of a famous library is not The Palace Library. Do you know where this is?
It will probably be the keen ones at the front of the class who answer this question quickest.
They’ll be the ones to say: “It’s at Great Uncle Jasper’s house.”
They will be wrong. The naughty boys and girls in the back row will be sniggering at this, before the teacher thumps the desk and says: “Well, where is it then?”
That will silence them, but one will put his hand in the air with a smug grin and say: “It’s at Clarendon Palace, where the Great West Door is.”
“No!” the teacher will roar and then it will be the turn of the rest of the class to snigger.
Then the boy who sits at the side in the second row from the back will answer. He sits there as he knows it’s out of the teacher’s sight lines when he’s looking at trouble-makers in the back row; and he can see what’s going on in the class. He’s quiet, but bright.
“We don’t know, Sir. It’s hidden.”
Absolutely right.
“The secret of The Palace Library is that no one knows where it is. In fact, very few people know it even exists. Of the very few people who know it exists, very few know how to find it.”
