Our Marvellous Morris

Morris Lamb rested his reading glasses back onto the bridge of his nose and uncurled his top lip. “So, Timothy, you’re saying that this book you’re looking for has a blue cover?”

“Yes,” the boy replied. 

“And it has big, bold white lettering?”

“Yes.”

“And there is an illustration on the cover of a…”

“I think it’s a centaur?” Timothy pondered with a twiddle of his fingers. “Or maybe a mermaid? Or a goblin? Something mythical anyway.”

Morris Lamb brushed a loose white flyaway behind his ear. “Give me a moment,” he said. With that, he disappeared, returning moments later slightly out of breath, flapping his argyle cardigan to cool himself down. In his hands, a royal blue hardback. 

“Is this what you’re looking for?” 

The boy’s eyes lit up, reaching for the book and holding it aloft. A prize. A trophy. “Yes, Morris, oh thank you so much. I knew you could help me. It’s true what they say, you really can find anything!”

That, Morris Lamb could. In his sixty years as a librarian, Morris had honed a skill of finding any book with minimal information. Of course, this was a skill that many, if not all, librarians and booksellers are born with, but it was no exaggeration to say that Morris Lamb was one of the best. Yet, while it was a skill he prided himself on, Morris’ relationship with books was more about than just finding them quickly. He simply adored books. Not only did he read them, he lived, breathed, ate and drank them; the crack of soft crisp pages his sustenance, the scent of ink an elixir for his soul.

When the librarian moved to the quiet market town of Lower Muddle as a young man, the village was, reading-wise, in a sorry state of affairs, in so much that nobody did it. 

Morris made it his life mission to change this. 

His first port of call was to refurbish-slash-rebuild the building that was apparently the ‘library’ and ask the people what they wanted to fill it with. 

“Jam,” they had answered.

“Jam?” Morris had replied. 

“Jam!” they had repeated. 

A pause. “Why jam?”

“We all love jam!” the crowd had chorused. “We live jam. We laugh jam. We love jam. Jam is what Lower Muddle was built on.” A pause. “Not literally though. But you know what we mean.” 

“Well…” Morris’ mind ticked. “We might not be able to have actual jam here. That’s more so what grocery stores or corner shops are for. But how about recipe books for jam?”

A pause. A cheer.

“Or perhaps biographies of local jam makers? One can never have too many of those!”

A shorter pause. A louder cheer.

“How about mystery books where the murder weapon was a jam jar?” 

The shortest pause. A third, even greater cheer.

In a world where it can be easy to be heard but a lot more difficult to actually be listened to, with this act of kindness Morris had hooked them. But how now to reel them in? Once the library was fully finished, he set up reading groups and book clubs to get the people of Lower Muddle talking about books. He started writing competitions for every age group to encourage people to tell their own stories. He set up art sessions and poetry weeks, each time picking one of the libraries beloved books to base these workshops around. He even set up special events, such as a day in the library where you could be as loud as you wanted, or sleepovers at Halloween to listen to a toilet-roll-wrapped Morris read the spookiest of spooky stories. He even set up the Lower Muddle Book and Jam Festival, a gathering of authors, writers, bookworms and preserve connoisseurs alike to celebrate all the things they loved.

In the way that worked for them, Morris made the people of Lower Muddle fall in love with reading, and in doing so, the people of Lower Muddle fell in love with him. But alas, as kind as his eighty years had been to him, a lot of them he had spent in one place. What was more, he had achieved what he had set out to achieve. He needed a new adventure, this time perhaps one outside of the library. For example, he had never been abroad and he liked the idea of spending his final chapters of his life somewhere sunny. Book in hand, of course. 

But he would not be retiring just yet. He had one final week, ending with his surprise leaving party that he, as the main organiser of many things in the town, naturally knew all about. However, his last week as Lower Muddle librarian was far from a wind down. 

“Morris?”

Caught up in colour coding his labels to first hear the voice, Morris took a moment to peer over his desk to see the eyes of a young girl beaming up at him. 

“Oh, hello Mariam! How are you today? Enjoying The Amazing Adventures of Amelia Adeje are we? Wait… you’ve not finished it already have you? You only took it out yesterday!”

