“Success,” the librarian shouted from the top rung of the ladder. She stood up straight waving a book and banged her head on the ceiling, climbed down with the Ways to Get to Palo Alto Book and set it before me. “In going to Palo Alto,” I read, “avoid nowhere.” So this book might be of some use to me after all, I thought. “Get on the front of a three-legged horse,” I read, “and you’ll be riding two steps backwards all the way.” “Now that’s a lot of help,” I said. “What is this you gave me — the Palo Alto Book of Riddles?” “Why? Want me to get you that book too?” Just then a man ran into the room and said “Quick hurry fast. It’s almost too fast. Maybe it is too late. Because do you have the Palo Alto Book of Riddles?” “I was just about to fetch it for Mr. Foy,” she told him. “No no no. Quick fast hurry. I mean quick hurry fast. As I’ve tried all the new bookstores. Looked through all the old bookshops. They all told me I had to buy a book called the How to Find the Palo Alto Book of Riddles Book to find the Palo Alto Book of Riddles. But that How to Find the Palo Alto Book of Riddles Book was too expensive to buy. I first had to buy a cheaper book called the How to Find and Hold a Job for a Week Book to find and hold a job for a week so I could afford the How to Find the Palo Alto Book of Riddles Book. But to pay for the How to Find and Hold a Job for a Week Book, I first had to find, hold and quit a job after a day with a day’s pay. So I borrowed my friend’s How to Find, Hold and Quit a Job after a Day with a Day’s Pay Book. I read it. Found, held and quit a job after a day with a day’s pay, and with that money bought the How to Find and Hold a Job for a Week Book. Read it. Found and held a job for a week and got paid a week’s wage for my work and went back to the bookstore to buy the How to Find the Palo Alto Book of Riddles Book. But the price of that book had gone up twenty percent in a week. So I again had to borrow my friend’s How to Find, Hold and Quit a Job after a Day with a Day’s Pay Book. Read it. Found, held and quit another job after a day with another day’s pay and now had enough money to buy the How to Find the Palo Alto Book of Riddles Book. It turned out to be a hundred blank pages, except for the two middle ones. These two pages had scrawled across them ‘To find the Palo Alto Book of Riddles, go to the Palo Alto room of the New York 42nd Street Library between the minutes of 2:15 and 2:18 pm on a windy day in a “J” month. Now,’ the scrawl continued, ‘can you satisfactorily answer these four questions? Two, is the riddles book still worth getting? Three, was it really worth all this trouble to get? And four, why couldn’t you figure out for yourself how to get the Palo Alto Book of Riddles without working so hard and paying such a ridiculously high price for the How to Find the Palo Alto Book of Riddles Book and buying and borrowing those other books?’” “Was it all worth it?” I said. “No, because I still can’t answer the four questions except for the third one which I’m answering now. Though fortunately the scrawl didn’t say that if I couldn’t answer the questions, I couldn’t get the Palo Alto Book of Riddles. But here I am. Is it too late? Don’t tell me it is, as that will waste even more time. Because fast hurry quick. I mean quick hurry fast. As it’s 2:17 and forty seconds, so I only have twenty seconds left. Now only fifteen seconds left. Now only twelve. Now eight. For time’s flying and wind’s dying and if we wait too long it won’t even be a ‘J’ month.” I told the librarian to give him the riddles book. He thanked me and looked over my shoulder at the book I was reading. “Oh, the
Ways to Get to Palo Alto Book,” he said. “I read it. Very exciting and dull, don’t you think? I especially liked the ending. So much like the beginning. Or is it the middle section I’m thinking of now and the beginning was like the end? And so quick to read and slow. And that part with the three-legged horse still makes me happy and sad.” “What do you make of that three-legged horse?” I said. “I don’t know. All the answers to the problems in the Ways to Get to Palo Alto Book are in this riddles book. I always forget what I read, but love having the tougher parts explained. So a big ‘Yes’ I can finally answer to all four of those questions in the How to Find the Palo Alto Book of Riddles Book. It is worth it. It was worth it. I never could have figured out for myself how to get the Palo Alto Book of Riddles without buying and borrowing those other books. And I can satisfactorily answer these four questions. “But that part of the Ways to Get to Palo Alto Book you’re now reading?” he said. “When the traveler gets trapped in that house with many rooms? So real and unreal. Or is it a mountain with many mountains inside that the traveler gets trapped in? Or are all those mountains inside one room? But I do remember how scared and brave I was when I read it. Which reminds me, I must leave right now. I’m afraid of library rooms. Or any kind of libraries or rooms. For as I say: ‘Many doors, too few throughs, and windows aren’t enough.’” “What’s that mean?” I said. “Beats me. Sentence I read in your Ways to Get to Palo Alto Book. Though all the answers are in my riddles book, which you can borrow when I’m done.” “How long will that be?” “Answer to that one is in my riddles book too.” He asked the librarian how to get out of the Palo Alto room. “Read page forty-two, line six of the Palo Alto Book of Riddles,” she said. He turned to page forty-two and read aloud “‘Leave through the one door.’ Good,” he said, “I’m going,” and left. I opened my Ways to Get to Palo Alto Book to the “Tips to Travelers” section. “In going to Palo Alto,” I read, “avoid sitting on a log. If you can’t avoid sitting on a log, try not to sit on one too hard. If you must sit on one too hard, don’t sit on it at all. If you must sit on it at all, avoid going to Palo Alto. If you can’t avoid going to Palo Alto, go to a different one. If there isn’t a different Palo Alto, build one. If you can’t build one, build two. If you can’t build two, have someone build them for you. If you can’t find someone to build them for you, have him build them for someone else. If he builds them for someone else, don’t have him build them with logs. If he must build them with logs, avoid sitting on one. If you can’t avoid sitting on a log, start reading from the second part of the second sentence of this paragraph.” I skipped a few pages to the section titled “Station Wagons.” “Once a day,” I read, “a station wagon leaves for Palo Alto from the Station Wagon Station. Tickets may be bought at the Station Wagon Station ticket office. Lower fares for passengers willing to share driving. Higher fares for drivers willing only to be passengers. No fares for people not willing to be passengers or drivers.” That’s for me, I thought. “So long,” I said to the librarian, who seemed to have disappeared. “And thanks very much.” “Oh Mr. Foy,” she said. “Yoo-hoo, Mr. Foy. I’m way up here.” She was on a bookshelf ladder on the third balcony, speaking to me through a megaphone and waving what looked like a book. “I found another copy of the Palo Alto Book of Riddles, Mr. Foy. Pages are yellow and torn. A rare first edition. Written by hand in the original language of the California Indians who first plotted the route centuries ago and wrote the book. If you found a very old California Indian along the way to teach you their language and sew up the pages, this book could be of some use.” “No time. Station wagon is about to go.” I ran down the library steps and across town to the Station Wagon Station ticket office. It was in room 302 of an office building. Igot on the elevator and pressed button “3” for the third floor. Three fans in the elevator went on. The doors closed. Lights began blinking on and off. Dance music from a wall speaker started to play. But the elevator didn’t move. I pressed button “4” thinking I’d take the elevator to the fourth floor and walk down a flight to room 302. The doors opened and closed four times. Lights went out and the fans stopped. Music changed to an announcer giving today’s traffic report. The elevator started bumping to the basement, but got stuck between floors. I thought I’d better get back to the lobby and walk the two flights to the third floor. I pressed button L for Lobby. The lights came back on. Small fires broke out in the fans. The doors fell off and caved in against the elevator walls. A voice on the speaker said “Lelelator lot lorking. Luse lairlase lease. Lhank lou… Lelelator lot lorking. Luse lairlase lease. Lhank lou…” I climbed onto the elevator railing, blew the fires out and pressed button “B” for the basement, as the elevator was still stuck between floors. The button box blew up. The floor started to give way. I held onto the railing as the floor dropped out and crashed in the basement. The voice on the speaker said “Blease bleave belebator. Blast bannoucebent. Blease bleave belebator. Blast bannouncebent.” I climbed through the trapdoor in the ceiling and out of the elevator shaft into the lobby. I walked to the third floor and went to room 302. “Is this the Station Wagon Station ticket office?” I asked a man there. “No, Fender and Bumper Bumper and Fender Company. How do you do? I’m Bumper. Fender’s in back. Office you want is in room 812.” I climbed the five flights to room 812. The painter painting the empty room 812 told me to go to room 509 of the building next door. The secretary in room 509 said “The ticket office? Gosh, they moved a couple years ago to the new tall building around the block.” I went around the block. The building she spoke about hadn’t been built yet. I asked a man in the one-story rental office there if he knew where the Station Wagon Station ticket office was.