© Copyright Cupideros, Friday, August 14, 2016

BOOK 1, CHAPTER 1-3

THE QUESTIONING BOOK StoryTime by Cupideros

BOOK ONE: ELARA’S SLOWDOWN—THINKING-IT-THROUGH

Word School

PART ONE: THE DISCOVERY

CHAPTER ONE: THE LIBRARY THAT WASN’T THERE

The park was only three blocks away.

Elara “Sparks” Champlin, nine years old, had walked this route a hundred times. Maybe a thousand. She knew every crack in the sidewalk. She knew which fence had a loose board behind the laundromat. She knew exactly where the streetlight flickered at night—third pole from the corner, every seventeen seconds.

She knew everything about her neighborhood.

So when her best friend, nine-year-old Milo, stopped walking and pointed between two buildings she had passed every day for seven years, Elara knew something was wrong.

“Sparks,” Milo said slowly, his face flashing surprise instead of his usual skeptical look. “Was that always there?”

Curious, Elara looked. She was one of the ‘Cool Kids’ who didn’t get bullied. Perhaps it was her major French aesthetic, which included wearing less makeup, having defined eyes, and choosing soft colors for her clothes; however, today, Elara wore a white, oversized sweatshirt that fell below her waist, black tights, pink sneakers, and her classic French-styled hair: two black French braids that were shiny and clean, a little messy, and tied off with a pink bow on the left and a blue bow on the right. Her pink French beret was a habit by now, but all the other children at Maplewood Middle School accepted it. It was Elara. She was French, they said.

Between the old pet store (empty for years, a dusty mannequin still wearing a dog costume in the window; someone had drawn a mustache on it last week with a marker) and the laundromat (where Mrs. Patterson always gave her peppermints, the ones that tasted like dust and happiness), there was a building.

It had not been there yesterday.

It had not been there this morning.

Elara would have noticed. Elara knew Katie Lake led the Mean Girls group in her school, Maplewood Middle School. Elara knew which kids were the ‘Cool Kids’: herself, Jake, Susanna Cordova, Milo, Julie Chen, and Blake. Blake’s parents and Elara’s parents moved from France to the USA seven years ago. But Blake’s dad lost his computer programming job, and their family moved back to France last month. Elara and Blake were platonic best friends, but now she chose Milo as her best friend. Yes, Elara noticed everything because noticing everything was her job. Elara’s ability to read super fast dazzled all her teachers and students at Maplewood Middle School.

So, naturally, Milo’s suspicious face softened and accepted THE TRUTH THAT DEPENDED ON THE TRUTH—if Sparks said the building that wasn’t there was now there—it had to be the truth!

It was there now! That was fact!

Tall and narrow. The building was made of gray stone that appeared as wet as a surfer’s wetsuit. The windows were stained glass—deep red and midnight blue—and they did not let anyone see inside. The stained-glass windows glowed faintly, like there were candles behind them, but no flame flickered. Just a steady, warm, amber light.

The heavy door was oak, banded with iron, and the door handle was shaped like a lion’s head. The lion’s eyes were made of something that caught the sunlight. Gold? Brass? Whatever it was, it gleamed.

Elara blinked.

Then she blinked again.

Still, the building did not disappear.

“That’s creepy,” Milo said, clutching his book bag with his laptop computer. He always played the computer game Blaze Maze Runner, which provided a sense of security that eased his mind. Blaze Maze Runner had rules, and once you knew them, you were good and comfortable until the next level. So, all life was not creepy. Just—that—mysterious—new building THAT WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THERE!

Elara tilted her head. She studied the building, snug like it had always been there between the pet shop and the laundromat. Elara studied the mysterious building like she did everything—fast, hungry, looking for details. “It’s a library.”

“How do you know?”

“Because it says ‘Library’ above the door,” she pointed out. “In gold letters. Very fancy. Very old. The font is some kind of serif. Blond-haired Milo squinted. Maybe earlier.”

Blond Milo squinted. “I don’t see letters.”

“They’re right there.”

“I see squiggles.”

“That’s because you spend all day looking at computer screens in class and even when you’re supposed to be eating lunch in your quiet corner of the lunchroom.” Elara grabbed his arm. Her fingers dug into his black jacket sleeve with the popped collar. Underneath, blond Milo wore a white button-up shirt, matching black pants, and white sneakers. “Come on, Computer Games. Let’s go inside.”

