Chapter 6

Chapter 6 Nothing Better Than the Smell of Old Books. One Long Sniff and—A-a-achoo! Ding! The Ironsword central elevator rumbled to a stop, and its doors slid open. Lights above them flickered to reveal an empty basement hallway that smelled like soap. No one was around, and there were no sounds except for the hum of the air conditioning.

The hall was bigger than Morgan expected: it stretched to the left and right, then split suddenly in two directions. "How big is this basement?" he asked. "The map by the front office says there are rooms and hallways under the entire school!" Harper explained. They wouldn't need to explore very far, though. Right in front of them was a door labeled LIBRARY. Morgan opened it.

Inside was almost total darkness. He could see a dim light somewhere in the distance, but nothing turned on automatically when they walked in. Morgan knew the bright afternoon was only one floor above their heads, but in here it felt like midnight. "Ouch!" Theo yelped. Thump, thump, thump…thump. Books falling. "I ran into a

bookshelf." "I should probably wait out here," Po said. "Unless you want me to run over your feet." "We need to find a switch." Morgan ran his hands along the inside wall. He'd never wished so much for a torch in real life before. "I'll check the other way," Jodi said. "Oof!" Theo said. Thump, thump, thump. "I'm going to…stand perfectly still…from now on." "I found the front desk!" Harper called. "I think there's a switch back here." Click. Light finally flooded the library—the front half, at least. The back was still dark save for that mysterious dim light at the far end.

"The list says we need to process returns," Morgan said. "So I guess we need to shelve loose books in the right spot?" "I think these books are all returns." Harper pointed to the large desk she was now standing behind. The tiny basket labeled RETURNS was overflowing with books stacked high and spread out across the entire desk. "We're going to need a plan."

There were at least a hundred books, not organized at all. Morgan didn't even know how libraries like this were usually organized, and this one looked unusual. None of the books had those clear library covers and barcodes—there wasn't a computer or scanning system on the desk anyway. "They're all nonfiction books," Theo observed, "so they're probably organized by subject." "I dunno," Po called from behind a shelf. He didn't notice Ash talking. "The shelves are all labeled with numbers. This one says 965 to 969. And 970 to 974 is next to it." Jodi called from the next shelf over. "That keeps going to 995 to 999, but then it changes to 000 to 004." "There's nothing like that on the book covers," Harper said. "Do the books have anything in common?" "I'm seeing Flowers of the Western United States right next to Algebra 1, so…," Po