The Wells Bequest Read Free Page B

the public library with a beat-up chair to sprawl in.
    It’s a good book. The hero, an inventor, builds a time machine and uses it to travel to the distant future, where humans have evolved into two separate species—the happy, peaceful Eloi and the downtrodden, apelike Morlocks. The Morlocks catch him and he almost doesn’t escape. The story gets pretty exciting, but what excited me most was the time machine. The description sounded a lot like the one I’d seen.
    I read it carefully, looking for hints about how to build it, but the book didn’t really give any. While I was at the library, I also checked out books about science to get ideas for my project.
    On Wednesday, I found myself walking through misty drizzle to the address Ms. Kang had given me. I’d finally decided to do my project on the history of robots. Maybe I could use some ideas from old technology to build a new model—that might be more fun than just writing a paper. As long as my model didn’t go crazy and decide to kill all humans.
    The building was a row house on the Upper East Side with a brass plaque beside the door that read
The New-York Circulating Material Repository.
I pulled open the heavy doors. Inside was a big room, way wider than the house itself.
    I stood in the entryway staring around me, trying to figure out how the inside could be bigger than the outside. It bothered me so much, the feeling seemed almost physical. It felt like an itch.
    A girl a little older than me was sitting behind a big wooden desk reading a book. She looked up. “You look lost,” she said. “Can I help you?”
    â€œI hope so,” I said. “I’m doing a history-of-science project, and my teacher said there were old scientific instruments here?”
    â€œYou’d better ask the reference librarian. Go up to the top floor and follow the signs for the catalog room. Elevator’s that way.”
    â€œThanks.”
    â€œSure.” She went back to her book.
    I took the creaky old elevator and walked down a long hallway to a door marked
Catalog Room.
It opened onto a wide room with high, arched skylights. The sky was bright blue with fluffy white clouds bouncing around it—the kind of clouds angels sit on in Christmas cards.
    But wait—wasn’t it raining outside? I hadn’t seen any sign of the rain letting up. Was my mind playing tricks on me—was this more evidence of Loopy Leo?
    A broad beam of sunlight shot through the skylight and fell on a desk where a man was filing cards in a box. It looked almost on purpose, like a spotlight aimed at the desk.
    Rows and rows of wooden drawers lined the walls, with big, thick books on shelves above them. One man had pulled out a drawer and was flicking through the cards inside it. A woman was standing on a ladder, reaching for one of the big books. I didn’t see any computers anywhere.
    I paused in the doorway. Which of the people was the reference librarian?
    I randomly picked the one in the sun. “Excuse me,” I asked, keeping my voice down, the way librarians like. “Are you . . . is there a reference librarian here?”
    â€œThat’s me,” he said. “What can I do for you?” He was short, with broad shoulders and crinkly eyes. He had a slight Spanish accent. He looked like he’d just finished laughing and might start again any second.
    â€œI’m doing a history-of-science project, and my teacher told me I could find historic robots here,” I said.
    â€œNice,” he said. “Did your teacher explain about the repository?”
    â€œShe said it was like a library, only with objects instead of books. She said you would have different robots I could compare.”
    â€œThat’s right. We have plenty of robots.”
    â€œSo where do you keep them?” Clearly not in this room. The drawers were way too small.
    â€œDownstairs on Stack 5, mostly, but the public’s not