Milo did not move. The suspicion returned to his 9-year-old face.

His sneakers seemed to have grown roots into the sidewalk. His suspicious face had gone pale. Not joking—pale. Actually pale. It was the kind of pale that resulted from a deep-seated feeling that something was very, very wrong.

“Sparks,” he said quietly. “That place is exactly how people disappear.”

“Computer Games, just sit on the new library’s steps. You can play Blaze Maze Runner while I explore our new visitor.”

Milo sat down. He pulled out his laptop, turned it on, and Blaze Maze Runner began playing. The blue laptop monitor gave his black jacket an eerie purplish glow.

As she stood there half-watching Milo, Elara thought that was amazing. She didn’t know how Milo got his computer to auto-launch Blaze Maze Runner. She turned back to study the mysterious library some more. After the library’s fancy script and the lion-headed door handle, a huge brass doorknocker ring dominated the door’s architecture. The lion’s eyes seemed to wink.

“Kaput! Kaput! Kaput!” Milo blasted the monsters inside his computer screen. “Yes! Level 6.9!”

Elara looked at the library. Then at Milo. Then back at the library. “It’s a library, for heaven’s sake, Computer Games. Nothing scary has ever happened in a library!”

His hand was shaking. Slightly. Almost invisible. But she noticed. Cute Elara always noticed.

“You’re scared,” she said, pulling on her right messy black braid.

“I’m smart,” Milo’s skeptical face corrected. “Sparks, there’s a difference.”

“No, there isn’t. Smart people get scared. That’s why they survive.” She let go of his arm. “But scared people also miss everything intriguing. And I’m tired of missing things.”

“What things?”

“I don’t know yet,” the curious expression on Elara’s face outdid a cat who had just spotted a bird pecking at some food on the ground. “That’s why I need to go inside.”

Milo grabbed her wrist. “Elara. Sparks. Come back. I’m not joking. I’m really not joking.”

She looked at his hand on her wrist. Then, she looked at his suspicious face.

He meant it.

In spite of her lovely, youthful, 9-year-old, expressive face, Elara meant it too. She was not afraid, although her cute face Although others misread her cute face as a fearful face; she was not afraid. by others as fear. She had noticed other children did not understand—Elara Champlin was braver than her cute face conveyed.

“Wait here,” she said. “I’ll be back fast.”

She pulled away from him. Walked toward the heavy oak door. Her pink sneakers made small scuffling sounds on the sidewalk. Each step felt heavier than the last.

The lion’s head handle was warm.

Warmer than she expected. Like something was breathing on the other side. Like someone walked inside seconds ago. Like something had been waiting. And Elara had no intention of using the big doorknocker ring.

“Sparks—”

Elara pushed the door open!

And walked inside.

CHAPTER TWO: THE LIBRARY THAT SHOULDN’T EXIST

The inside was bigger than the outside.

That was Elara’s first thought.

Her second thought was that someone had forgotten to pay the electric bill. The only light came from candles—hundreds of them, maybe thousands, floating in iron sconces attached to bookshelves that rose like redwood trees into the shadows.

Her third thought was that she should have brought a flashlight. Her cell phone light had quit on her while she was looking for her matching pink bow last night when lights were supposed to be turned off in her bedroom.

Now, she didn’t have a flashlight. All she had was a half-eaten granola bar in her pocket, a library card for the normal library (the one that was supposed to exist, the one with fluorescent lights and computers and the smell of old paper), and a stubborn belief that she was braver than she looked. Her knowledge of French aesthetic allure, along with that belief, kept the Mean Girls and their leader, Katie Lake, at a safe distance.

Once inside, though, Elara’s belief in fearlessness felt smaller now.

Silence.

The library stretched up and up and up. The ceiling was lost in darkness. The bookshelves went so high that the candles at the top looked like stars. Dust floated in slow motion, catching the light every now and then, making everything feel like space at midnight.

Elara took a step. Her sneaker squeaked.

The sound echoed for too long.

Somewhere deep in the library, wood creaked, as if responding to her sounds.

“Hello?” Cute Elara whispered.

Her voice came out smaller than she wanted. She cleared her throat. Tried again.

“Hello? Is anyone HERE?” Elara wanted to say she was braver than she looked, but that didn’t go over so well at school last year. Better to let people see her brave actions.

