Mr. Lemoncello's Library Olympics

At the motel, there are bird feeders and birdhouses everywhere. Just as Kyle tries to broach the subject of the Library Olympics with Andrew, a black SUV pulls in and Charles Chiltington gets out. Charles tells them that he knew Kyle would be intimidated by Marjory and beg Andrew to take his place on the Library Olympics team. He also says that he knows that Lemoncello wants Andrew in the game. Kyle assures Andrew that this is true because Lemoncello knows Charles bullied him into cheating in the previous games—but Andrew firmly refuses to have anything to do with the upcoming Library Olympics. Charles suggests that, instead of Andrew, Kyle give his position on the team to Charles. Kyle lies, telling Charles that he did not come to the motel to ask Andrew to take his place. He adds that, in any case, there is no way he would ever subject Akimi, Sierra, and Miguel to being on a team with Charles.

Finally, it is the day of the game’s opening ceremony. At the motel, Andrew introduces his “great-uncle-twice-removed, Mr. Woodrow ‘Woody’ Peckleman” (61). Woody welcomes his guests, noting that the motel is also a bird sanctuary and that guests should not feel any squirrels because they are thieving rodents, “Rats with fluffy tails” (62). A car that looks like the cat game token from one of Lemoncello’s board games arrives, followed by eight large recreational vehicles. Dr. Zinchenko emerges in a bright red flight suit and directs the teams to find the vehicle with their team’s name on it. She tells everyone that the opening ceremony will begin at 8 pm and there will be cake and balloons. When Kyle’s team reports to their vehicle, Marjory is standing in front of it. She challenges them to answer a library trivia question. When Kyle cannot answer, she tells him that she hopes he enjoyed being briefly famous because all of that is about to end.

Andrew is in the motel’s game room explaining to a contestant that the motel’s brand-new Squirrel Squad Six game is broken. His uncle calls him into the office, and as he enters Andrew sees Woody sliding shut the huge storage locker usually hidden away behind the office’s back wall. Woody sends Andrew out to refill bird feeders, saying that he needs to talk to some of the guests. Andrew passes the motel’s fire ring, where Lemoncello has dictated no fires will be built during the Library Olympics because “too many books have been burned by people who didn’t like what was written inside them” (68). As he begins to fill one of the feeders, Marjory interrupts him to say she is looking for coffee. When Andrew refers to coffee using its Dewey decimal number, Marjory is impressed. She mentions her views about Lemoncello’s library, and Andrew smiles, feeling that she is “a kindred spirit.”.

At the games’ opening ceremonies, the contestants parade around the motel courtyard in silly regional costumes. Kyle’s team’s outfits include squeaking banana shoes invested by Mr. Lemoncello. They have practiced so that they can use the burping and squeaking sounds the shoes make to play a version of “Hang On Sloopy” as they walk. Only Marjory’s Midwest team wears serious outfits: khaki slacks, white shirts, ties, and blazers. Lemoncello welcomes the teams to the competition with a pun-and-allusion-studded speech that evokes both the idea of American liberties and classic texts like Fahrenheit 451. He declares the games open, urging the assembled children to “[h]ave fun! Play fair! And remember—these games are a quest to find who amongst you is a true champion!” (74).

As they wait for their library cards, Kyle’s team wonders whether these cards, like the ones for the previous game, will contain a secret code. Sierra thinks they should let the other teams know that this is a possibility; she reminds her teammates of Mr. Lemoncello’s motto about sharing knowledge and says that she does not want an unfair advantage. When Dr. Zinchenko gives them their cards, she explains that the winner of each game will receive “a very special medal” and that the team with the most medals will be the winner “if not the champion” (77). They are confused by this wording, but Zinchenko refuses to clarify her meaning. As soon as they are alone, they flip over the library cards and discover that there is a code contained there. When they solve the puzzle, however, the coded message reads, “This is not a clue” (80).