“Oh no, not yet, but I am finding it rather wonderful,” Mariam replied. Morris’ heart swelled. “However, I was wondering something…”

“Go on.”

“Can I take out another book? Please?”

Morris’ heart stretched even more. “Of course, you can, Mariam. Which one are you thinking of?”

“That’s the problem. I can’t remember the title...”

“No bother.” Morris got his pen and pad ready, his computer was primed. This was his bread and butter. And jam, he now supposed. “Can you tell me something about it?”

“Well, it’s gold.”

He jotted this down. “All the best books are.”

“And green.”

He added this. “Green too?”

“And blue!”

His pen sped up. “Blue as well?”

“And yellow and pink and all the colours of the rainbow.”

The nib pressed on. “All of them? Ooh er!”

“With sparkly writing.”

It zig-zagged across the paper. “Ok… ”

“And a glittery border.”

Now it moved with a scribble. “Right…”

“And a pair of silver spectacles right in the middle on the front cover.”

Now at a scratch. “Oh… oh, I see…” 

“And it’s about this big.” Mariam’s hands spun like a washing machine. It was much like Morris’ thoughts. The pen fell from his strained, drained hand. 

“And you cannot remember what it was called?”

Mariam shook her head.

“Or who wrote it?”

Another shake. 

“Or where you saw it?”

“Nope.”

“Or what it was about?”

“No.”

Now Morris tapped on his computer, but it was more so for the effect than for the practicality. In his entire career, he had never been so well and truly stumped. 

“No bother,” Mariam smiled, gauging his uncertainty. “I will try again tomorrow.” 

~

Morris usually loved these bookfinding challenges, but his usual chunks of excitement had melted into a fondue of panic and a restless night followed. He scrolled through the encylopedia of his sweating mind, but the book Mariam sought did not appear. Over the next few days Mariam popped into the library to ask Morris for the book but it was not to be. He had searched the shelves and the stockroom, the intranet and the internet. He had even ventured to book shops and libraries further afield, asking anyone who would listen for help, advice, literally any information they could give him, but the book could not be found. 

And so it was, in what he deemed his last act as librarian, he had failed. 

~

The day of Morris’ retirement party should have been a joyous time, but Morris’ seeds of hope had rotted. The colourful banners, bulging party bags and smorgasbord of jam tarts, treats and cakes could do nothing to sweeten his mood. 

A tingling of glass. The muffled cries of ‘speech’. 

Morris stood before a crowd of beloved, familiar faces. 

“It is with great sadness that it is my last day as your librarian,” he began, his heart beating so far up his throat it was tickling his tonsils. “But that is not the only cause of my sadness, as I have as I… as I…”

Mariam tottered to the front, a brown paper parcel in her hands. Nodding with encouragement, she handed it to Morris. With a quivering lip and a tear in his eye, Morris delicately removed the ribbon binding the present and unwrapped the paper. 

A book.

A rainbow book. 

A rainbow book with sparkly writing.

A rainbow book with sparkly writing and a glittery border. 

A rainbow book with sparkly writing and a glittery border and a pair of silver spectacles right in the middle of the front cover…

Our Marvellous Morris

“But this…” Morris turned it over in his hands.

“I know,” Mariam’s dimples danced. “It’s the book I was looking for. Open it.”

Morris creaked wide the spine, the waft of freshly cut pages and ink hitting his nostrils, enlivening all of his senses. On the first page there was a message. It read: 

To our Marvellous Morris. Our librarian. Our friend. Thank you for caring and thank you for the stories. These stories are for you. 

Morris flicked through the pages. Stories. Poems. Diaries. Journals. Comics. Cartoons. Dittys. Anecdotes. Illustrations. All from the people he cared for and loved. All for him. For a man who had read so many of them in his lifetime, Morris Lamb was lost for words. 

“I can’t even…”

“It’s just something to remember us bye.” Mariam squeezed him tight.

“We have another present for you, too.” This time Timothy came forward and thrust a gift into Morris’ hand. He opened the attached note.

For wherever your adventures lead you, here is a jar of home. 

The paper of the present fell away to reveal a glistening jar of crimson goodness.

Jam. 

Of course.