Shortly afterward a pair of islands came into view. Waves crashed against rocky cliffs covered in green. Letters floated over the islands: IRELAND and ENGLAND. The pod plunged directly between the pair. And then Lenora saw it straight ahead: WALES.

The pod dropped her off on the coast. Lenora waved as they spouted their goodbyes, swimming away backward. “Good luck, librarian!” they cried. “May your waters always be filled with salmon!” They dove beneath the waves and were gone.

What remarkable creatures! thought Lenora. Even if they were a bit arrogant.

She searched all over Wales. She found lots of places, grassy hills and ruined castles and green fields and stone fences. Sheep were everywhere, some of them curiously painted with colorful spots. (Painted sheep—why? she scribbled in her notes.) But she did not find any names of particular length. She was almost ready to give up and search elsewhere when she came upon an island in the northwest corner of the country. It held a small town with a name so long the letters spilled over into the Irish Sea at both ends:

LLANFAIRPWLLGWYNGYLLGOGERYCHWYRNDROBWLLLLANTYSILIOGOGOGOCH

Underneath this was written in parentheses: (LLAN-VIRE-POOLL-GUIN-GILL-GO-GER-U-QUEERN-DROB-OOLL-LLANDUS-ILIO-GOGO-GOCH). That must be it, Lenora thought, and recorded this in her notebook.

Satisfied, she put her notebook under her arm. Time to get back to her desk. She looked up at the Cartography section in the sky. Shelves, walkways, walls, desks, and maps were all far away and completely out of reach. And there was no sign of the runaway balloon anywhere. Oh dear, Lenora thought to herself with growing alarm.

She was trapped.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Lenora Travels the Globe

Lenora gazed longingly at a walkway in the sky. On the wall of the Cartography room beyond it, there was a world map, though the world on it looked nothing like Earth. The walkway had a railing that kept patrons from falling to their deaths. All the thousands of walkways zigzagging everywhere in the Cartography room had them. If she could only reach one of those railings, perhaps she could pull herself off the globe she was trapped on. But all of them looked to be far beyond her reach as they rotated past. As one walkway came into view, Lenora could see a startled young boy with an ice-cream cone gaping down … up?—she wasn’t sure—at her.

“No ice cream in the library!” snapped Lenora, wagging her finger. Startled, the boy dropped the ice cream and ran away. Lenora sighed. She supposed she’d have to clean that up, if she could ever get off the globe. If only she were as tall as Malachi …

She snapped her fingers. Of course! She just needed to get to a higher spot! And everyone knows the highest point on Earth is Mount Everest. Maybe she could reach a walkway railing from there when one of them rotated by. But she was not entirely sure where Mount Everest was. She would just have to look.