The Starlight Watchmaker by Lauren James

Author:Lauren James
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781781129159
Publisher: Barrington Stoke

CHAPTER 5

Hugo, Dorian and Ada went straight to the library. All of them were silent – too scared of what might be about to happen to talk. Dorian and Ada used their student IDs to enter the library. Hugo hid behind Ada, so that the guards didn’t see him. His ID didn’t give him access to the library.

Once they were safely inside, they walked to the western corner of the library, searching for any sign of the entrance that the androids had been talking about.

“It must be a hidden entrance,” Dorian said, rubbing his chin. “They said they normally take the lift, but it’s broken.”

Hugo was too distracted by the library to pay attention. It had glass walls and ceilings that were dripping with moisture to keep the books watered.

The library was full of different bushes and shrubs lined up in rows. To choose a book, you walked down the stacks until you found the right plant and picked one of its flowers. Each petal unfurled to become a page, and black veins on it formed writing. The longer the book, the larger and fluffier the flower, with hundreds of petals covered in writing.

You could snip the blossom and take away the book. If you pressed the flower under something heavy, it would dry out and the book would last for years. Then the plant would grow another flower for anyone else who wanted to read it.

The western part of the library was filled with huge trees stretching up to the ceiling. A librarian was pruning the branches of one of the trees, standing halfway up a ladder that was propped against the trunk.

The librarian pulled a huge nut off one of the branches and lowered it down in a basket. The nut had raised words spiralling around the outside of its shell. Hugo wondered if that kind of book was for people who didn’t have eyes.

Ada sighed, letting out a gust of steam. She touched a leaf on one of the bushes and said, “I wish I had a garden. But I need to be bigger before any plants will grow on me.”

“You could get some small plants,” Hugo suggested. “A moss, maybe? I could help you find some.” There were some fluffy brown mosses growing on the outside of his building. He could see them when he peered out of his attic window, soaking up the starlight during the day, just like he did himself.

They carried on down the path between the trees until they reached the western corner of the library. There was no obvious sign of any doors or staircases.

“Let’s split up and look,” Dorian suggested.

Hugo took the right‑hand path, walking past a student who was working at a desk. The desk was made out of a living tree, with four branches bending down to the floor and a flat trunk on top.

Hugo was so amazed by the desk that he almost walked right over a manhole cover set into the ground. It was only when he tripped over it that he stopped and looked down.

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