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Night of the Unread

In the darkest of libraries, where solid book and stack seem to sway and quiver in the half light their waits . . . .
Go to the front desk and find Tell Tale card on the computer.
 
Chapter one

The Awakening

How you managed to dose-off in the library and nobody find you under the bean bags in the story corner is neither here nor there. You are stuck, the doors are locked, everyone has gone home and here you are, trapped inside the library until dawn.

But the fear slowly subsides as you realise just how cool this is, locked inside with 10,000 books (at least!) Each and every one a world enticing you to pull them off the shelf and dig inside.

So you slowly shuffle down the isles, running your fingers along the spines in the half light, letting your eyes drift from spine to spine.

The Bideford Bansky, The Last Byte (a digital vampire novel) A Symphony of Sinistry (folk songs from the Dark Side)

The first book your fingers settle on is called 'The Inconviencince Store' you pop it open and inside are every day consumer goods like cola, sun screen and pop-sickles. But rather than the items listed, there are ingredients and detailed instructions. For the sun screen it suggests you buy a blow torch and zinc ore along with a hammer and a whole coconut. If you mashed up the coconut with the hammer you would make coconut oil and using the blow torch and zinc ore you could make zinc oxide. Finally you could then mix these ingredients together and to make a lifetimes supply of sunscreen!

You put the book back and continue to peruse.
Chapter two

The Stacks

In the next isle you crouch to see the larger printed books on the lower shelf, they have great titles like

Matchbox Robots - how to make an army of nano-bot robots to control the world.

The lower shelf has titles like, A Cumulus of Moods, Cupids Fletcher and The Button Collector, the last book is about a rather devious and curious woman who spent her life on public transport cutting buttons off peoples shirts with secret scissors hidden up her sleeve. The pages were of her journals, every page had a button neatly stitched with detailed notes below on where the button was taken and a description of the victim. The first page quoted
'on the A398 between Pieminster and Codfincher'
then went on to describe the spot on the garment where the button was stolen from

'right shoe'

'left sleeve pocket - single'

'waistcoat front no 3 of 6'

You slip the book neatly back into its slot on the stacks and the hours draw on as your peruse further and deeper into the world of paper and print.

The noises of the library are different at night, the hush has depth and texture, rather than the forced hush of truculent children fidgeting on laps before being seduced by the illustrations and poetry. The bustle of librarians, trolly wheels on carpet, the photocopier, the woosh of the electric door, all friendly comforting nosies, now strangely absent.

But then you hear a very different noise accentuating the quiet.

THUMP

Was that the sound of a large book hitting the floor just two isles over!

Are you alone!
Go to the travel section and look for the next Tell Tales card and keyword.
 
Chapter three

The Stay-Cation

On the floor you see a tiny book, open at the index page. The last stamp was three months before, and it was hardly ever borrowed. You pick up the book, and you see that the spine is damaged and the pages are yellow with age. You flip through it, and the story pulls you in, making you completely forget about your predicament.

“Lily Miller was out camping in the countryside of Somerset. Her tent was so small, that she had to pitch it next to a maple tree to be able to find it. Lily had just woken up and was about to go for a nice walk, when it suddenly started to snow. Lily was absolutely gobsmacked, because it was the middle of July. She ran back inside the tent, seeing as she was wearing shorts and a really thin T-shirt and it was freezing.

She put on all her jumpers and trousers, which weren't many, and decided she'd rather stay inside today and ask the locals about it tomorrow. She had no electricity, so she had a cold cup of cocoa and a juicy apple she had picked from the orchard nearby. As she was about to take another bite, she heard something outside fall to the ground loudly like a thunderclap or a mighty stamp.”

THUMP

What was that!?
As soon as you read the word stamp, you heard a loud bang. It must be another book! You get up, and cautiously walk in the direction of the noise, hoping to catch a glimpse of the bird, squirrel, or whatever made that noise.
Go to the Atlas section for the next Tell Tales card
 
Chapter four

The Adventure

You approach the geography section and there on the floor you see a palin black book with The Adventure sprayed in orange across the cover.

You begin to read and are soon lost in the story.

Jake had just finished his last reef walking tour along the Great Barrier Reef sands, but now he was free diving in a secret spot which he had only just discovered. There the ocean dropped off in to the abyss of blackness only a mile from the beach but before then it was a beautiful shelf surrounded with reef. There fish teamed back and forth, Dominos, Blue Devils and Koran Angel fish swerving in and out through the coral edges knitting an amazing scene.

Just around the corner he spies six colossal submarines, surely not he thinks so swims off to check it out. On closer inspection he sees they are Nazi V12 submarines he then gets out his waterproof camera to take an image of the swastika stamped on the side.

THUMP

Back in the library you hear a book fall off a shelf you go to investigate as you realise the last words of the story end with the word Stamp.
Go to the children's section and look for the Tell Tales card
 
Chapter five

In The Deep Sea

In the children's section you see a turquoise hard-backed book on the floor, it has a beautiful drawing of people playing in the ocean and the sand. They are playing ball games and making sand castles, they are lying on towels with beach tents all around having s great time.

You open the book and begin to read.

