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“But they said they knew where the Archives are.”

Jordan snorted while he continued looking through the books. “Everyone knows where the Archives are. They’re the most non-secret secret ever.”

Non-secret secret?There was definitely something wrong with his grammar but she let it go. “What’s the problem, then? Why couldn’t they come?”

“You’ll see,” Bear said.

Before she could object, Jordan interrupted. “Now pay attention because you’ll need to remember this for next time.”

He pointed at the book he’d located on the shelf and Alex read the title out loud. “The Encyclopedia of Current Events?That doesn’t make sense,” she said. “How can current events be written in an encyclopedia? They’d be out-dated by the time it was published!”

Jordan ignored her and said, “Pull out the book.”

She looked at it with mistrust. “This isn’t going to be one of those totally clichéd pull-out-the-book-and-a-trapdoor-will-appear deals, is it?”

Jordan rolled his eyes. “Just pull out the book already.”

Alex reached for it, her muscles tense and ready to react. She clasped her hand around the spine and took a deep breath, quickly yanking the book off the shelf.

Nothing happened.

Jordan and Bear burst out laughing.

“It’s not funny!” she told them. She couldn’t keep the corners of her mouth from twitching though, and she easily gave into her own laughter.

“All right, all right,” she said, trying to regain her dignity. She looked at the book in her hands and flicked through the pages. “Now, seriously, how do we—” Before she could finish her question, the floor disappeared under her feet, leaving her to slide down a chute in complete darkness.

“JORDAAAAN!” she screamed as she slid faster and faster. “BEAAAAAR!”

Echoing laughter drifted down from above, along with a faint “Wheeeeeeee!”

Before she could scream at them again, the slide began to level out and she slowly came to a stop in a well-lit room. There was a flaming torch mounted on the wall beside a sealed wooden door, but otherwise the chamber was empty.

Alex’s head was spinning but she didn’t want to get trampled by her friends, so she quickly got to her feet and steadied herself against the nearest wall. A moment later the still-laughing Jordan slid into view, and Alex didn’t hesitate before hitting him with the heavy encyclopedia she was still holding. He only laughed harder, and when she went to attack him again, he reached out and trapped her hands. It was only then that she realised he was holding a book too. She squinted at the cover, making out the title:The Encyclopedia of Current Events.

“What—?”

“Wheeeeeeee!”

Bear came sliding down the chute, effectively interrupting her question. Jordan quickly stumbled to his feet to make way for their friend.

“What a ride!” Bear said, and he laughed as he took in Alex’s harried expression.

“You could have warned me!” she said to them.

“You’d already guessed about the ‘clichéd trapdoor’,” Jordan said, repeating her words with a smirk. “What was the point in warning you when you’d already figured it all out?”

Alex chose to ignore him and turned her attention to Bear just as he was getting to his feet. She noticed that he was also carrying an encyclopedia.

“What’s with the books?” she asked.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Jordan said, waving the tome in his hands. “TheEncyclopediais the ticket down here.”

“But why are there now three of them?”

“It’s also the ticketoutof here,” Bear answered. “We each need our own because the books activate a single-use Bubbledoor that goes from this level back up again.”

Alex’s mouth opened in an ‘O’ shape before her curiosity took over once again. “But there was only one copy on the shelf. Where did your copies come from?”