“Please be quiet,” says Seymour.
Now the phone on the welcome desk rings again. The man at the base of the stairs has already made enough trouble, has in fact ruined everything. This would be a lot easier if he did not speak. Seymour made him take out his lime-green earbuds and throw them into Fiction, and still the man bleeds onto the dingy library carpet, confusing everything.
On all fours Seymour creeps to the welcome desk and rips the phone cord out of the wall jack. Then he crawls into Marian’s broom-closet office, where the phone is ringing for a second time, and rips out that cord too.
“That was a mistake,” calls the wounded man.
A sticker on Marian’s door reads, The Library: Where the shhh happens. Images of her freckled face stream across his vision and he tries to blink them away.
Great grey owl. World’s largest species of owl by length.
He sits in the doorway to her office with the pistol in his lap. The police lights send blurs of red and blue across the spines of young adult novels. He can feel the roar churning out there, just beyond the windowpanes. Are snipers tracking him right now? Do they have tools to see through walls? How long before they storm in here and shoot him dead?
From his left pocket he removes the phone with the three numbers written on the back. The first detonates bomb one, the second bomb two; he is supposed to dial the third if there’s trouble.
Seymour dials the third number and removes one of the cups of his ear defenders. The connection rings multiple times, beeps, and he’s disconnected.
Does that mean they’ve received the message? Is he supposed to say something after the tone?
“I need medical attention,” says the man at the base of the stairs.
He dials again. It rings rings rings rings rings rings rings rings rings beeps.
Seymour says, “Hello?”
But the call has disconnected. Probably that means that help is coming. It means that they’ve received the message, that they’ll be activating a support network. He will stall and wait. Stall, wait, and Bishop’s people will call back or arrive to help, and everything will be sorted out.
“I’m thirsty,” calls the wounded man, and from somewhere come the faint voices of children, and the whistle of howling wind, and the whisper of breaking waves. Deceits of the mind. Seymour replaces his ear defenders, takes a mug decorated with cartoon cats from Marian’s desk, crawls to the drinking fountain, fills it, and sets it within the man’s reach.
The trash can beside the armchairs, collecting the leak, is three-quarters full. The boiler directly below him gives off a series of weary creaks. We will all have to be strong, Bishop said. The coming events will test us in ways we cannot yet imagine.
Zeno
Questions chase one another around the carousel of his mind. Who shot Sharif and how severe are his injuries? Why did Sharif wave him back? If the lights outside the library are law enforcement or paramedics, why aren’t they rushing inside? Is it because the assailant is still here? Is there only one? Are parents being notified? What is he supposed to do?
Onstage Aethon-the-donkey is pacing along the frozen rim of the world. From Natalie’s speaker comes the sound of ocean waves collapsing onto gravel. Olivia, wearing a big soft gull head and yellow tights, points with one of her homemade wings to a pile of green tissue paper on the stage. “I’ve heard,” she says, “that if you eat enough of it, you’ll feel funny. Though I can tell you right now, a jackass like you is never going to grow wings.”
Alex-who-is-Aethon picks up some green tissue paper, jams it into his papier-maché donkey mouth, and steps off the stage.
Olivia-the-gull turns to the chairs. “It’s no use for an ass like that to chase after castles in the sky. Being sensible is called being ‘down-to-earth’ for a reason.”
From offstage Alex calls, “Well, something’s happening, I can feel it.” Christopher converts the karaoke light from white to blue, and the towers of Cloud Cuckoo Land glimmer on the backdrop, and Natalie replaces the rumble of the waves with sunken bubbling and gurgling and trickling.
Alex steps onstage holding his papier-maché fish head. Sweat has glued his bangs to his forehead. “Can we take a break, Mr. Ninis? Halftime?”
“He means intermission,” says Rachel.
Zeno looks up from his trembling hands. “Yes, yes, of course, a nice quiet intermission. Good idea. You’re doing so wonderfully, all of you.”
Olivia lifts off her mask. “Mr. Ninis, do you really think I should say ‘jackass’？ Some people from church are coming tomorrow night.”