Hint for the clue that begins, “I’ve met some Strange people…”

When you have found the right book, you’ll notice it has six symbols above the hourglass, and the same six symbols in the same order below the hourglass. The clue has a key to give meaning to the symbols. Write the meaning of each symbol in the six boxes below the key. Now, you need to figure out what word you are supposed to extract from those six words. The US military uses words like these to phonetically communicate the spelling of something when they are speaking over comms so the listener knows exactly which letter they are saying. They become the example that would follow the phrase, “…as in…”