The thought that he was going crazy crossed his mind again.
Eric whipped around in surprise, the noise right behind him. But as he turned, his foot caught on the carpet and sent him banging into the bookcase.
“Shhhh!” Mrs. Kim said. “If you can’t be quiet, then you’ll have to leave.”
It was so close Eric felt he could almost reach out and touch it.
Then, though he knew it was impossible, the air
Not like a breeze you could feel. He could actually
As the last of the sucking sound faded, the air jiggled then collapsed back to normal.
Eric reached out and put his hand through the area where it had been. There was nothing there.
Had he been seeing things? Had he–
The air bubble shot out again, coming straight at him. He fell backwards onto the floor but it stopped just inches from where he’d been standing and hovered there. As he scrambled back to his feet, he could see it wasn’t round like he’d initially thought. It was more like a box — a foot long, maybe a little less than that wide, and about two inches thick — but definitely a box.
Once more it snapped back and disappeared.
Eric reached out again, this time halting just short of where the box had been.
The air rushed out so quickly it knocked into his fingers before he could pull them away. What he saw had to have been an illusion. There was something solid inside, something definitely not, well, air-like.
The box pushed out further.
It was sticking out at least three feet from where it had started, warping the air around it. Then the box began to vibrate up and down, up and down, up and down. Faster and faster and faster.
Gurgly.
The air split open and the whole building began to shake.
As Eric grabbed the bookcase so he wouldn’t fall down, he could hear yelps of surprise from the other side.
Then, when the shaking reached its height, a book shot out from the rip in the air.
The moment it landed on the ground at Eric’s feet, the gurgly suck stopped.
2
“Everyone, please remain calm,” Mrs. Kim called out. “It was just a small earthquake. Please return to what you were doing and keep your voices down. This is still a library.”
A
He looked around, expecting to see books covering the floor, but the only book on the ground was the one that had popped out of the air.
The rip it had come through was gone now and everything looked normal again, like nothing had ever happened. Cautiously, he waved his hand through the area where the bubble had been.
Nothing. Just your average, everyday air.
He knelt down next to the book. It was one of those old-fashioned phone books nobody he knew used any more. Thick, with yellow-colored pages.
When it hit the floor, it had fallen open to the “T” section — Trailers in the upper left, and Trucking in the lower right. In the middle of the right-hand page was an ad surrounded by a thick red border. Though he knew it was impossible, the ad seemed to be glowing.
ARE YOU FORGETTING THINGS?
LOSING THINGS?
ARE PEOPLE YOU KNOW ACTING STRANGE?
IS SOMEONE CLOSE TO YOU MISSING???
DO YOU FEEL LIKE THINGS ARE BEYOND YOUR CONTROL?
ARE YOU IN…
Help Is Standing By
Call 678768253
This is a Free Call. In fact, you won’t pay a cent for anything. EVER.
TFS
TROUBLE FAMILY SERVICES
THE TROUBLESHOOTING EXPERTS
Eric stared at the page. It was like the ad had been written especially for him. Yes, he’d been forgetting things. Yes, some of his stuff had gone missing. Yes, there were plenty of people around him acting strange. Yes, even if his father said his mom was on a business trip, it felt to Eric like she was missing. And, yes, yes, yes, he felt like his life had suddenly spun out of his control.
How could it
Maybe this was the final proof that his mind was slipping. He’d obviously been hearing things no one else heard. Couldn’t he just as easily be seeing things?
Slowly, he extended his index finger and lowered it toward the book. He’d all but convinced himself it wasn’t really there and that his finger wouldn’t stop until it hit the carpet.
But he touched paper, not carpet. Thin, phone-book-type paper.
Curious now, he flipped back several pages and stopped. He was still in the Ts. In fact, he was still on the same Trailers-to-Trucking pages he’d been on, complete with the same glowing ad. He looked through some more. Same. Same. Same. The whole thick directory just a repeat of the Trailers-to-Trucking page. And the ad.
As his hand rested on the open book, he felt the page beneath his palm start to rip. He was alarmed for a moment until he realized the page was meant to be removed.
Carefully, he tore the rest of it out.
The book started vibrating, then the carpet sucked it into the floor like it was being flushed down a high- powered toilet. And like that, it was gone.
Eric was left kneeling in the otherwise empty aisle, staring at an empty spot on the carpet, the torn page in his hand.
“There you are.”
He looked over his shoulder. Maggie was standing at the far end of the aisle, but she wasn’t alone. Peter Garr was lurking right behind her.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
Had she seen the book disappear?
He was about to ask her when she said, “Did the earthquake knock you down?”
