me through his thick glasses. His feathery white hair stuck out in different directions, and he smelled like stuffy-nose medicine.

  “A few months ago, I myself was quite overcome,” he continued. “I was researching bees at the time. The whole business left me terribly flustered. Couldn’t keep down solid food for a week!”

  Who was this guy?

  He tucked his hand into the pocket of his patched green jacket and pulled out a tin of peppermints.