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find the full text online. The Internet is wonderful that way.”
    “No, I'm afraid I need the actual book. It's a play, part of the Harvard Classics, called
The School for Scandal
.”
    Mrs. Overmeyer's face brightens instantly. “My word. No one's asked for that since—”
    “It's by—”
    “Yes, I know. Sheridan. Richard Brinsley Sheridan. He was born in me hometown of Dublin. Not too many people reading him these days. Are you interested in him? Or just that play in particular?”
    “Well, both, kind of. But mostly that play. Do you know where it is?”
    “Well,
if we
still have it—that is, if it didn't get ruined when the basement flooded a few years back—and if it didn't get tossed out by someone else, then it would still be in the storage area in the basement. When do you need it?”
    “Now-ish?”
    “Well, if you really need it in a hurry, my best advice is to head for the public library on Sixty-seventh, between First and Second. They can get it for you.” Mrs. Overmeyer sees the disappointment on our faces and adds, “I'm sorry, but I'm not allowed to let you into the storage area by yourselves. Sister Bernadette would hang me by me thumbs.”
    “What if a teacher went with us?” I know just who to ask.
    “If you can find a teacher to go down in that god forsaken place and help you look for a moldy old book, then God love ye. Might I ask why it's so important that you find
that
book?”
    “Mrs. Overmeyer,” Margaret begins, leaning over the counter, “do you remember a girl named Caroline Chance? She would have been here—”
    “Of course I remember Miss Chance. It must be ten, no, more than that, must be fifteen years or more since she was here.” She has a quizzical look on her face. “Why do you ask?”
    Margaret and I look at each other, unsure of how much to reveal. “We met someone, someone who—who used to know her,” Margaret says. “And she asked us to do a favor for her.”
    “Her mother?”
    “How did you know?”
    “Just a hunch. I see her around every now and again. 'Tis a shame about her and Caroline.”
    “So you know all about the—”
    Mrs. Overmeyer nods. “Sure, I know about them. The family was very closely connected to St. Veronica's—Caroline's grandfather was on the board for many years before he passed on, and her father, Mr. Malcolm Chance, still is. Is this book you're looking for somehow related to this favor ye mentioned?”
    “Kind of,” Margaret says. “We're looking for something, but without really knowing what we're looking for.”
    “And we saw that she had signed your yearbook,” I add, pointing to the shelf where the book rested. “She said something about how you had helped her with a lit project, and something else about RBS and
The School for Scandal
.”
    “We just want to see it, to see if she, I don't know, wrote something in the margin or something. We're just,uh, curious. So, it's okay if we go down to the basement to look for it, as long as we have a teacher with us?”
    “It's okay with me, girls,” she says with a condescending smile, “but I wouldn't bet me teeth on finding anything.”
    We are
always
being underestimated.

In which Otto Frank provides moral
guidance, and mold spores are redeemed
    It is a book we are looking for, after all, and Mr. Eliot loves books
almost
as much as I do. Well, there's that and the fact that we weren't going to leave him alone until he agreed. And so he's now leading the way into the dimly lit, hot, funky-smelling basement, piled from floor to ceiling with rapidly disintegrating cartons of God-knows-what. There are twenty-five or thirty cartons, all of about the same size and vintage, and none of them have labels. We're just going to have to dig in.
    Twenty minutes later, a dust-covered Mr. Eliot shouts, “Eureka! The Harvard Classics,” and holds up a green, slightly moldy leather-bound book as proof of his discovery. “Volume thirty-three,
Voyages and Travels
.”
    Margaret, Rebecca,