The library did not answer. But a railroad lantern suddenly appeared on one of the wooden steps nearby. A lit lantern. A lantern that was not there a second ago! A creepy welcoming gift. To add to Elara’s suspicion came a smirking and manipulative feeling the lantern gave off with its eerie amber light. “I must have more light. Curiosity is nothing without the means to explore.” She grabbed the lantern and held it up in front of her. “WHAT! A huge book! I’d never finish that.”

The Questioning Book also possessed a smirking and manipulative feel! Plain burgundy, cracked leather cover with filigree gold designs along the edges—expensive. Expensively dangerous. Everything about the massive book seemed alive. There was no such thing as a live, living book in a library, Elara had noticed many years prior.

The massive burgundy book on the stone lectern at the center of the room snapped open. Or rather, its eyes snapped open and its two jagged-toothed mouths suddenly appeared. The top mouth was located below the eyes, which were positioned above a missing nose indicated by two small holes; additionally, another mouth faced her, frowning, and this smaller jagged-toothed mouth was situated below the top mouth. The bottom frowning mouth was slightly open, revealing a dark space inside that seemed deeper than any book should be. And now Elara finally noticed the snake-like amber eyes the monstrous, massive book possessed.

Elara had no thought of walking a mile in the shoes of the massive book with two jagged-toothed mouths, as she didn’t like the end result.

The last third of The Questioning Book looked—well, like a book should, Elara noticed. It concluded with elaborate, beautiful filigree gold designs on the corners.

Elara froze. Overall, Elara thought it was horrible; the only feature that humanized the huge, scary book was the big blue diamond gem in its forehead, positioned between the two snake-like amber glowing eyes.

This mysterious book, located in a library that should not exist, was larger than any book Elara had ever seen. The book was thicker than any dictionary in her school library, except for the unabridged dictionary, which the teachers used to torture children who wanted to understand new words. Even with her speed-reading skills, Elara gave up believing she could finish the unabridged dictionary in her lifetime.

“Go to the unabridged dictionary,” a teacher would casually announce. “You’ll find every word there!”

One, the unabridged dictionary book was nearly as thick as Elara was tall, and second, your eyes got lost in all the words listed on the two spread-open pages. Only the brave kids went up to the unabridged dictionary a second time. Elara’s bravery didn’t include reliving advanced academic self-torture!

Now, Elara confronted a book bigger than the unabridged dictionary in her classroom. Except, this larger-than-life book was the size of a small table, resting on a claw-footed lectern made of stone that looked older than anything she had ever touched!

She almost wished she hadn’t bravely picked up the lantern, because this book looked nothing like any book anywhere! “Why did I pick up this lantern?” Her fearful face opened wide at the horror of the thing—the massive, smirking, and manipulative book. Elara’s jaw instinctively dropped open. Only evil could come from such a thing, and the two jagged-toothed mouths proved Milo’s suspicions were right. She might disappear forever in this ancient library using candles for electricity.

Burgundy leather. Dark cracked burgundy, like old wine stains. Gold filigree crawled across the cover like frozen ivy, some kind of pattern she couldn’t quite follow—it seemed to move when she wasn’t looking directly at it.

The pages were thick and yellowed; wisps of golden smoke came from the closed horror book’s old glowing pages.

Actually glowing.

Amber and gold and alive.

And the eyes, Elara recollected and committed to memory: It had two amber eyes. Slit pupils like a snake’s. They resembled something that had been watching from the dark for a very long time. They were set into the cover like embedded gems, right where a face would be if The Questioning Book had one. Above the glowing eyes was that diamond-shaped, expensive-looking, humanizing blue gem. The trickery of it all! It shocked her mind. It rattled Elara’s curious brain.

Elara’s heart stopped trying to be still. It pounded THUMP…THUMP…THUMP inside her chest. But she didn’t run.

Now the thumping sound of her heart pounded in her throat. In her ears. In her fingertips. It was going to happen! Elara’s fear senses warned her in advance. RUN!

BUT IT WAS TOO LATE!

The massive, well-decorated horror book’s upper, smiling, jagged-toothed mouth opened. “Finally,” it said. “You have found me!”

The lower, frowning, jagged-toothed mouth quickly added, “How delightfully inconvenient for you.”

