Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians

Smedry said eagerly. “Yes, yes, this improves our chances! Come, lad, we have to get moving.” He turned and left the room again, carrying his briefcase and rushing eagerly down the stairs.
    “Wait!” I cried, chasing after the old man. However, when I reached the doorway, I paused.
    There was a car parked on the curb outside. An old car. Now, when you read the words old car , you likely think of a beat-up or rusted vehicle that barely runs. A car that is old, kind of in the same way that cassette tapes are old.
    This was not such a car. It was not old like cassette tapes are old – it wasn’t even old like records are old. No, this car was old like Beethoven is old. Or, at least, so it seemed. To me – and, likely, to most of you living in the Hushlands – the car looked like an antique. Kind of like a Model-T.
    But that was just my assumption.
    The point is that many times, the first thing a person presumes about something – or someone – is inaccurate. Or, at the very least, incomplete. Take the young Alcatraz Smedry, for instance. After reading my story up to this point, you have probably made some assumptions. Perhaps you’re – despite my best efforts – feeling a bit of sympathy for me. After all, orphans usually make very sympathetic heroes.
    Perhaps you think that my habit of using sarcasm is simply a method of hiding my insecurity. Perhaps you’ve decided that I wasn’t a cruel boy, just a very confused one. Perhaps you’ve decided, despite my feigned indifference, I didn’t like breaking things.
    Obviously, you are a person of very poor judgment. I would ask you to kindly refrain from drawing conclusions that I don’t explicitly tell you to make. That’s a very bad habit, and it makes authors grumpy.
    I was none of those things. I was simply a mean boy who didn’t really care whether or not he burned down kitchens. And that mean boy was the one who stood on the doorstep, watching Grandpa Smedry waving eagerly for him to follow.
    Now, perhaps I’ll admit that I felt just a little bit of longing. A… wishfulness, you might say. Getting a package that claimed to be from my parents had made me remember days long ago – before I realized how foolish I was being – when I had yearned to know my real parents. Days when I had longed to find someone who had to love me, if only because they were related to me.
    Fortunately, I had outgrown those feelings. My moment of weakness passed quickly, and I slammed the door closed and locked the old man outside. Then I went to the kitchen to get some breakfast.
    That, however, is when someone drew a gun on me.

Chapter 3
    I’d like to take this opportunity to point out something important. Should a strange old man of questionable sanity show up at your door – suggesting that he is your grandfather and that you should accompany him upon some quest of mystical import – you should flatly refuse him.
    Don’t take his candy either.
    Unfortunately, as you will soon see, I was quickly forced to break this rule. Please don’t hold it against me. It was done under duress. I’m really not used to being shot at.
    I walked tiredly into the kitchen – which still smelled of smoke – hoping that the strange old man wouldn’t take to pounding on the door. I didn’t really want to call the police on him – not only would I likely break the telephone in the process (I’m particularly bad with phones) but I really didn’t want the old loon carted away in a police car. That would have been –
    “Alcatraz Smedry?” a voice suddenly asked.
    I jumped, turning from the half-burned cupboard, a box of cornflakes in my hand. A man stood in the doorway behind me, wearing slacks and a button-down shirt. I frowned, realizing that I recognized the symbol on the man’s shirt pocket and standard-issue attaché case. He was a foster care caseworker – this was the man that Ms. Fletcher had sent to pick me up from the house. I realized that when I’d originally gone chasing the old man up to my room, I’d left the front door open. The caseworker must have come in looking for me while I was upstairs chatting with the lunatic.
    “Hi,” I said, putting down the box. “I’ll be ready in a bit – let me have breakfast first.”
    “You’re him, then?” the caseworker asked, adjusting his horn-rimmed glasses. “The Smedry kid?”
    I nodded.
    “Good,” the man said, then pulled a gun out of his attaché case and raised it toward me. It had a silencer on the