A Daughter's Duty

Chapter 5

"Yes, it is, Michael, usually people wake up by seven o'clock." I said. "Could you meet me right now? It's of the utmost importance. I'll tell you what's wrong when you meet me." I hung up, not allowing him to answer, because I knew that he would make some stupid excuse not to come.

I met him near the Espresso Room. I filled him in on what Sofia had told me, and his frown deepened.

"G.K.?" he asked.

"I don't know, I can't understand either." I said. "But she asked me to come to the British Library. She said I could figure it out."

"Figure what out, exactly?

"Let's find out, shall we?"

We reached the British Library, overcome by how huge it was. The main hall alone was filled with many corridors leading to different rooms which had books of different genres. We walked through the west wing, the loneliest corridor, as there were only historical and literary books there, and no one seemed interested. We went into the History room, and other than a long desk with many chairs, and shelves of all the different versions of the French Revolution, we found nothing.

The Literature room was better, with my favorite stories and plays arranged neatly. The suit of armor was within the Shakespeare section. It looked exactly like the suits of armor I had seen in movies, but this one was made in bronze, like in ancient Greek times. The pedestal on which it stood, instead of saying, 'Henry Hardinge, 1828', said, '828 ,aHriy rdien'.

"Why is it jumbled – and backwards? And why are so many letters  - and a number – missing?" asked Michael.

"I don't know," I replied. "The better question would be, why did Sofia give me the wrong information?"

"No," he said. "She gave you the right information. It is supposed to say 'Henry Hardinge, 1828', not –" He made some strange sound in an attempt to pronounce the words which made me laugh. I looked back at the number. 828... there had to be some connection...

"Got it." I said suddenly, startling Michael.

"What?"

I didn't even bother to scowl at him. "The Dewey Decimal System, Michael! The 800s... that's Literature!"

"Oh," he said, understanding dawning on his features. "Of course. So, the number 28..."

"...is a subdivision." I completed. We searched all the library shelves until we came upon the books under the subdivision 2. The books took up three entire shelves, which nearly reached up to the sky. These books were the thickest of them all.

"Great," Michael muttered. "Just great."

"What are we supposed to do now?" I asked.

"I don't know." He said. "But I think searching the shelves might give us an idea about what Sofia meant."

It took us more than four hours to separately read and sort all the books. It was a boring and tedious job, but we had to do it. I admired Michael's readiness to help me as he cleaned out all the shelves, searching for any clues, not even the least bit sure what he was looking for.

Fortunately, I had always been smarter than him.

After finishing, he came to me. "Anything?"

I smiled mischievously, and he knew that I had figured it out.

"Here, look," I said. "I figured out the entire classification. It's quite complicated. The entire marking is supposed to be H828.164."

"How?" He asked.