Work Text:
Some like it hot. Lily Evans does not. In fact, she is firmly of the belief that Toronto in mid-July is the most miserable place on Earth, with the possible exception of the inside of Jordan Peterson’s head. But honestly, it’s a toss up.
The city feels like the inside of a runner’s shoe. It is unbearably hot. It is suspiciously moist. And it smells like feet. Subway stations belch throngs of sweaty passengers up onto the street. The sidewalks, parks, and swimming pools are overrun with screaming children being chased by exhausted babysitters. And every major road is a cacophony of clanging jackhammers and whining saws because, as her dad likes to joke, there are only two seasons in Toronto: Winter, and Construction.
This year, to add an additional shot of suckiness to the cocktail of horrible that is this season, her sister is home from university for the summer, making the Evans’ small apartment feel much, much smaller. And so, Lily has been spending as much time as possible away from home.
On this particular day, she is walking through Roncesvalles Village, where her friend Mary lives. Mary, however, is not in Roncy. She, and the rest of Lily’s friends, have fled the city and abandoned her. Mary is working as camp counsellor at Glen Bernard, the camp she has gone to every year since she was six, Marlene is on a congratulations-for-graduating! trip to France and then Germany, and Dorcas is visiting her father’s family in China.
Having been preoccupied with school and university applications and extracurriculars, Lily had not had the foresight, or the time, to make concrete summer plans. Which is why she now finds herself hot and restless and wandering the city.
She comes upon the tall black-and-white lettering of the She Said Boom! sign. She Said Boom! is a delightfully crowded, colourful, book-and-vinyl store located in the heart of Roncy. It is deep and narrow with buttery yellow walls and dark green shelves that were jam-packed with books Lily has never heard of. Small signs hang from the ceilings indicating the subjects of the books shelved beneath them in different fonts. The store is simultaneously serious and whimsical. Homey and full of mysteries.
Lily pushes open the door and lets out a sigh of relief as the blast of the air conditioning hits her, drying the sweat that had collected on her upper lip and forehead. The store is empty except for the clerk who sits hunched over the counter doing the crossword. He doesn’t look up as Lily begins to make her way to the back of the shop, turning sideways so that her backpack doesn’t hit the display of books on the center table.
When she reaches the fiction section, she tilts her head to read the titles. The Beguiling is a good title she thinks, tracing her fingers along the neatly arranged spines. She pauses on a dark red spine. It has no title. She eases the book off the shelf and realizes that it is not a book at all, but a notebook.
A thin gold ribbon peeks out from the bottom. On the cover, there is a piece of masking tape with a little wrinkle in the middle. Someone has written on the tape in blocky capital letters: DO YOU DARE?
The next move here is obvious. If a notebook asks you if you dare, you open it. And then you do what the notebook tells you to.
She flips it open.
I have left you some clues.
If you want them, turn the page.
If not, please return the notebook to the shelf.
The handwriting is a boy’s. It is big and rushed and the ends of the letters overlap a little bit. She turns the page.
Welcome.
Clue One: Find what’s Divine in children’s literature.
Libba Bray is your gal.
16/12/8
16/16/2
She feels a little jolt of recognition. The Diviners by Libba Bray. Prohibition-era New York. Speakeasies and Ziegfeld girls. Supernatural powers and murder. It was a middle-school favourite.
She rushes over to the children’s section looking for the book’s deep purple spine, spotting it on a high shelf between Secrets of Truth and Beauty and The Jumbies. She reaches up to grab it but can’t quite reach. She wonders absently whether notebook boy is tall. Standing on her toes and using the shelf in front of her to balance, she slowly eases the book forward with one finger until it is within reach.
Victory! Ok, now to decode the numbers. Her first instinct is to say they are dates. December 16, 2008. And… well assuming notebook boy and Lily are using the same old-fashioned Gregorian calendar, there is no 16th month.
She decides to try page/line/word. Page 16, line 12, word 8. Then, line 16, word 2. Aha!
Are. You.
She feels a little bit giddy having found these first words. Is she what? She’s itching to find out. She flips the page.
Let’s pause for a second.
