Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians Read Online Free PDF Page B

and girth of a linebacker and would have fit right in on the football field. Or, at least, he would have fit right in if he’d been wearing a football uniform, rather than a tunic – a type of garment that I still think looks silly. Bastille has pictures of me wearing one. If you ask her, she’ll probably show them to you gleefully.
    Of course, if you do that, I’ll probably have to hunt you down and kill you. Or dress you in a tunic and take pictures of you. I’m still not sure which is worse.
    “Sing,” Grandpa Smedry said. “We need to do a full library infiltration. Now. ”
    “A library infiltration?” Sing said excitedly.
    “Yes, yes,” Grandpa Smedry said hurriedly. “Go get your cousin, and both of you get into your disguises. I need to gather my Lenses.”
    Sing rushed back the way he had come. Grandpa Smedry walked over to the wall on the other side of the hearth. Not sure what else to do, I followed, watching as Grandpa Smedry knelt beside what appeared to be a large box made entirely of black glass. Grandpa Smedry put his hand on it, closed his eyes, and the front of the box suddenly shattered.
    I jumped back, but Grandpa Smedry ignored the broken shards of black glass. He reached into the chest and pulled out a tray wrapped in red velvet. He set this on top of the box, unwrapping the cloth and revealing a small book and about a dozen pairs of spectacles, each with a slightly different tint of glass.
    Grandpa Smedry pulled open the front of his tuxedo jacket, then began to slip the spectacles into little pouches sewn into the lining of the garment. They hung like the watches on the inside of an illegal street peddler’s coat.
    “Something very strange is going on, isn’t it?” I finally asked.
    “Yes, lad,” Grandpa Smedry said, still arranging the spectacles.
    “We’re really going to go sneak into a library?”
    Grandpa Smedry nodded.
    “Only, it’s not really a library. But someplace more dangerous.”
    “Oh, it’s really a library,” Grandpa Smedry said. “What you haven’t realized before is that all libraries are far more dangerous that you’ve always assumed.”
    “And we’re going to break into this one,” I repeated. “A place filled with people who want to kill me.”
    “Most likely,” Grandpa Smedry said. “But what else can we do? We either infiltrate, or we let them make those sands into Lenses.”
    This isn’t a joke, I began to realize. This man isn’t actually crazy. Or, at least, the craziness includes much more than just him. I stood there for a moment, feeling overwhelmed, thinking about what I had seen.
    “Well, all right, then,” I finally said.
    Now, you Hushlanders may think that I took all of these strange experiences quite well. After all, it isn’t every day that you get threatened with a gun, then discover a medieval dining room hiding inside the beverage cooler at a local gas station. However, maybe if you’d grown up with the magical ability to break almost anything you touched, then you would have been just as quick to accept unusual circumstances.
    “Here, lad,” Grandpa Smedry said, standing and picking up the final pair of spectacles. They were reddish tinted, like the pair Grandpa Smedry was currently wearing. “These are yours. I’ve been saving them for you.”
    I paused. “I don’t need glasses.”
    “You’re an Oculator, lad,” Grandpa Smedry said. “You’ll always need glasses.”
    “Can’t I wear sunglasses, like Sing?”
    Grandpa Smedry chuckled. “You don’t need Warrior’s Lenses, lad. You can access abilities far more potent. Here, take these. They’re Oculator’s Lenses.”
    “What are Oculators?” I asked.
    “We are, my boy. Put them on.”
    I frowned, but took the glasses. I put them on, then glanced around. “Nothing looks different,” I said, feeling disappointed. “The room doesn’t even look… redder.”
    Of course not,” Grandpa Smedry said. “The tints come from the sands they’re made of and