Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians

appearance of talking dinosaurs and evil Librarians – I was in charge. And people listened to me. I was realizing that if I chose poorly, I would not only get myself into trouble but I might end up getting Bastille and Sing hurt as well.
    It was a sobering thought. My life was changing, and so my view of myself had to change as well. You might think I was turning into a hero – however, the truth is that I was just setting myself up for an even greater fall.
    “We’ll stay out of sight,” I said. “Eavesdrop and hope the Dark Oculator mentions where the sands are. Our goal is not to fight him. At the first sign of trouble – or, in Sing’s case, tripping – we’ll back out. All right?”
    Bastille and Sing nodded. Then I turned. The yellowish footprints were still there. A little more cautious, I followed them down the hallway. We passed a couple more archways, set with solid wooden doors, but the footprints didn’t lead into any of them. The hallway led deeper and deeper into the library.
    Why build a library that looks like a castle inside? I thought, passing an ornate lantern bracket shaped like a cantaloupe. The lantern atop it burned a large flame, and – despite the tense situation – something occurred to me.
    “Fire,” I said as we walked.
    “What?” Bastille asked.
    “You can’t tell me that those lanterns are more ‘advanced’ than electric lights.”
    “You’re still worried about that ?”
    I shrugged as we paused at an intersection, and Bastille peeked around it, then waved the all clear.
    “They just don’t seem very practical to me,” I whispered as we started again. “You can turn electric lights on and off with a switch.”
    You can do that with these too,” Bastille said. “Except without the switch.”
    I frowned. “Uh… okay.”
    “Besides,” Bastille whispered. “You can light things on fire with these lamps. Can you do that with electric ones?”
    “Well, not most of them,” I said, pointing as the footprints turned down a side corridor. “But that’s sort of the idea. Open flames like that can burn things down.”
    I couldn’t see because of the sunglasses, but I had the distinct impression that Bastille was rolling her eyes at me. “They only burn things if you want them to, Smedry.”
    “How does that work?” I whispered, frowning.
    “Look, do we have time for this?” Bastille asked.
    “Actually, no,” I said. “Look up there.”
    I pointed ahead, toward a place where the hallway opened into a large room. This diversion was actually quite fortunate for Bastille, for it meant that she didn’t have to explain how silimatic lanterns work – something I now know that she couldn’t have done anyway. Not that I’d point out her ignorance to her directly. She tends to start swinging handbags whenever I do things like that.
    Bastille went up the hallway first. Despite myself, I was impressed by her stealth as she crept forward, close to the wall. The room ahead was far better lit than the hallway, and her movements threw shadows back along the walls. After reaching the place where the hallway opened into the room, she waved Sing and me forward. I realized that I could hear voices up ahead.
    I approached as quietly as possible, creeping up next to Bastille. There was a quiet clink as Sing huddled beside us, setting down his gym bag. Bastille shot him a harsh look, and he shrugged apologetically.
    The room at the end of the corridor was actually a large, three-story entryway. It was circular, and our corridor opened up onto a second-story balcony overlooking the main floor down below. The footprints turned and wound around a set of stairs, leading down. We inched forward to the edge of the balcony and looked down upon the people I had tracked.
    One of them was indeed a person I knew. It was I person I had known for my entire life: Ms. Fletcher.
    It made sense. After all, Grandpa Smedry had said that she’d been the one to steal the sands from my room. The idea had seemed silly to me at the time, but then a lot of things had been confusing to me back then. I could now see that he must have been right.
    And yet, it seemed so odd to see a person from my regular life in the middle of the library. Ms. Fletcher wasn’t a friend, but she was one of the few constants in my life. She had directed my moves from foster family to foster family, always checking in on my, looking after me….
    Spying on me?
    Ms. Fletcher still wore her unflattering black skirt,