As they ride to the library the next morning, Miguel and Sierra reveal that Andrew’s uncle Woody took each of them aside and offered them a “Go to College Free” card. Since both turned him down, neither knows what he wanted in exchange. Kyle says that this could be part of the game because sometimes in Mr. Lemoncello’s board and video games players are offered shortcuts that later turn out to be hindrances. Inside the library, a holographic projection of Lonni Gause, the last librarian at the former Alexandriaville Public Library, welcomes the children. She bemoans the fate of her library, which was bulldozed to make way for a parking garage. As she complains about how books started disappearing from the library before it was bulldozed, Dr. Zinchenko clicks a remote and Gouse disappears. A voice coming from the ceiling speakers directs the contestants to report to the second floor, where each team has an assigned library cart waiting. “Remember,” she says, “free people read freely” (85). On the second floor, Dr. Zinchenko explains the game: Each team will sort through a huge bin of books to find the ones that belong on their cart, and once the books are loaded, they will complete a relay race with the carts.

Sierra and Miguel do an excellent job locating the team’s books; they notice that Marjory is bossing her teammates around, single-handedly deciding which books belong on their cart. The Pacific team can use the advanced book-cart drilling they did as part of their regional competition to their advantage, and despite Kyle’s early lead in the relay race, they end up beating the hometown team. Dr. Zinchenko drapes a “Gold” medal around the neck of each Pacific team member. Akimi grumbles as she watches the Pacific team giving interviews afterward, but Kyle tries to remain positive, saying that they cannot win every game. Sierra, deep in her reading of The Fourteenth Goldfish, seems unworried about the loss. The second game of the day requires the teams to properly shelve all the books they gathered onto their carts earlier. Sierra, Akimi, and Miguel oversee determining the correct Dewey decimal numbers, and Kyle runs to slot each book into place on the shelves. They complete the challenge quickly but lose to Marjory’s team. The Midwest team is awarded the “Olympian” medal. Miguel wonders why all the medals are not simply called “Gold” medals; Kyle quips that it is to help them remember that they lost two completely different events today.

Susana holds a meeting of the League of Concerned Library Lovers. She proposes an official resolution to “by any means necessary, seize control of Alexandriaville’s new public library and wrest it away from that borderline lunatic Luigi Lemoncello” (97). The Chiltingtons’ butler shows Woody Peckleman in. Woody explains that he, too, dislikes what is happening at Lemoncello’s library. Woody has come to make the League of Concerned Library Lovers a proposition. If Susana talks to Marjory Muldauer on his behalf, he will tell them how to take over the library. Woody says that he has already tried to talk to more than 12 contestants, but they have all turned him down. He thinks that Marjory might be more susceptible to accepting his “Go to College Free” proposition since she also dislikes the way Lemoncello runs the library. Susana is just the person to talk to because Marjory will be impressed by Susana’s education and refinement.

On the second morning of the games, Kyle gives his team a pep talk, pointing out that they have 10 more chances to win. When Mr. Lemoncello greets the children, he is dressed in an aviator helmet and sports a pair of wings. Standing on a third-floor balcony, he announces that he is about to fly. Lonni Grouse’s hologram shrieks that he will be crushed like the old library, “And they’ll be back! The book haters with their bulldozers! They always come back!” (102). Lemoncello expresses regret that he was overseas when the first library was destroyed and promises not to let it happen again. He jumps from the railing, appearing to fly, and Kyle realizes that wires are supporting him. Zinchenko explains that their first challenge is to make paper airplanes: The team that does the most effective research and uses it to make the plane that stays aloft the longest will win.

The teams hurry upstairs, all hoping to find a copy of The Paper Airplane Book. When Akimi wishes aloud that her engineer father could help them, Miguel realizes that they should be researching in the aerospace engineering section of the library. They leave the other teams behind and hurry next door to the 600’s room. As they near the relevant section, they see a holographic image that Akimi identifies as rocket scientist Robert Goddard. Goddard advises them to fold a glider-type plane called a Seagull. Although Kyle and Miguel have a hard time following his explanation, Akimi understands it perfectly. When Goddard directs them to the schematic in his desk drawer, they see that there are eight copies. Kyle’s team is the only one to discover and fold the Seagull glider, and their plane wins easily. Akimi accepts the “Top Gun” medal for their team.