In a dark and old town, there was a dark and old alley; and in that dark and old alley, there was a dark and old library; Mr. Linden’s Library, in fact.

Mr. Linden was a very mysterious man.  You never saw him in public, and you never heard him speak… unless you were me, of course.  I, Ashley Anderson, am the only customer Mr. Linden has ever had, until I decided to never go there again.  This is only because of a certain book I like to call, ”The Ivy Book”.

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I woke up on Saturday with nothing to do but read.  By 8:00 a.m. I’d finished the first “Harry Potter” book and was getting bored, so I decided to go to Mr. Linden’s Library.

When I walked into the dark and dreary looking library, I whispered, “Mr. Linden, are you here?  I’ll just find a book and leave.” When I looked through the shelves I found a mysterious looking book that I was intrigued  by, so I took it off of the shelf and started walking to the door. As I reached for the handle, Mr. Linden whispered, “I would be careful with that particular book, it has a tendency to be mischievous and naughty.”

Thinking nothing of it, I continued walking out of the library and started walking home.

When I was walking down Main St., something weird happened. I swore I saw five kids trip on nothing when I passed them.

Then on Kramer Rd., I thought I smelled a fire nearby.  “What’s going on?” I thought while passing a bank that was being robbed, so I hurried up and soon was home.

As soon as I got inside, I hurriedly locked the door and ran upstairs to my bedroom.  As soon as I lye in my bed, I started reading.

In an hour, I was already asleep because I was so overwhelmed by all of the strange things that had happened.

While I was asleep, the book started growing.  Not the actual book, but what was inside the book.  It was never ending vines of ivy. It started in my bedroom, but soon it covered the whole outside of my house.  This is why I call it, “The Ivy Book”.

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When I woke up, I thought it was the middle of the night.  My house was pitch black. I couldn’t see out of the windows, so I went downstairs and tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t budge.  Then I remembered the book and everything that had happened since I took it. Then I realized, he had warned me about the book, now it was too late.  I was stuck in my own house and couldn’t get out.

I tried everything I could think of.  I tried to cut it with a knife, axe, shovel, even a saw, but nothing even dented it.  

About to give up, I remembered.  The book was open when I fell asleep, so if it stays open, it’ll keep growing; but if I close it, it’ll shrink and stop growing.  Remembering this, I started to devise an escape plan.

When I’d finally formed a plan, I started looking for the book, which was definitely easier said than done because after an hour of searching, I hadn’t even caught a glimpse of it.  

When I finally did find it, I’d been searching for three and a half hours and I had to climb up to the roof of the attic to find it.  The problem was that I couldn’t get it because it was tangled in ivy, so I thought about the book and what ivy’s weaknesses were.

After a few moments, I realized the ivy will die if they dry out and that they dry out quicker with heat, and since I can’t control the sun, I could use the iron.  

After about ten minutes of digging, I found my iron and ran up to the attic, turned the iron on high, and pushed it onto the ivy vines covering the book.  Soon enough, it cleared away and I started tugging the book out of the nest of ivy that was surrounding it, and soon it gave way. As soon as I had it, I pushed it closed and the never ending vines broke.  When I knew it broke, I ran down the attic stairs, towards the kitchen.

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When the ivy had cleared, I immediately locked the book in a box, threw the key in the trash, and started walking to Mr. Linden’s Library.  

As I walked in, Mr. Linden asked, “Do you want to keep it?”  I ignored him and started walking towards the shelf I found the book on.  When I got there, I made sure the box was locked airtight and shoved it on the top shelf.  Having done what I was there for, I walk out, silent, and never go down that dark and old alley again.