I’m 18. If you are around that age, please proceed.
Else, please return the notebook to the shelf.
She turned 18 in January, so that hurdle is easily cleared. She flips again.
Clue Two: pink water makes deadly avocados
6/26/4
Well, this one is… peculiar. Gardening? Cooking? Where could she even begin?
She scans the cookbooks, but to no avail. She pulls them out to see if there are pink drinks or avocados on any of the covers. Nothing. This is harder than she had anticipated.
Think, Lily. She tells herself, as she looks around the store, hoping for some sort of inspiration. Ok, time for a different approach. She puts her backpack on the ground, leaning against a shelf, and heads to the front desk. She stands there for a moment, but the clerk does not look up.
“Hi,” she says.
He holds up a finger, filling in a word. Then looks up.
“Do you… have any books on… um... avocados?” she swallows. This is ridiculous.
His lips twitch. Then he looks back down at the crossword.
“Hello?” He looks up again.
“Sorry, can’t help you”. His sandy hair flops in front of one eye. He pushes it back.
“Okay… do you know anything about pink water?”
He shakes his head. “Sorry, can’t help you” he repeats. Then he looks directly over her left shoulder. She turns and follows his gaze to the Children’s Fiction sign. When she turns back, he is looking down at the crossword again.
She grins. Thank you wannabe hipster clerk.
She starts at the bottom of the first shelf in the children’s section. Nothing. She moves up. Still nothing. She reaches the Ks when she begins to grow impatient. By the Ms, she is on the verge of writing a very rude note to this notebook boy. And then! As she halfheartedly searches the Ps, a name catches her eye. Pinkwater. Daniel Pinkwater. There is a whole stretch of a shelf dedicated to his books. Borgel. Lizard Music. Fat Men from Space. The Hoboken Chicken Emergency. And there squeezed against the end of the shelf, pulled out slightly, is The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death.
Oh notebook boy, you really thought you could get me with this one, didn’t you?
She flips to the appropriate page, and counts downwards. Looking.
She opens the notebook again.
I’m impressed. I’m also feeling generous. I’ll give the next two words to you.
for a
Is she looking for a what?
She flips again.
Clue Three: a long-ass journey, but in hexameter
35/329/5
This one she knows. She pushes her way through shelves until she reaches the Classics section, and scans the shelves. She pulls it out. The Odyssey.
She flips, counts, and finds. Magical.
Colour her intrigued. She returns to the notebook.
Clue Four (last one!): Main display, Benjy’s rec
3/23/8
245/11/6
She rushes to the front display, where books are arranged on little stands with brightly coloured sticky notes indicating the staff member who recommended them. She looks at the names. Minerva, Emmeline, Davey, Benjy. She grabs the book - The Devil in the White City. Another good title, she thinks. She finds the first word, Summer, then the next, Adventure.
Are you looking for a magical summer adventure?
You bet I am, notebook boy, she thinks. She feels a little rush of excitement, proud of herself for having found all the clues, and itching to find what comes next.
She returns to the notebook.
Well. Here we are.
What we do next is up to you.
If you wish to continue this conversation,
please leave a CD of your choosing at the front desk with Benjy.
Leave your email address on a slip of paper inside.
If you ask Benjy and questions about me,
he will not pass on your CD.
If you do these things, you will likely hear from me shortly.
Sincerely,
Prongs
Suddenly summer in the city is looking up. She is suddenly glad she is not at camp like Mary, or halfway around the world like Marlene or Dorcas.
She does not want to think too hard about her CD choice. If she thinks too hard, she is certain to think forever, and stay in the store until the end of time. Which would not bode well for her potential magical adventure with Prongs. So she grabs a CD rather impulsively -- Better Daughter by Moscow Apartment.
As she looks at the stack of books balanced against her hip and the notebook clutched in her hand, she decides not to leave her email. She opens the CD case, and slips something else in instead. Then she hands the CD to the clerk, who takes it without a word. Then she reshelves the books she has taken out.
The next step, she knows, is to leave the notebook for someone else to find. Instead, she slips the notebook into her backpack, and walks out.
Two, she decides, can play this game.