“No time,” said the girl, and she gave Lenora a push, sending her stumbling toward the door.

Lenora fell backward away from the armored girl. As she fell, she reached out …

… and her hand tore at the girl’s padded armor, and she grabbed on, and gripped hard …

… and a piece of armor on the girl’s chest tore loose as Lenora fell …

… and as she fell, she could see what lay beneath the padded armor on the girl’s chest …

It was a librarian’s badge.

And Lenora’s eyes widened as she read the words there, and she looked up at the girl, whose expression behind the mask was unknowable …

And then Lenora was tumbling down a steep slide, head over heels, her thoughts spinning at the words she had just read, until she fell through a small square portal with a door that instantly slid shut behind her. It slid shut so perfectly that where there had once been a door, you could not now tell there had been anything but a wall.

Lenora was lying on a cool hardwood floor. Cedar beams stretched up to the high ceiling above her.

She was between two bookshelves, just around the corner from the large and heavy archway above which, she knew, the words KNOWLEDGE IS A LIGHT had been deeply chiseled. She leapt to her feet—and felt a hand seize her shoulder.

“There you are!”

And she looked up to see the most terrible thing she had ever seen: the scowling face of the nanny.

“No!” yelled Lenora, and she tried to run, but the nanny had her by the hand and was already dragging her away.

“You naughty girl,” said the nanny. “You’ve cost me ten minutes searching for you! Now I’m going to be late. Your parents will be notified.”

Lenora dug in her heels and would not budge. She looked desperately for the archway—

But it was no longer there. The nanny tossed Lenora over her shoulder and stalked through the library as astonished patrons looked on.

“No!” shouted Lenora. “I have a job! I work here! I’m Queen of the Penguins!”

But the nanny would not listen, of course, and they marched down toward the exit, Lenora yelling the whole way. As they passed the front desk, Lenora looked pleadingly at the librarian sitting there.

But the librarian put her finger to her lips, shushing Lenora, and Lenora could not help but go quiet. And then—

The librarian smiled and gave Lenora a broad wink—