The voices were deep and dry. British. British-American. Old American. Like an old professor who had been grading papers for three or more centuries and was very behind. She looked like someone who had been waiting a very long time and was not happy about it.

“You—you talked,” Elara exclaimed. She moved even closer with the lantern, showing off her white, oversized sweatshirt top, black leggings, and pink, red, and blue bows holding her long black French braids in place. Excited curiosity and fear appeared at the same time on her nine-year-old face.

“Brilliantly observed!” answered the monstrous book’s smiling-jagged-toothed upper mouth.

Then the scary book’s lower jagged-toothed mouth added, “You may yet survive this!”

Elara stood stunned into silence, a mix of curiosity and fear infusing her being.

“I contain every story ever loved and every truth ever feared,” the deep-voiced scary book continued. “I have been waiting for Reader Ninety-Six for three hundred years,” the terrible, dreadful book said. “You are late.”

Elara found her voice. It came out higher than usual. Squeakier. Like a mouse who had swallowed a balloon.

“Okay, you’ve been waiting since the famous Blue Boy painting then, but I didn’t sign up for an appointment. That’s not a flex. I’m only nine—not ninety-six.”

“The calendar and your Blue Boy are not my concern. Before you can turn a page, first, you must answer a question!”

The lower jagged-toothed mouth added, “My pages do not turn freely.”

“What kind of question?” Elara asked.

The horrific book’s split amber eyes narrowed as if not expecting any pushback.

“The kind that matters. The kind that most people spend their entire lives running from.”

The lower jagged-toothed mouth curled into something that might have been a smile. Smiling was not the lower, jagged-toothed mouth’s first language. It looked comfortable frowning. It looked uncomfortable trying to smile. It was the kind of smile a stuffed teddy bear made when you turned it upside down.

Elara took a step backward. The lantern rocked in her hands. Her pink beret almost fell from her head. “So, okay, homework. Got it!” She could not believe the mess her curiosity got her into this time—she actually volunteered for HOMEWORK!

The scary book that asked questions boomed out in his harshest baritone theatrical voice. “I am nothing like Homework!”

“Okay. Nothing like homework,” Elara quickly considered the statement. She adjusted her pink beret, and she turned on her heels for the door—only the door was—gone!

Where the oak and iron door had been, there was now nothing but stone wall and a single flickering candle. The candle was blue, like the monstrous, massive multi-mouth book’s forehead gem. She hadn’t noticed blue candles before.

“Did you just trap me?” she whispered, allowing her cute face to take over and perhaps persuade the evil book to treat her nicely.

The Questioning Book’s split amber eyes glowed brighter.

“I gave you an invitation,” it corrected, its pages still sending out wisps of yellow smoke that smelled of redwood. “There’s a difference.”

“I don’t see it.”

“That,” The Questioning Book said, “is why you’re here. And you will send Jake.”

CHAPTER THREE: WORD SCHOOL

Elara stood very still. Not only was she getting HOMEWORK, but she also had to bring other children for HOMEWORK LESSONS!

She noticed her breathing was too rapid. She could hear it. Shallow little gasps that didn’t seem to be doing much good. But at least her pink beret stayed motionless on her black hair and French braids.

The scary Questioning Book studied her. Its snake-like amber eyes moved slowly, taking her in. The messy black braids tied with ribbons—pink and blue—she had been in a hurry this morning. The pink and blue hair ribbons mismatched everything she wore. Her oversized white sweatshirt that belonged to her older cousin who visited last Thanksgiving. Her own black leggings, new from her recent Target haul. The freckles across her nose that her grandmom said looked like cinnamon sprinkles.

“You read fast,” The Questioning Book finally said.

It was not a question.

Elara crossed her arms. It made her feel braver, even though she knew it was just a pose. “How do you know?”

“Your eyes move like a hummingbird. They skip. They hop. They do not rest. They dart across a page like they are afraid something will escape if they stop moving.”

The Questioning Book tilted slightly forward. “Tell me. How many books did you finish last week?”

“Twelve.”

“How many do you remember?”

Elara opened her mouth.

Closed it.

She opened it again.

She could remember titles. She could remember plots. She could remember the names of main characters sometimes. But when she tried to picture the books, to feel them, to remember what they were like—

“The words,” she said slowly. “I remember the words.”

“Do you remember the feeling?”

Elara said nothing.

