Page 102 - NS 2024

minute when we heard a noise. It was a jingling of keys and then a footstep. Me and Sienna instinctively ducked behind a bookshelf. ere was a table on the other side of it, and I ushered her underneath it. Our hide-and-seek instincts saved us. Owen did not share those hide-and-seek instincts, and we realized it a second later when we heard voices.
“What are you doing here? e library is closed.”
It was a janitor asking the uestion. He had no real authority over Owen, other than the fact that he was allowed to be in the library at this hour, and Owen was not.
“Oh, sorry! Um, I’m a student here and I got caught up in my studies. I didn’t even realize that the library was closed.”
Owen was still wet from swimming in the ocean. He had no backpack on or any school supplies. It was the least believable lie I’d ever heard.
“You go here?” e janitor asked. “Can I see your school ID?”
“Uh... I don’t have it on me,” Owen replied.
“You’re doing something you’re not supposed to be doing,” e janitor said, raising his voice.
“Is anyone here with you?”
“No,” Owen said. is was the rst lie he told in a convincing tone. “No... I just like reading.
I wanted to look at some books.”
“I’m going to call my boss when I’m done cleaning this part of the library. I’m going to bring
you to the janitor’s oce. You stay there until I come back.”
We held our breath as Owen and the janitor walked past our tables. I looked at Sienna’s
brown eyes in the low light of the library. She was shaking her head, arms crossed around her folded knees.
If it had been one of our stories, we could have used our magic powers to overpower the evil janitor and save Owen. We didn’t have any magic powers, though, and the janitor wasn’t evil. He was just trying to keep the library safe. Good and evil are so much more distinct when you’re a child. ose kings we deemed “evil” could have been redeemed if we’d just paid a bit more attention to their backstories.
“We have to go help him,” I whispered to Sienna.
“I know,” She agreed. “But I have no clue how.”
“We never started o any of our adventures with plans when we were kids,” I said. “So why
would we need one now? Let’s just go to the oce and see what we have to work with.” We waited for the janitor to be a few bookshelves over before crawling out from underneath the desk. We listened to the jingling of his keys. I paused, recognizing that he was whistling something. “at’s Billy Joel,” I whispered, unable to think of the song’s name.
“Only the Good Die Young,” Sienna identied it before me. “Your mom used to sing it while she was cooking.”
“Really?” I asked. “I’m surprised you still remember that.”