Not sure why Sydney was so excited about that album- it sounded just like all the other music she listened to. I stuck my head in the living room, just long enough to make eye contact with Stenway, then headed upstairs. The good thing about Stenway was he knew (sometimes) when to keep his mouth closed. He wouldn’t stop everything to talk to me, but he’d let Sydney know that he’d seen me. And she’d put it down to me wanting to avoid him.

  I shut the door to my room, and slid a table across it. I did not want to be interrupted. I grabbed the paper Dennis had given me and held it gently as I wriggled under the bed. The string of lights was now a quarter burnt out, but with the rest of the light in the room, it was enough to read by.

  Dennis was very straightforward in his thinking and researching, and his writing was the same. He’d written down a list of questions at the top, followed but some, what looked like reference or folder labels or names. Some of them were only digits. 4 of them were strung together with arrows in between, then a separate set of 5, and then another set of 4. This must have been what he went through at the library, the bookshelves or filing cabinets.

  Each set of names or dates ended in a title inside of quotation marks, must have been the name of the article that he found. Without reading the articles, I couldn’t really see how they were connected.

  “Left Family Endowments to be Restructured” accompanied by a handwritten note “legal?”

  “New Wing Fundraising Begun.”

  “Super Exposes Ring of Vehicle Heists.” This one seemed the least connected, but it was underlined three times. I needed to get to the library. And soon.

  I flipped into my old “Supers” book and glanced through some of the notes that had been written in the margins. I like that the fellows had the same approach as I did- this book was only useful for as long as it was big enough to hold all of our notes. Then, it would got transferred into a new, bigger book, it gave me a chance to update and double check everything that I had learned. And when I ran out of space in my current one (if I ever got it back), I'd go through the same process with that one.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  I just needed to get Sydney to go with me to the library. The metro library, not the travelling one. I’d have to bargain with her for something. Not sure.

  Over the next few days, I dropped the idea in her hearing a few times, and made sure to sit where she could see me while I was reading my “Aquatics Habitat” book, just to let her know how serious I was about looking for more books.

  She didn’t take the bait. Finally on Thursday, I had to come out and ask her.

  “Syd, do you think we could maybe go to the library tomorrow?”

  “It’s not time yet for the travelling library to be back, is it?”

  “No, I want to go to the one downtown.”

  Syd looked back over her shoulder at me. “Tomorrow? We’d have to get permission from mom and dad.”

  “They won’t care, I’m doing research.”

  “Well, I care that they know.”

  “We can leave them a message.” I paused, trying to sound very normal and not like I had thought this out beforehand. “Isn’t there another cut of that vinyl you got that’s out?”

  “What?” Sydney whipped all the way around.

  “Yeah, I thought I heard someone on the radio talking about that.”

  “Well, it wouldn’t be in any of the stores that I can get in to. Stenway said he had to call three different…”

  “But the record store would know about it? Right?”

  “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to look and ask. We’d have to leave the house at 9.”

  “I can do that.”

  “And I don’t want to spend that long in the library, we should be back at home by lunch time.”

  “I can do that.” I wanted to tell her that it would take less time if I stayed at the library and she went to the record store, but I wanted to save that option for later. It would depend on what kind of people were in the library on the day.

  Next morning, I got up and dressed, tucking the paper Dennis wrote into my pocket, and the copy I’d made of it into my boot. Sydney was ready to go as soon as I got downstairs, but I had to get something to eat on my way out, so it was just after 9 when we walked out of the door. We caught the bus downtown and headed into the library. Sydney started walking towards the non-fiction section, but stopped short at a stand of brightly colored books. “You go on, Tyler, I’ll catch up.”

  I had a choice. Start in the non-fiction section, and “wander off” into the reference section, or sprint to reference and hope Sydney didn’t notice?

  I went with the second option.