and went up to my room. As soon as I got in my room I could tell that Mom had already been there.
My bookshelf was completely empty. My “Far Side” and “Calvin and Hobbes” books were still there, and so were all my “Sports Illustrated for Kids,” but there wasn’t a single knight book left. There was a note.
Sandy—I’m sorry I had to do this, but after talking with Mr. Priestly on the phone, I knew it was time to stop all this knight business for once and for all. I’m going to take your books to the recycling center. We’ll talk about it more when I get home from my meeting.—Mom
He must have called her at work. Now what was I going to do? All the books about knights and chivalry and adventure that I’d been collecting for years were gone. All the stories about Sir Palmerin of England, about Sir Olivante de Laura and Sir Belianis, about the Knight of the Cross and the famous knight Tirante the White. She even took my favorite, the book about Amadis of Gaul.
It was as if some evil wizard had, with one swipe of his wand, made all my books vanish in a puff of smoke.
Chapter 2
In which we meet a strange knight in a strange place
I didn’t know what to do. Part of me wanted to knock my bookshelf onto the floor. It seemed as if no one understood how important those books are to me, and how important knights used to be. I knew one thing, though. I didn’t want to stay in my room any more. For all I cared, the evil wizard who had made my books disappear might as well have made my room disappear, too. I didn’t even want to be in the house. I just wanted to get outside.
Without thinking about where I was going, I started walking downtown. I was hoping I wouldn’t see any of my friends from school. They’d probably just laugh at me if I tried to explain what’d happened. I sat down on the steps of a building and began to think about Sir Edwin and Lady Hillary. Were they going to get married? What would Sir Edwin’s next challenge be? Would Hillary’s father send him off on a quest before he let him marry her?
I’ve seen what happens to stuff taken to the recycling center. It all gets shredded up and made into shopping bags. I would never see my books again, and I would never find out what was going to happen to Sir Edwin. Wikipedia thinks Sir Edwin is some guy who designs buildings.
Just about then I noticed that the people walking up and down the stairs where I was sitting were holding books in their arms. Of course! I was sitting on the steps of the public library. They’d have books about knights. My mom couldn’t stop me from reading library books, and she certainly wouldn’t take them to the recycling center. I had no idea where they would keep their books on knights, so I asked the lady at the front desk.
“Knights… Well, let’s see. You might look in the history section. Then again, maybe what you really want is the fiction section. What kind of knight books did you want?”
“You know, things like King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, and Sir Lancelot, and Sir Edwin, and Amadis of Gaul. The real stuff.”
“Oh, I see, that type of knight.” A funny look came over her face. “Why don’t you try talking with Mr. March. His desk is on the second floor.”
I went looking for Mr. March. The second floor was where they kept all the old books. I’d never been up there before, so I didn’t really know where to go. There was one big room at the top of the stairs. I looked all around the room. In one corner there was a man sitting behind a desk reading a big book with a red leather cover. He seemed kind of old—at least older than my mother. He was wearing a red sweater, but the thing I noticed most was his head. He was completely bald. When he looked up, his eyes were so gentle and sparkly it seemed as though he could see right into my thoughts.
“My, what a sad countenance!” He smiled.
“Huh?”
“Your face…it has sadness written all over it. What, pray tell, has happened?”
“Do you have any books about knights?”
“Of course I do. Is that what this grief is all about?”
“Yeah, I guess so. I used to have all these great books about knights, but my teacher and my Mom kept telling me I wasn’t supposed to read them. They said they were nothing but fantasy. My mom keeps saying there’s no such thing as knights, and that I’m wasting my time. She caught me reading one of the books at night, and my teacher caught me doing it again at school. They got together and said they were going to take all my books about knights to the recycling center. Even my favorite—the one about Sir Amadis of Gaul!”
He nodded his head and smiled. “The recycling center, eh? That must have wounded you severely.”
“I don’t know about being wounded, but I sure feel bruised and battered by it all. They had no business doing that. They were my books!”
“So now you’ve come to the library, hoping to find the same. Tell me, just why are these books so important to you?”
“Because they tell about important things about honor and dedication and chivalry and all the stuff knights used to stand for—things that people don’t believe in any more. All people think about these days is money and power. I don’t ever want to grow up and be like that. I want to find something I can believe in and strive for. That’s what knights were all about. They had something they believed in. Even if my mom and Mr. Priestly think it’s stupid, that’s what I want to be like.”
For a long time, Mr. March didn’t say anything. He just sat there looking at me, slowly tapping his fingers on the desk. Finally, he reached into a drawer and pulled out a little box. He took something out of the box and turned to look at me.
“If you’re sure that that’s what you want, then you may use this. But before you do, ask yourself if you really mean what you say, for the worst type of knight is the false knight. The true knight will stand by what he believes in and stick to his quest no matter what happens or what other people say. If you’re sure your belief is true, then this is what you’ll need.”
He held out an old key. His face had a different look on it know. Instead of smiling, his lips were pulled tight. Only the look in his eyes was the same.
It felt as though he was testing me some how. If I took the key, I would have to prove to him that I meant what I said—that I would stick to my beliefs even if my teacher got mad or my friends laughed at me. I knew deep down inside that honor and dedication were what the world needed most; that was what I was going to do. I reached out and took the key. For a key that wasn’t very big, it seemed awfully heavy. Maybe it was made of some kind of special metal.
“I believe you will find what you want in the room at the top of those stairs.” He pointed to an opening in the wall across from his desk. It’s funny, but I hadn’t noticed the opening before. I must not have looked very carefully.
The stairs were the metal kind that curved all around as you walked up them. At the top was a door with the word Errantry on it. I put the key in and turned it. As the lock made a loud click, it was almost as if I could feel something inside me click too—as if something had turned and opened.
Inside was a small room with a table and one chair. The walls were completely lined with old books—the kind Mr. March had been reading at his desk. I began to look at the books, and my heart skipped a beat. They were all about knights! I recognized a lot of them. There were the same books I used to have in my room. Now I could find out what happened to Sir Edwin and Lady Hillary.
On the table was a book that was larger and thicker than all the rest. Every time I began looking at the other books on the shelves, it seemed as though my eyes were drawn back to the one on the table. Finally I sat down and opened it.
The Adventures of the Ingenious Gentleman,
Don Quixote of La Mancha
by Miguel de Cervantes
I turned the page and began to read.
To