“Jessica, did you use one of the computers to try to locate the book before you came up here? Ms. Scanlon asked.

“Yes,” she replied. “I always do.”

“Did you look to see if someone put it back out of order?”

“I looked, honest!”

The book in question, Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, was one of Sarah Scanlon’s favorites. The school library had six copies. It seemed impossible that all six had been checked out during the two days she was away at a conference.

  “The book you want is in the memoir and biography section.”

“It’s not there, I swear.”

Alarm bells went off in Sarah’s head. Quickly, she made a visual scan of the library. There were more open spaces. She’d been so busy catching up on paperwork , she hadn’t noticed.

She hurried from behind the check-out desk to the memoir section. All six copies were gone! Other memoirs , biographies, and autobiographies appeared to also be missing. She rushed back to her computer and entered several titles. They all showed zero copies in the library and zero copies were currently checked out. The books were no longer there.

Jessica looked up at her anxiously.

“I’ll have to check and see if they’ve been removed for repairs. Not every student is as careful with their library books as you, Jessica. Can one of your parents take you to the Public Library after school? I can call the head librarian and request they put a copy aside, but they’ll only hold it for twenty-four hours.”

“I only live a block away from the library. I promise to get it tonight.”

Sarah dialed the library with her cell phone and asked for Leslie Parker, the head librarian.

“Leslie, It’s Sarah at Oakfield Middle School. I need you to put aside a copy of Diary of a Young Girl. It’s for a student here, Jessica Lewis. We seem to be missing all six copies. I’ll call you back during my lunch break after I do some investigating. I was away at a conference, but it looks like it’s happening.”

“Sarah, you didn’t call me, and this conversation never happened. Mr. or Mrs. Lewis must have called to reserve the book for themselves. What are their first names?”

“What? Why? Hold on I’ll ask her.”

She put her hand over the receiver.

“Jessica, will you be going with your dad or your mom?”

“I’m not sure. Probably my dad.”

“There will be a copy at the Adult desk. One of them needs to check it out. What are their names?”

“Frank and Julia,” she answered. “Ms. Scanlon what’s going on?”

Sarah relayed the information, thanked the other librarian, and hung up the phone.

“There’s a copy at the adult desk for Frank or Julia Lewis. I wasn’t allowed to reserve it in your name. You need to find another book for silent reading time.”

Jessica was about to protest, but she could tell by the tone of Ms. Scanlon’s voice that she shouldn’t ask any questions, and she should keep this to herself.

Ms. Scanlon looked upset, and she used her cell phone instead of the library phone to make the call. Something was definitely going on. She wondered if it had anything to do with the school board members who visited the school on Thursday and Friday. She saw them going into the principal’s office on her way to gym class on Thursday and on the way to Industrial Arts on Friday. Come to think of it, Dr. Hawes didn’t look happy.

Sarah waited for the class to check out their books and leave before taking a walk around the stacks.

Dorothy Robbins was the substitute librarian. Sarah gave her a quick call.

“Dee, it’s Sarah Scanlon. What happened at the library while I was gone?”

“I wanted to call you, but Dr. Hawes warned me not to. I’m sorry. He brought a group of school board members down here with a list of book titles they wanted removed from the shelves pending review. They made me help them.”

“They came into my library and took books off my shelves??!!”

My library….my shelves.

Sarah knew how presumptuous that sounded. It wasn’t her library. It belonged to the taxpayers whose money built and maintained the school and stocked the shelves with books for the children to read. One thing she was certain of… it didn’t belong to random school board members who met behind closed doors and plotted to censor what children could read based on a small group of people’s religious and political ideologies.

Every book in this library or classroom was here because curriculum leaders on the committee deemed it to be age appropriate and have merit for middle schoolers. As head librarian, she served on the committee and shared her insights.

“Where did they take the books?”

“They had Mr. Jenkins put them in a storage room in the basement pending review to make sure they comply with the governor’s new standards.”

“Who is reviewing them?”

“You’ll have to ask Dr, Hawes because no one would tell me anything.”

Sarah hung up and dialed Walter Stevens the head librarian at Lincoln Middle School.

“Hi Walter, it’s Sarah. Did anything strange happen at your school while we were at the conference?

“If you mean did someone strip a bunch of books off my shelves while I was gone? Yes. I assume that’s why you dialed my cell instead of the library phone and the same thing happened at Oakfield.”

“It did. I was so busy catching up on paperwork, I didn’t notice at first.”

“Me too. Does the timing seem at all suspicious to you? They warned us, but I never believed it would actually happen. I’m looking over my shoulder for Big Brother as we speak. I need this job, but I also need to be able to look these kids in the eye when they ask me why the book they want is no longer in our library. According to a memo from the Governor’s office, we can’t even tell these kids where they can find a copy of one of the books on the list.”

“I didn’t see any memo.”

“It came snail mail in a pretentious envelope from the governor’s office. I opened mine a few minutes ago.”

“Thanks, I’ll call you tonight, Walter.”

Sarah rushed into her office. After finding the envelope she hastily tore it open and began reading.

She felt sick and angry. The letter was filled with threats of being terminated, fined, or even jailed for failing to comply with  the governor’s new morality standards to protect children from profanity, sexually explicit material, or subversive ideas. The criteria for determining what constituted each prohibition was purposely vague. A man named Colton Sedgeworth had been put in charge of the governor’s new committee for protecting students from dangerous books filled with dangerous ideas.

To defy the governor was to risk livelihood and liberty, To comply was to violate everything sacred about being a librarian. Sarah walked around the stacks. In her mind, the missing books were there like a phantom limb.

She summoned up her courage and made the first call.

“It’s Sarah, Project B has begun. You know the assignment.”