Encyclopaedias

I was startled when something slammed down on the desk, it was the encyclopaedias from the back. Of course, there was also the culprit, whom I instantly recognised as one of my regular patrons. Her head sticking up above the desktop, such a slip of a girl, she’d barely managed to heft three of the old books onto the table in front of me. I refrained from rolling my eyes at her refusal of taking multiple trips.

“You can’t take those home.”

“What! What do you mean? It’s a library – that’s the whole point,” she stated,

devastated that the library could get away with such an apparent transgression.

“Not the encyclopaedias.”

“Ridiculous… how about just the one then?” She offered.

“Not the encyclopaedias.”

“You know we talked about this last time, and if you remember we could agree then,

so, just the one?” She offered once again.

She wasn’t wrong, unfortunately. We have a policy, 7 books per student, haven’t had to enact it so many times with 9-year-olds though. I will freely admit I caved after a while and she got to bring an extra one, she’d walked out the door triumphant and I’d foolishly expected the small leeway not to come back to haunt me just yet.

“You know I’m always careful, just the one… and maybe this other one next time.”

She begged, because what else could you call it. She didn’t get to take home any

encyclopaedias, though I distinctly remember her sitting at the table a few meters away scowling as she scribbled down notes of some sort. I probably should have just lent her the encyclopaedias, less hassle for everyone.           

The bag and the girl were swaying with the weight of the books, to and from the library and then the whole trip back was repeated the very next day. She was lucky to live as close as she did, but then again, she doesn’t like multiple trips so maybe distance wouldn’t have discouraged her from toppling over with her book-bag anyway. I had finally figured out that she was going to write a book, though I believe it had been a dozen ideas to come and go at this point. I was happy to hear them. As soon as she got free access in her 4th year the library seemed to get a revolving door. Soon I realized she spent as much time as physically possible in my little haven. It wasn’t long after that I realized that beyond her love of the books, the walls themselves were an apt hiding spot with a ready excuse.

“I can’t come now. Tomorrow maybe. You know why…I’m writing my book,” she would mutter to her friend between the shelves that she’d claimed for herself. They were good friends though, the two girls, despite the reluctance shown by the school library’s little ghost. But one girl knew how to make friends, while our girl did not. If I had asked her she probably would have answered that her best friend was the best at being friends out of anyone – after all,… she even befriended me, she would say.

One day the other girl joined her between her shelves. She was upset today. Her friend sat beside her, listening, as my library ghost berated her teacher harshly.

“Can you believe her… in front of the whole class. If she’s going to say something

stupid that’s wrong someone needs to tell her. That’s how it works,” her voice and hands were shaking towards the end.

The teacher had called her a know-it-all of course. It wasn’t the first time but back then it had been her classmates, people who didn’t get to hand her a grade at the end of term. She was hurting and she was already pushing and pulling at herself to be another person, less annoying, less brash. Soon there would be little of her left when she didn’t know how to separate the things that made her smile from the things that people said made her nasty. 

I was indeed an abrasive little girl, I would argue and research for hours to prove a point because I lived for it. I longed to be smart and to know everything and anything. The library delivered handsomely. It was safe because you didn’t have to talk unless you wanted to. The classrooms were safe as well, I suppose, because there was a ready script in the classroom so I knew what to say and became brave. Then I went outside and regretted every second of it most days until I was inside my library again. It didn’t help of course that I felt different from everyone else, I had my best friend of course and she’s still the best friend I can imagine, and most days it was enough that I had one friend in the whole world who liked me.

Sometimes I wonder if it was because my skin was a different colour that nothing seemed to fit together, I was one of maybe three girls whose skin wasn’t pale with the blonde hair to match, I did not know their names and I’m sure they did not know mine. The librarian had a foreign name though, almost as peculiar as my middle name that I didn’t know how to pronounce, and some days that felt really nice. Then again I don’t think skin or ethnicity became something I could even acknowledge until much later in life, how odd it made me feel. Some days I worried something was wrong in my head. Maybe there was, maybe there still is and I just hide it better, I never dared to find out because I was so very scared of what they would tell me.

I try to imagine what my old librarian thought of me and if she knew as well as I did that the library was a place to hide from the world as much as I loved every book I touched back then. We moved schools when we got to a certain age. The new school had a library as well, of course it did, but it just wasn’t the same. I broke myself into pieces because you can’t be a know-it-all forever, you shouldn’t have been abrasive and weird in the first place. I’m starting to realise I may have lost too many pieces.