Chapter 28
Book Chase
"So not from a shelf," she muttered to herself. "There's not even any space to put it. But then where did it come from?"
While she was reading a book about jobs for magic users, she had heard the book fall down, spotted it, but saw nothing and nobody else. She was alone in this room with its maze of tall shelves full of books and the smell of aged paper.
"I guess I can't just leave it lying here," she decided.
Peggy crouched down to pick the book up. But before her fingers could touch it, the book suddenly slid away, traveling up to five feet before stopping.
She stared at it and blinked a few times.
"Okay, what?"
She walked over and tried to grab the book off the floor again, but also again, the book slid away. And it happened again on Peggy's third try.
"Am I being punked right now?" she wondered aloud. And then she loudly called out, "Anyone here?"
But no one answered.
She tried looking around the entire room twice over to be doubly sure she was really alone, but didn't find hide nor hair, nor fur of anyone. When she returned to the book and tried to pick it up again, it slid out of her reach.
"Well, this is annoying," she grumbled. And then her shoulders sagged when she realized, "I'm going to be at this all day, aren't I?"
Unable to just leave the book alone, Peggy chased it all over the room. She and the book weaved around shelves, turning this way and that. They made circles, zigzags, and loop-de-loops.
Frustration mounting, Peggy yelled at it, "Come back here, you!"
And then she tried diving for the book, but ended up crashing onto the floor for nothing.
This unusual game of Cat and Mouse went on and on for who-knows-how-long and soon extended out of the room when an unsuspecting stout dwarf man with frizzy black beard opened the door to come in and allowed the book to escape outside.
"Sorry! Coming through!" Peggy shouted as she ran by.
Startled, the dwarf jumped back while going, "What? What?"
Peggy continued to chase the book down the hall, making whatever turns the book made as it spun around as if pushed by something round. More than once, Peggy and the book spiraled around each other before going into a room where paintings literally came to life. They passed by portraits of dancing goblin ballerinas, a pig man holding a crossbow while hunting an actual, plain hog, two cat wizards throwing lightning at each other, and a pink troll.
Past that room was a flight of marble stairs that led down into a chamber with a big, round, stone basin
sunk halfway into the floor filled with glowing blue water. There was more water floating above the pool in the shape of a great, big ball. People and places were shown in the great, big ball of water like a movie on a television screen. The people shown in the water all wore metal armor and had swords, spears, or some other deadly sharp weapon types.
From unseen speakers, a woman's voice narrated, "Over thousands of years ago, long before Earth's so-called World War, the world of Emeron had a World War of its own, which took place on the continent of Yggdrasil. Armies from Olympusia, Ancient Zhao, the Pharaoh Lands, Babylona, Atlantisia and other nations all converged on the Ragnarok Plains for a final battle that marked the end for the Aesir Empire and all the other kingdoms that called Yggdrasil their home."
While the lady on the speakers told the story of a war from long ago that sounded kind of like a certain famous Earth legend, Peggy ran up and down the room, still trying to catch a book that didn't like her for some reason. They circled around the basin once before going out the exit.
The next chamber they entered was a colorful, indoor playground for little kids. Each side of the room had a huge jungle gym that snaked alongside the wall to the back, meeting at the very middle that was dominated by a big, high fort with three red slides bundled together slanted downward to a ball pit. Trampolines and beanbag chairs took over the middle space of the room while up above them big bubbles floated around from the mouth of a red-lipped clown face painted on the ceiling. Some of those flying bubbles had small children in them.
Peggy and the book cut across the playground, weaving around the trampolines when one bubble tapped Peggy on the head while another tapped the book. Both Peggy and the book got swallowed by their bubbles and drifted up to join the children in the air.
Peggy pushed against the bubble's wall, hoping to break free. But despite appearances, the bubble was very sturdy and elastic, stretched as far as Peggy's arms could up to the tips of her fingers. While lying awkwardly on her right side, arm twisted over her head like a pretzel, she spotted the book in its bubble pass by and then threw her whole self at it. Her bubble went down to the floor while the book continued straight to the doorway.
She tried to go after the book by throwing herself against the side of the bubble, but ended up going backwards instead. Her bubble arched down and then bounced off a violet-colored trampoline to the top of one of the red slides. There, finally, the bubble popped, releasing Peggy.
Peggy dropped onto the slide, slid down and went flying off pretty high thanks to the Laws of Physics. She bounced off one and then two, and then three trampolines, red, violet, violet before miraculously landing on her feet right at the exit next to the bubble containing the book. The bubble with the book hovered at the doorway as if an invisible wall was keeping it from getting out. There was probably an enchantment or magic spell on the exit to make sure nothing, children or otherwise, accidentally got out of the room when they were not supposed to.
Peggy stared at the book in its bubble, and her reflection on the bubble's surface stared back at her.
Slowly, she reached up and gently poked the bubble. Although the inside of the bubble seemed indestructible, the outside was as fragile as a normal bubble could be, and it popped the moment Peggy's fingernail touched it. The book hit the floor, briefly opened up before closing on its side.
Peggy thought she saw black smoke leak out of the book, but chalked it up to just her imagination. She reached down to try and pick it up again, but once more, the book fled from her.
"Oh, come on!"
And the chase resumed.
The fleeing book led Peggy out of the playground and once more into a world of books, books and more books. They passed by chamber after chamber of bookshelf mazes, until finally reaching two sets of stone stairs, one leading down and the other leading up.