The Questioning Book sighed. It was a theatrical sigh. The kind a parent makes when you say you don’t want dinner and they know you do want dinner. The top mouth stayed closed, but the bottom mouth exhaled heavily, sending a puff of golden smoke into the air.

The top jagged-toothed mouth opened and continued, “You are what I call a speed reader. You consume words like candy. Fast. Sweet. Gone. You shove them into your mouth without chewing. CHOMP! GULP! SWALLOW! Without tasting. Without letting the sweets sit on your tongue.” The Questioning Book’s pages rustled. “But you do not taste them. You do not feel them. You do not slow down. You rarely think it through.”

“I read twelve books in a week. That’s good.”

“But alas, Reader Ninety-Six, reading fast is not the same as reading well.”

Elara’s face heated. The heat started in her cheeks and spread to her ears. She lost a few of her cinnamon sprinkles. “My teacher says I have excellent fluency.”

“Your teacher is grading your ability to pronounce words correctly… To pass school tests. Here, Child, Elara, I am grading your ability to survive and understand words. There is a significant difference.”

The Questioning Book, or rather a smaller version, slid out of his lowest section, below the lower jagged-toothed mouth, and that book’s pages flipped. Not by Elara’s hand—by themselves, with a sound like dry leaves rubbed by a sound technician hidden in the wings of a community theater play. They stopped on a blank page.

Then the words appeared.

They wrote themselves in glowing amber cursive, one letter at a time, burning into the parchment like hot laser fire. The letters were beautiful. Old-fashioned. Loops and curls and sharp edges.

WELCOME TO WORD SCHOOL.

RULE ONE: Words are not just letters. Words are how you tell the world what you feel. If you cannot find the right words, the world will never know how strong you are.

RULE TWO: The most important part of a sentence is not always the words. Sometimes it is the silence between them. That is where the feeling lives.

RULE THREE: Answer correctly. Turn the page. Answer incorrectly. Try again. No one is keeping score except you.

Elara read the rules three times. Each time, they seemed to glow a little brighter.

“You have schools?” she asked.

“I did say, I contain every story ever loved and every truth ever feared,” the deep-voiced scary Questioning Book continued. “I have everything. Word School. Image School. Sound School. History School. People School. Science School. Timeline School. Each reader begins where they most need to begin.” The Questioning Book’s amber split eyes narrowed again. “You begin with words because you do not respect their power to make people feel.”

Elara retorted, “I respect words!”

“But you ran away from the unabridged dictionary in your school library.”

“I did because—because—there were too many to read—”

“Read fast? You’re not a marathon reader because you respect words for their speed. Not their weight. You treat them like a quick race to be won, not a meal to be savored.” The Questioning Book leaned forward with a dangerous-dreadful stare. “Now. Your first question.”

The page glowed brighter.

New words burned themselves onto the parchment. The redwood fragrance filled the air again.

WHAT IS ONE TRUE THING YOU BELIEVE THAT YOU HAVE NEVER SAID OUT LOUD?

Elara stared at the question.

Her heart thumped.

She had never been asked this before. Not by a teacher. Not by her parents. Not by Milo, who was probably still sitting on the curb outside, too scared to come in—hoping she did not disappear forever!

The scary Questioning Book waited. His mischievous, smiling, upper jagged-toothed mouth gave hints he already knew the answer. The ecstatic lower jagged-toothed mouth frowned as if wanting her to err.

Its split amber eyes were somehow not that scary anymore. They appeared to be patient. Annoyed, but patient. Like a teacher who had asked the same question for three hundred years and was willing to wait a little longer for the correct answer.

“Say the first thing that comes to mind, Child,” the scary Questioning Book said. “Do not edit. Do not speed past it. Let it sit.”

Elara took a breath.

She let it sit.

And then she spoke.

“I am braver than I look.”

The words came out smaller than she wanted. Quieter. Like they were afraid of being heard.

The Questioning Book’s pages rustled softly.

“Say it again,” the lower jagged-toothed mouth of the scary Questioning Book said. “Louder.”

Elara lifted her chin.

“I AM BRAVER THAN I LOOK!”

The Questioning Book’s lower jagged-toothed mouth curled into something that was almost warm. The jagged teeth didn’t look so scary anymore, still smirking and manipulative, though. They just looked like teeth—full of potential danger.

“Yes,” the scary Questioning Book said. “You are.”

The page turned.