Free Evil Librarian by Michelle Knudsen

shout nearby, and I jerk out of my spirally reverie. I look up to see Ryan and one of his friends. Ryan’s the one shouting. At the friend. Who is kind of just drifting along, not paying attention to him. As I watch, he grabs Jorge’s arm — I think that’s his name — and spins him around to face him. Jorge stands there, looking at Ryan but not really seeming to see him. Like Leticia hadn’t really seemed to see me. Ryan drops his books and pushes Jorge. Jorge stumbles back and shakes his head a little. Then he starts drifting forward again like nothing happened, right past Ryan. Ryan shouts after him but doesn’t try to grab him again. Was Jorge one of the students I saw in the library earlier? I think maybe he was. He doesn’t seem to be snapping out of it as easily as De Luca did.
Because the librarian got Jorge, and only Annie got De Luca, and Annie’s effect is only a shadow of what Mr. Gabriel’s is.
    I think that must be true.
    At least for now,
my mind whispers relentlessly.
    Shut up!
I scream at it.
You don’t even know what you’re talking about! None of this makes any goddamn sense!
    My mind shuts up.
    Ryan stands there for another minute, staring unhappily after his friend. Then he turns and sees me. For a moment we just stand there looking at each other. Then he picks up his books and walks over to me.
    “Hey,” he says.
    “Hey,” I say back. “So, um . . . that was weird, huh? With Jorge?”
    “You saw that, huh? Yeah. I don’t know what’s wrong with him today.”
    I sit back down on the bench, making sure to leave plenty of inviting empty space beside me. The sun is shining down behind Ryan, giving him a backlit Greek-god quality. I squint up at him. “You know it’s not just Jorge, right?”
    He stands there a moment more, then sits beside me. His leg is mere inches from my own. He scratches at a corner of a textbook.
    “Yeah,” he says after a minute. “I guess a lot of people were acting strange today. What do you think is going on?”
    He turns to look at me. There are so many things I want to say.
An evil librarian is taking over the school. He appears to be making my best friend his special evil library monitor. I am afraid that he knows that I suspect him. I am also afraid that if this craziness continues, the school community will never get to experience your portrayal of Sweeney Todd, which I think would be a terrible crime. Also, I would like to kiss you.
    Instead I say, “You mean the whole thing with everyone spacing out and wandering around like zombies?”
    For a second Ryan seems about to laugh, but then he doesn’t.
    “Yeah,” he says. “What’s that about?”
    In that moment, I know I am going to try to tell him. I say a silent apology to my future self, since I’m fairly certain the tenuous connection Ryan and I have established between us since my hallway tackle is about to crumble into sad and tattered bits of broken dreams.
    “I have a theory,” I say hesitantly.
    “You do?”
    “It’s going to sound crazy.”
    “Okay.”
    “But I’m going to tell you anyway.”
    He nods encouragingly. “Bring it.”
    “Have you, um, met the new librarian?”
    Ryan’s eyebrows seem to climb very high up onto his forehead. “Is he . . . very boring? Do you think he is boring everyone into this permanently glassy-eyed state?”
    I smile uncertainly. He thinks I am kidding. “Um, not exactly.”
    He waits. I take yet another deep breath.
    “I don’t think he’s exactly, um, a regular kind of person.”
    Ryan takes this in for a moment. “I’m not sure I know where you’re going with this, Cyn. Maybe you should just come out and say it, whatever it is.”
    I bite my lip, look away, look back at him, look at the distant horizon. Finally I look down and say, “I think he’s some kind of monster or demon or psychic vampire or something, and he’s slowly sucking the life force out of all of the students in the school. Or, you know, something like