'in the deep sea ocean lived a deep sea angling fish called Bob. He was spending his days house hunting for a new place to live. He had searched high and low, in cliffs and reefs, in ship wrecks and even treasure chests but he just couldn't find the right home for him.

But then one day his mate squirrel, who was also a deep sea angling fish, suggested he try the shoe factory. Squirrel had slept in several shoes himself and he especially liked the trainers, he always seemed to sleep the fastest in those ones which had stripes stamped on the sides.'

THUMP

Back in the library you hear the sound of a book falling off the shelf. As you go and investigate you rember the last word from the story was the word STAMP, interesting.
Go to the talking book section and look for the Tell Tales card
 
Chapter six

Miners lullaby

You reach the scene where another book is lying on the floor, but no one insight. You pick up the book, it's quite heavy and open it at the index. Again, it hasn't been checked out for 3 months and it looks pretty old. You start to read the first page and are dragged into the story.

“The seven dwarves are quarrelling in the mine. Everything has gone bad since Snow White left the little cottage with the prince. The house is completely filthy, the food they eat is either raw, burnt or stale and almost everything is broken. To make matters worse, they can't seem to find any gold or diamonds, only carts full of rocks, rocks and the occasional piece of coal.

‘I'm fed up with mining!” Grumpy grumbled, throwing his pick axe down on the floor. ‘We never find anything and I'm starving.'
‘That's because you never clean up after yourself' Doc scolded, ‘I'm sure if we all pitch in with the housework the cottage would be slick and span in no time'
The other dwarves all nodded their heads but groaned inwardly, except for Sleepy, who was lying on the ground using his pick axe as a pillow with his finger in his mouth.
‘Actually Doc' Sneezy said tentatively. ‘I was thinking of (Atchoo) moving in to a city and (Atchoo) become a doctor'
‘And I' Bashful said, raising his hand, ‘I've had a recurring dream of becoming a model'
‘I want to move too, and become a stand-up comedian!' Happy piped up.
‘I want to be a teacher!' Dopey shouted, jumping up and down.
‘Zzz' snored Sleepy.
‘Hmm, I must admit, I've always wanted to try getting a PHD' Doc replied thoughtfully. ‘So it's settled then. We'll all move to the nearest city and find new jobs'
The dwarves all cheered.
‘Hang on! What about me?!' Grumpy stamped -

THUMP

A book must've fallen down again!

You rush towards the other end of the library, but all you find is another book.
Go to the adult fiction section.
 
Chapter seven

The maze

As you approach the fiction section you find an orange and black book and soon enough you are lost in the tale.

There was once an explorer called Michael Davies who had traveled to Egypt to explore a ancient maze from the cleopatra era so he starts trekking into the wild blue yonder. It took Michael Davies one day and one night to find his quarry, lying before him was the great pyramid of Eygpt. He went in and rested his tired hand on the entrance and then started falling he landed in some water and then a current swept him away down the Nile then he felt his head smack against some rock

SMACK

He gets knocked out for 15 minutes and when he wakes up he wonders where he is then he remembers he gets up and sees he is in the lost maze he tries to find his way around but keeps finding dead ends but he doesn't give up, he keeps trying and about 21 hours later he finds a mighty chest he opens it and in it is about one million gold coins and some red ruby's then he hears a STAMP STAMP STAMP coming round the corner it was a mummy STAMP.

THUMP

Back in the library you hear a book fall from a shelf, what was that! As you go to investigate you realise that the last words written in the story are Stamp Stamp Stamp!
Go to the scanner.
 
Chapter eight

The Front Desk

It was no surprise to find the front desk unmanned, how, where, who was making all the noise tonight? There on the desk by the light of the book scanner, is an open ink blotter with a simple date stamper, the numbers had already been set for the next day, ready for the first borrowing approvals to be made. You notice it is the first of the month and in a calendar on the librarians desk close by has the date ringed in red, double underlined with the words 'Weeding Day'.

Weeding you think, what on earth is weeding, surly that refers only to gardening but then beneath the title says 'instructions for library team - collect and remove all books not borrowed within the last 3 months.'

It is not about gardening at all, it is about removing old books from the library!

At that very moment you know exactly what is being asked, exactly what has been requested of you by the books themselves. So you begin to collect all the volumes which have thrown themselves into the isles (and a few more which are twitching anxiously as you walk by). You bring them all back to the front desk which takes several trips, then finally with stacks of books waiting, you begin.

First, you tentatively lift the stamp by its worn wooden handle and gently massage it into the ink block to gather as much ink as you can. Then, with one decisive down ward strike, you stamp the first book, bam. Their is an audible sigh from the books (which sounds like the rustle of pages!) You then take each book to the scanner which detects and catalogs each with a satisfying ping sound.

The book is saved.

One after another you stamp and scan, saving them from the recycling bin, putting each back on the shelf in turn. As the dawn light shows through the windows, the final tomes are slid back into place on the stacks.

The last thing you do, before sleep consumes you, is slump down on the bean bags in the children's corner and fall fast asleep. The pillows slide across you and as the first librarians arrive to open the library, nobody notices you at all. When finally you do wake, you find there is one final book waiting at your feet, it is called 'Night of the Unread'. You pick it up walk over to the machine and scan your card then check the title out before walking out the library doors with it neatly tucked under your arm.