010

The night goes by at a snail's pace when you're nervous and Adam was super nervous; since he had a long day ahead of him: he hadn't been able to do his homework and besides he had to go to the middle floor market.

To achieve this, Adam had woken up very early: 2 hours before school. He didn't want his shoes to arouse suspicion among the inhabitants of the middle floor.

Adam put on a slightly torn set of robes and hid his new robes inside him as he walked towards the door with soft steps so as not to wake his father, but it seemed he wasn't careful enough.

—Boy, remember to close the curtain—said his father sleeping on the floor—Last time you almost blinded me

Adam nodded and had the grace to close the door with a curtain made of book papers with doodles drawn on it. Before closing, he took one last look at the room and his father sleeping on the floor. He always felt sorry for this scene, but he couldn't do anything to change it.

The room where they slept had no furniture, so the two slept on the floor, but it had the peculiarity of being painted everywhere. But Adam found those drawings neither funny nor happy.

He knew that those drawings were due to his father giving in to the madness that filled the lower floors. And that was the main reason for yesterday's fear, the inhabitants of this floor used to be the exiles from the other two upper floors. Although the globetrotters of the floors even lower than this also lived.

Adam, nervous about the fortune he was carrying, went to where the shelf with the corridor was, luckily he didn't run into anyone because he was very early.

The oil lamps in the mornings always shed less light, so finding the right book on the shelf of moss and fungus was somewhat complicated, but luckily this time he didn't have to, because the head in the wood came out to greet him:

—Everything okay, Adam?—the old man asked hoarsely—Remember to clean your robes in the lake water. Librarians pay more attention to their clothes than to the faces of the people they talk to. Maybe if they saw other people's eyes more, they would really understand what these books say.

—Thanks for the advice—Adam replied—Do you know how to go to the middle floor market?

—Yes—the wooden door answered roughly—Middle floor 3 of 5, hexagon 9 of 18. Good luck on your adventure, young hero!

After speaking, the bookcase began to open, until showing the cave with the lake inside. Adam hurried inside and followed the advice of the bookcase, he knew that this water was quite special, so he submerged his robe without fear.

All the dust on the robe disappeared, leaving it completely clean. Then the water from the robe flew up in a ball of water in the air. When all the water in the robe was collected, the ball of water returned to the lake without splashing any drop.

Seeing that he was all set, Adam decided to leave the set of torn robes he had brought to hide behind and put on his snow-white robe to ascend the mossy wooden stairs.

Luckily, on the other side, there was practically no one up, so his trip to his destination was pretty smooth.