Being Henry David

Danny sits at a local coffee shop and considers where to spend the next nights. He’s running out of money and wonders if he should return to New York. He wanders through town until he finds the Henry David Thoreau Memorial Library, where he runs into Thomas. When Thomas worries that Danny isn’t in school, Danny lies and says that he’s homeschooled and working on a paper. Since Thomas is a researcher, he points him in the direction of local authors’ work. Danny studies the authors’ busts on a high shelf. He then scopes out the library to find a place to sleep at night. He hides until the building closes and everyone leaves. Trying to rest, he tells himself he’ll figure out “how to find [his] sister” tomorrow (129).

As he’s falling asleep, Danny hears a strange sound: The author statues are talking to each other. Suddenly, they fall off the shelf and break open. Rotting things spew out of them. Danny starts shouting and then wakes next to Thomas. As Danny continues panicking about the vivid nightmare and talking anxiously about his sister, Thomas realizes that Danny is sick and takes him back to his house.