Steinbeck’s Ghost by Lewis Buzbee

was born. I mean, we’re only a few miles from the ocean. Please tell me you like sushi.”
    Miss Babb looked from the stacks of envelopes and flyers to Travis, back again.
    “You’re on,” she said.
    Travis showed her what to do. One of them would take the envelopes out of the boxes, and stack them so that the flaps were open and tiered like escalator steps. The other would take small stacks of flyers, five or ten, and fold them into threes, but not too creased. The top flyer would slip off easily enough, then it could be zipped into the top envelope. Wet paper towels from the rest room were faster for sealing the envelopes, and no one ended up with the dreaded “mint- glue mouth.” When a stack of envelopes was done, Travis would flat-ten it, putting in the final creases, and when all of the envelopes were done, they would add the mailing labels.
    Travis set up two stations to run his system.
    “Piece of cake,” Miss Babb said. She was obviously delighted, relieved.
    “Piece of sushi, you mean.”
    “I give. You win. Sushi it is.”
    The flyers flew and the envelopes enveloped, and Travis and Miss Babb talked about, well, about everything—the library and the weather and new movies and old movies. Pretty soon they were deep into the mailing.
    While they ate—California rolls with crab and avocado, and unagi nigiri, Travis’s favorite, broiled eel on a piece of sticky rice and wrapped with a seaweed belt—Travis spelled out his idea for the benefit reading.
    “Funny you should mention it,” Miss Babb said. “I was just thinking the same thing today. Now I know it’s a good idea. If you had it, too, it’s gotta be good.”
    He showed her the list of writers he’d drawn up. There were twenty- three so far, all of whom lived between Salinas and San Francisco. He figured at least four or five of them would come to their aid.
    “We may think alike,” she said. “But you actually do the work. This is great, Travis.”
    “The only one I couldn’t find,” he said, munching his last piece of unagi, “is Ernest Oster. I’d love to invite him, he’d be perfect. I mean his book is all about Steinbeck and everything, and he’d be great, I just know it. But I can’t find anything.”
    “Yes, that is a shame.”

    The library closed at eight on Tuesdays, and to night was emptied and locked up by 8:05. Only Travis and Miss Babb remained. It was cool being in the library alone in the dark. Creepy, but cool.
    In the fourth grade Travis’s favorite book was
From the Mixed- up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
by E. L. Konigsburg. He read it at least five times and did a huge book report on it, including a diorama that showed James and Claudia sleeping in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. James and Claudia had sneaked into the museum, having run away from their home in Connecticut in search of adventure—Claudia’s idea— and hid out in the museum for an entire week, sleeping in a four- hundred- year- old bed that probably belonged to a king. For baths, they splashed around in a big fountain, then scooped up all the coins museum- goers had thrown into it for luck.
    Even though nothing too exciting happened in the book—the paintings did not come to life, there were no ghosts or zombies—Travis loved it. He used to dream about being alone in a big museum at night. Being here in the library now was pretty close; he felt sneaky, adventurous.
    “Okay,” Miss Babb said. “It’s time to have some fun.”
    She hauled out a beige, cloth- covered suitcase and opened it. Inside was a turntable; Travis recognized it from his father’s old record albums. Miss Babb was always busy, always doing something, but now that the library had closed and they were alone, she seemed both more relaxed and more full of energy somehow. She was practically dancing as she set everything up.
    “This is a record player,” she said. “A little bit of the old magic. And this,” she said, slipping a big black plate