After Lights-Out

Tommie Stone is turning twelve and orchestrates an overnight sleepover inside the historic library under the guise of an 'interdisciplinary reading project'. Mr. Bartlett signs the form, Mr. Halász is the second supervisor, and Mrs. Halloway takes the traffic camera offline from eleven p.m. to four a.m. Lola's family life is also shifting: her mother formally announces she is dating Gabriel, which Lola accepts on the condition of his continued kindness. The sleepover features a smuggled foosball table and Tommie's loud, whispered 'Formula One style' commentary. But at exactly eleven thirty-four p.m., the main library lights cut out because the corridor power is severed from the outside . Through the heavy sliding wooden door slips Dr. Vera Lindsay, the recently retired chief archivist, wearing a green parka over pajama bottoms and a fish hat . She brings hot chocolate and delivers the legendary fifth page of Louisa Ivybridge's diary into Lola's hands . The page contains a stark contract: 'Whoever finds this page can no longer turn back.'Sitting cross-legged on the floor, Lola accepts the charge. Dr. Lindsay reveals that the key to Room 17 has been hidden since November 1893 inside a hollow chamber behind a removable stone marked with a tiny carved ivy leaf on the back of the second-courtyard stone planter. But a terrifying variable drops: Mr. Halász reveals that Marcus Wenckheim's contractors moved the courtyard camera feed to his private corporate security firm six days ago.An open approach with tools will trigger an alarm. Rae formulates the brilliant counter-strategy: the girls will sit on the planter every single lunch break, eat their sandwiches, and blend into background data noise. On Monday morning, Lola leans casually against the cold stone, her gloved fingers secretly detecting the tiny horizontal seam of the removable stone block. The heist is officially live.