In the school library, David discovers that objects come alive after dark. A talking bookmark and a brave pencil draw him toward a hidden mystery among the shelves.
The old school library was always the quietest room in the building, but David had heard the rumours anyway. Some children swore they had listened to whispers there after dark. Others said they had heard a little burst of laughter between the shelves. David liked books, so the stories only made the library seem more interesting.
One rainy afternoon, when most of the school had emptied out, he stayed behind to look through atlases and encyclopaedias. The librarian was busy sorting papers at her desk and told him he could keep reading for a while longer. David settled at a table near the windows, with rain tapping softly against the glass.
Then something stirred in his pencil case.
At first he thought it had slipped off the table, but the pencil inside was trembling all by itself. David unzipped the case and stared. His favourite pencil, the one with the red eraser, gave a tiny hop and rolled upright. Before he could speak, a bookmark slid out from under the atlas. It had a cat printed on one side, and the cat seemed to blink right at him.
"About time," said the bookmark. "We were starting to think you’d never notice."
David’s mouth fell open. The pencil tipped toward him as if in a hurried bow. "If you want the real secret of this library," it said, "you need to trust us."
The bookmark flicked its corner toward the far end of the room. "Not a word to anyone else. Especially not the librarian."
David looked over his shoulder. The lamps above the shelves flickered once, then again. A cold little shiver ran through the room. The bookcases gave a soft creak, as if they were shifting closer together, and a narrow space opened between them where there had been only wall a moment before.
From deep inside the shelves came a whispering sound.
"David," said the bookmark, much more quietly now, "if you’re coming, you’d better come now."