As soon as she spotted the stairs, an idea sprang in her mind to try and trap the book at the stairs leading up. She skirted around the book to block its way to the stairs going down and then chased after the book in a way so it'd go to the other staircase.
To Peggy, it almost felt like she was playing a game of soccer.
Her plan worked and the book got trapped at the first step. When she got closer, the book flipped upright. It got her worried that it might flip up the stairs and climb them, but luckily that bit of miracle or bad luck didn't happen and the book remained trapped against the stairstep as if pinned there.
"Got you now," Peggy said softly with a sense of triumph.
She reached down to at last grab the book, but then her moment of victory was snatched away by the hand of another, literally.
Annoyed, Peggy looked up and was surprised to see a familiar face.
"Roy? What are you doing here?" she asked. "Aren't you supposed to be back at Featherkeep?"
"I'm here at the Royal Capital on business," replied the young man.
Astonished, Peggy said, "Really? I didn't know you had work here."
With a bewildered blink, the young man said, "Uh, you do remember what my job is, right? I'm a Royal Inspector's Assistant. So of course, I'm going to have to work at the Royal Capital from time to time."
"In that case, why're you here at the library?" Peggy asked.
Roy answered, "I'm on break. But enough about me, what about you, Peggy? What are you doing all the way here at the Royal Capital? And why were you chasing a book?"
"It's a long story."
Peggy went on the explain how she was invited to a trip to the Royal Capital by the coffee shop Owner and George who were visiting the Grand Library for George's homework. She also explained how she found the book on the floor while exploring the building on her own.
"But for some reason, it kept running away from me," she said. "What's up with that?"
"Well, there are magic spell books out there that are made to be picky about who can read them," Roy said. "Especially books that teach really high level sorcery. Since you only just became a Three-Star magic user, there are probably lots of books you can't read right now."
"I guess that makes sense," Peggy admitted reluctantly. "Though I don't like how that makes me sound like a low level scrub."
Seeing how someone younger than her could touch a book that was too high level for her was also very embarrassing for Peggy.
Nearby, a grandfather clock suddenly chimed.
Roy cried out, "Oh, will you look at the time? I better get going. If you don't mind, Peggy, I can take care of this book for you."
"Go right ahead. It's not like I can do anything about it myself, apparently." Peggy spoke with a sour note.
After flashing an awkward smile, Roy left.
It was getting late for Peggy as well, so she decided to hurry on to the lobby where Boss and George were already waiting.
"Took you long enough," said Boss. "What've you been up to?"
Peggy answered back to the vampire, "Oh, just a little this and that. You know, this being a library and all."
While passing by, a little toad girl shouted, "Look, Mommy! It's the funny lady who chased around a book!"
"Shh!" hissed the toad girl's toad mom. "Don't look!"
Boss and George watched the toad family leave before looking back at Peggy.
"So, just a little this and that, huh?"
Peggy responded, "Please just lay off."
**********
Roy took a brief walk around the library, carrying around a small black book in his hand, until he found who he was looking for. He boldly strode over to a middle-aged gentleman in a purple jacket and gray checkered waistcoat sunk in an armchair flipping through a newspaper.
"Quite the nasty prank you tried to pull, don't you think?" Roy said coldly.
The gentleman looked up from his newspaper and said, "I'm sorry, what?"
Roy, however, was not in the mood to play games and tossed the book down on the chairside table.
"You're lucky the young lady didn't get her hands on that book," he continued while casting an icy gaze. "You can thank the Trickster's protective, danger-repelling barrier for that. But if she had gotten a hold of it, It would not have ended well for you."
Roy didn't lie to Peggy. There really are books out there that choose who gets to read them and who don't. But Roy never said that the book Peggy chased was one such book.
"I have no idea what you are talking about, but I do not appreciate being talked to like that, YOUNG MAN," the gentleman said stiffly."
"Then I suggest not to do anything to deserve treatment like that," Roy shot back.
"And what would you do about it, in this daydream of yours?" the gentleman asked.
"I'm not the one you should be worried about."
The gentleman glanced passed Roy and spotted Basal, the giant serpent, looking back at him with a disapproving frown.
After making a loud sniff noise, the gentleman folded up his newspaper and stood up. He tucked both the newspaper and the black book beneath his armpit and without giving Roy another look, walked away. The gentleman was stopped only briefly by Basal before leaving the library entirely.
Needless to say, Basal had stopped the gentleman to tell him that he had been banned.
**********
"By the way, Dad?" George said after climbing onto bed.
"Yes, son?" the coffee shop Owner replied to the lion cub.
With how late it got, the vampire decided to bring his son and Peggy to his stepbrother's place to crash for the night before heading home the next day. His stepbrother probably expected this to happen because he showed no surprise when the trio appeared on his doorstep and already had two guest rooms set up, one for the boys and the other for Peggy.
"Why did you make us come all the way to the Royal Capital for my homework?" George asked. "I think we could have just as easily found the book I needed at the town library back home."
"Well," said the coffee shop Owner, "I thought better safe than sorry."
Besides, he silently added, there was something I needed to research, and there was no place better for that than the Grand Library.
"Anyway, hurry up and get some sleep," he said. "Don't want to oversleep or we'll miss the train ride back tomorrow morning."
"Okay!"
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