Life Designed (Life Plan Series Book 1), Eliza Taye [great novels .TXT] 📗

For hours, Opal and Garrett scanned through the books, but they couldn’t find anything that would satiate Garrett’s curiosity about The Council.

“Garrett, it’s hopeless. We aren’t finding anything. We aren’t going to find anything.”

Garrett shoved the book he was reading aside, causing one teetering on the edge to fall over and collapse on the floor with a thud. “This doesn’t make any sense! It should be here. There must be something here. If anything would have detailed something more about The Council, it would have been in one of these books.”

“It’s not,” Opal shook her head, genuinely sad for her friend. “Garrett, I’m sorry, but there’s nothing here. I even looked up council representatives and I did find something on that, but nothing really telling about The Council.”

Balling his fists and then releasing his tension, Garrett spat, “Then why do they keep this room so secretive?”

Opal shrugged. “Perhaps it’s because the books are old and they don’t want anyone harming them. Old books do need special care, you know.”

“No, Opal, that doesn’t fit. I mean, think about how Miss Lyons acted when I kept asking about the room.” Garrett resumed his searching. “No, there has to be something here.”

“Garrett,” Opal sighed his name in exhaustion. “We need to go. People will start emerging on the streets soon. We need to be out of here before then. We’ve been searching for three hours. We’ve risked enough staying here as long as we have.”

Garrett knew Opal was right, he just didn’t want to give up. Everything he’d gone through to get here couldn’t end up like this. He’d found nothing! It’d been pointless. Pointless to ask Simon for help. Pointless to follow and watch the librarian enter her code. Pointless spending his life savings on a lockaway device. Just pointless! He couldn’t accept that.

“No, Opal. I have to keep looking.” Leaping from his chair, he returned to the shelved books they’d already searched through, pulling them back down and giving them another look through. “I must have missed something before.”

Standing and walking over to Garrett, Opal said, “No, Garrett. You didn’t miss anything. There’s nothing here. We tried our best.”

Garrett refused to leave it at that. He kept scanning through the books. Tomorrow was Submission Day. He didn’t have any time left to go through this again. He had no other plans left. This was his plan. He couldn’t let it go awry.

Opal watched her friend pull four more books from the shelf before stopping him as he went to pull down a fifth. “Enough, Garrett. We need to go.”

“No, Opal!” Garrett tried to pull the book in his grasp off the shelf, but Opal kept her grip firm. “Opal, let go.”

“No, Garrett. I won’t let go. We need to leave and this time I’m not taking no for an answer. I’m not leaving you alone either.” Opal gently forced the book back onto the shelf and pulled Garrett over to the table. “Now, help me put these away. We need to leave the room like we’d never been here.”

At first, Garrett fumed where he stood, his hands clamped into fists, but reluctantly, he began helping Opal. With a defeated look upon his face, he checked the room with her, setting everything back into its proper place.

“Everything looks good,” appraised Opal, hands on her hips. “Now, let’s go,”

Without a word of protest, Garrett followed Opal out the door and back down to the storage room they’d first entered into.

Once outside the door, Opal spun on Garrett, her forefinger raised at him. “Garrett, that’s it. This nonsense has to stop. You’ve wasted the last several days on this manhunt for The Council and now you have one day left to write the Plan that will determine your entire life. If you put half the effort into writing your Life Plan that you have in breaking into City Hall and this library, you’ll have a masterpiece of a Life Plan. There’s no more time left; you have to write one.”

Garrett simply stood there with his head hung low and nodded in defeat. Opal was right. They hadn’t found anything. He had wasted days of planning. Now if he wanted to keep from being one of the Undecided, he had to cram in a legitimate Plan before the end of the day or he was doomed to be an Undecided for the rest of his life.

Chapter 16

“Garrett! Wake up, it’s time to go to your last day at academy!”

Garrett jerked awake in his bed, his tousled, curly hair all over his head. Rubbing the crust from the corner of his eyes, he moved his aching body. Normally, he wasn’t a morning person, and getting only two hours of sleep last night hadn’t made things any better.

Placing his bare feet on the hardwood floor, Garrett stumbled towards his closet to get ready for the day. After Opal and he parted ways at the library early that morning, Garrett had had a lot to contemplate. Figuring out and writing his Life Plan in one day was going to be a feat beyond epic proportions. He wasn’t even sure if it was possible. Maybe if he skipped academy today he could.

Rifling through his clothes, nothing seemed to fit his official last day of academy. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more he reasoned that he shouldn’t go. Today’s task was supposed to be proofing each other’s Life Plans and he didn’t have one to proof. He’d be better off spending the entire day writing his Plan. Surely, his teachers would understand if he skipped today to work on his Life Plan.

Garrett shook his head. They’d never believe him even if he explained it to them. They’d seen him writing like mad throughout class yesterday and everyone assumed he was working on his Plan.

Still, Garrett couldn’t stand the thought