Lenora thought about the words as they clomped down the stairs. At the bottom, they came to another archway. This one had the word CALENDARS carved above it. Inside was a giant room, completely square. Lenora thought an entire mansion could fit in this one room. All over the walls were calendars. In the middle of the room was a desk with a big sign in front that read HELP DESK.

“Here is your desk,” said Malachi. “When a patron comes to your desk, say, ‘Hello. How may I help you?’ You’ll figure out the rest from there.” Before Lenora could reply, Malachi hurried away.

Lenora was alone. She looked at the walls. Calendars for every year seemed to be here, covered in notes and reminders. She saw 1953 and 809 and even 2056 and 3.

Her heart thumped with excitement. Her own desk at her own job! She looked around. She supposed she could lay claim to this entire room as well. Then she realized that a patron could come along with a question at any time, and she knew nothing about calendars. It was time to get started. Fumbling through her pockets, she found a hair tie and pulled her black locks back into a ponytail, then went behind her desk, where she saw a padded stool and a bookshelf. She looked over the books. The first one she noticed was a dictionary. She picked it up and flipped to W.

She ran her finger down the pages, looking for whyever. Malachi had used that word, but Lenora had never heard it before.

But the word wasn’t there. Lenora did not think this was fair. Whenever was a word. So were whoever, whichever, whatever, and even however. This was a situation that had to be corrected. Taking a pen from a cup on her desk, she wrote carefully between whydah and why’ll:

WHY•EV•ER: meaning “for what reason, as in ‘Whyever would anyone not want to learn new things?’”

Satisfied, she replaced the dictionary and looked for a book that might help her learn more about calendars. She was not surprised to see a book titled Everything, and I Mean Everything, You Might Ever Want to Know About Calendars. This was the Calendars Help Desk, after all. She began to read. She became completely absorbed. Calendars were much more interesting than she would ever have imagined. She read and read, learning many new things. For example, she learned the answer to what happened in Spain on October 5, 1582: absolutely nothing at all. Nothing happened on October 5, 1582, in Spain, and that was because—

She was interrupted by someone clearing their throat.

She looked up. In front of the Help Desk stood a very advanced-looking robot. It looked like a handsome older gentleman in a well-tailored suit, with shiny metal skin and blinking red lights for eyes and an inquisitive expression on its face. This was a robot with a question.