I looked down at my Nokia phone.
Operation: Obnoxious Jerk is a go.
I navigated to the settings menu. Volume: Maximum. Ringtone: "Crank That (Soulja Boy)."
I set the phone on the table and waited five seconds. Then, I shoved my stack of textbooks off the edge of the desk.
WHAM.
The sound was explosive in the dead quiet. It echoed off the bookshelves like a cannon blast.
Every head in the library snapped toward me. Mrs. Halloway jolted in her seat as if she’d been electrocuted.
The Silencer spirit flinched. Its spindly body convulsed, retreating a few inches back toward the ceiling. The black threads on its mouth vibrated.
Elara stopped writing. She turned her head slowly, her eyes narrowing into dangerous slits. She looked at me, then at the pile of books on the floor.
"Oops," I said, my voice deliberately loud in the stillness. "Gravity check. Still working!"
"Mr. Ren," Mrs. Halloway hissed from her desk, her finger raising to her lips. "Silence!"
But the atmosphere was already cracking. The heavy, underwater feeling was lifting. The students were whispering now, giggling at the idiot who dropped his books.
The spirit was agitated. It hissed—a sound like steam escaping a pipe—and glared at me with its eyeless face. It didn't like the noise. It was losing its grip on Elara.
Good, I thought. Come at me, you ugly mothball.
I bent down to pick up the books, making as much noise as humanly possible. I dragged my chair across the floor with a screech that sounded like a dying pterodactyl.
SCREEEEEEEEECH.
The Silencer shrieked in pain, clutching its head. It dropped from the ceiling, landing on top of a bookshelf near me. It was targeting the source of the disruption.
Target acquired.
Now I just needed to escalate.
I picked up my phone. I didn't have anyone to call, so I dialed the time-and-temperature hotline.
"HELLO?" I shouted into the phone, channeling every annoying guy I’d ever sat next to on a commuter train. "YEAH, I'M IN THE LIBRARY. NO, IT’S SUPER BORING. YEAH, I THINK I’M GONNA SELL THE APPLE STOCK. BUY BLOCKBUSTER instead! IT’S THE FUTURE!"
The reaction was immediate chaos.
"Ren!" Elara stood up, her chair scraping back. She looked furious. "People are trying to study!"
"I CAN'T HEAR YOU, BRO, THIS GIRL IS YELLING AT ME," I yelled into the phone, winking at her.
The Silencer leaped.
It launched itself from the bookshelf, sailing through the air toward me. It was invisible to everyone else, but I saw its needle-fingers extending, ready to sew my mouth shut permanently.
I had anticipated this.
As the spirit flew at me, I grabbed the heaviest book in my arsenal: AP European History, 4th Edition. A glorious, four-pound brick of hardcover knowledge.
I swung it like a tennis racket.
"AND ANOTHER THING!" I bellowed.
Thwack.
I caught the spirit mid-air. To the onlookers, it looked like I was just flailing around and accidentally hit a bookshelf. To me, I felt the satisfying impact of history colliding with ectoplasm.
The spirit tumbled backward, crashing into a cart of returned books. The cart rattled and rolled away, slamming into a metal filing cabinet.
CLANG.
The noise was deafening. The "Ritual of Silence" was completely shattered. The spirit, cut off from its power source and battered by European history, dissolved into a puff of gray lint.
I lowered the book, breathing hard.
"Mr. Ren!"
Mrs. Halloway was standing over me. She looked like a gargoyle that had just come to life to exact vengeance. She pointed a trembling finger at the door.
"Out. Now."
I hung up the phone. "But I was just getting to the Renaissance."
"OUT!"
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Closing Note：I’m stuck on a plot point! Help me decide the Heroine's next move on our Discord: unplot_joshua.
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