Chatoyant College Book 2: Initiates

Chapter 26: Databases

They waited quietly, all of them thinking, until the computer indicated that it had finished logging Corrie in. Edie looked around surreptitiously, not that there was anything interesting to see in the computer room; there were probably fifty computers in here, with printers at the end of each row, and a few pieces of other equipment--she saw a scanner and a photocopier--by the doors. She had only been to the library before to learn how to use the place, but she suspected she'd spend a lot of time here. She'd certainly spent a lot of time at the one in her hometown. Unlike her sister, Corrie seemed as serious about studying as Edie was, but it was still nice to have a change of scenery every once in a while.

"Might as well start with Google," Corrie said, bringing Edie back to the present.

"Do you think that will actually turn anything up?" she asked. "Surely someone has tried it already."

"You never know," said Corrie. "Maybe a website has come up since the last time someone tried--or maybe no one thought of it before. Sometimes people overlook the obvious."

She couldn't argue with that, so she shrugged and watched Corrie type "Vertiline Gravette" into the search bar. It came up with two results; the first was a page full of what looked like gibberish.

"What is that?" Dawn asked, pointing at it. "It doesn't seem to be about her..."

Corrie clicked the link. "It looks like it has something to do with ciphers. Different letter combinations can make these words." She hit the back button. "This looks more interesting, though."

The other result was a blog post titled "Who Were These Statues?" Corrie clicked on it. The date on it was from the past spring. "It must be a student's blog," Edie said, scanning through the text.

"Looks like it," said Corrie, sounding disappointed. "The writer doesn't seem to have any idea who any of them are, he--or she--just lists their names and where they are on campus."

"Is there a name?" Dawn asked. "Maybe we could find them if they're still on campus and join forces."

"I don't see one," Corrie said after clicking around a little. "I could send an email, but let's try to figure it out on our own first." She clicked back to the home page--on the library computers, apparently, it was set as the library search page. "Another stupid obvious thing..." She typed "Vertiline Gravette" into the space to search library materials. Unfortunately, nothing came up.

"Try just searching 'Gravette,'" Edie suggested. "She might have a relative, or it might just not think her first name is important. It can't be a very common name."

"Good idea," said Corrie, erasing the "Vertiline" and hitting "search" again. This time a number of results came up, but "Gravette" seemed only to make its appearance in author names, not in subject headings. The three of them skimmed through the book titles; they were books of literary analysis, cookbooks, a series of old French textbooks--nothing that seemed to have anything to do with why someone with the same last name as the author should be commemorated by a statue on a college campus.

"Next step, databases, I suppose," Dawn said.

"Right you are." Corrie clicked through to a database search that the librarian had shown their class the day before. Again, nothing came up for "Vertiline Gravette"; there were a lot more articles than books that came up for "Gravette," but again, it was always the author, not the subject. Again, they read all the article titles, hoping to find something.

Dawn leaned back in her chair and let out a long sigh, staring at the ceiling. Then her face brightened and she leaned forward again. "Who says the person is significant? I mean, they don't even have dates for her, so maybe she was just a model for the sculptor or something. Try searching more generally for statues at Chatoyant College--they could just be art."

"That's a brilliant idea, Dawn!" said Corrie enthusiastically, leaning back over the keyboard and typing quickly. Edie grinned at Dawn--she thought it was pretty brilliant too. Unfortunately, it didn't work out as well as they hoped. Google brought up only the blog post from before, and searching the library or its databases came up with nothing. Finally Corrie tried searching just the library for "statue," but that just brought up a whole mess of unrelated books and journal articles.

"We could ask a librarian if we're missing something," Edie suggested, as they all slumped with disappointment.

Corrie shook her head. "That's cheating! Anyway, I feel like if it's supposed to be a secret, we shouldn't be asking about it. And if it's not supposed to be a secret, why is it?"

"Cheer up, Corrie," said Dawn. "We can look for the other statues tomorrow and try looking them up--maybe one of them is significant, or their clothes have a hint."

"Yeah, that will help." She still sounded down. "Well, I guess we'll head back to Gilkey, unless you guys have something else to do in the library."

"Nope," said Edie. Dawn shook her head. Corrie logged off of the computer, and they left the computer room together.