Must

Write about a character stumbling upon a library book that changes the course of their life, for better or worse.

Submitted by Peter Wallace – peterwallace@litewire.net          

Must

           Musty. That’s what the smell was. Musty. What was must? Was it like moist dust? No matter. He’d look it up later on his phone. His phone. The indispensable tool for everyone under a hundred years old, and yet, here he was, in the ancient town library with the lions in front, doing research for a social studies report for Miss Darlington.

           Darlington was the youngest old person he’d ever encountered. She was a pretty new teacher, which was interesting, because she was both pretty and new. A guy could see how somebody could fall for her.  Somebody older than high school.

She was weird, though. She reminded me of the schoolmarms from old movies, except she dressed normally, and she didn’t hit our hands with a ruler. However, speaking of rulers, she did have a lot of rules. For example, she insisted on having us students… we students… no, I was right the first time… us students, be very respectful to her and to each other. No talking was allowed unless she called on you. That class had some real loud-mouths, so I didn’t think she could quiet them down, but somehow, she got everyone to act decent without yelling. I think it was because she talked so quietly sometimes that you had to shut up in order to hear her.

           She also had odd ideas about tests. They were all short-answer tests, and not multiple guess, like most normal teachers used. You really had to know something to pass. Some of us actually got together and studied things together. 

She was also very picky about spelling and such. She knew almost everybody used a computer to write our papers, and that there was no excuse for a misspelled word. She had a good point.

She didn’t grade down for punctuation that wasn’t right, but she’d make you re-write whatever it was the right way. I think she was more interested on us learning it than catching us making mistakes.

           Some of our younger teachers seem like they want to be friends, or something. I can tell you that students can sense weakness, and we know which teachers will let us get away with things. Miss Darlington didn’t seem to care if we liked her or not, but the funny thing is that we did like her. I guess part of it was that she treated us with respect too, even the kids who probably didn’t deserve it.

           Anyway, this assignment was to research a topic at the library – not the school library, but the old one in town. Maybe she wanted to make sure we knew where it was, or that they had a lot of books and magazines.

We couldn’t use our phones or Google or anything. It was like we were back in the 1980s, or sometime back then. 

           I’m really interested in computers and robots and things, so I was looking through the books about artificial intelligence in a room upstairs. There was this cool ladder on rollers to get to the higher shelves. I climbed up, and as I pulled out a book from the shelf, I saw a thin book that looked like it had slipped behind the other books. It took me a minute, but I got it out. It was a hard cover book, but with very few pages. It was very dusty. I blew on it. More must. The title was “What You Can Give the World.” It was clearly not about artificial intelligence.  There was something about it that made me want to find out what was inside.

           I opened the book to the Table of Contents. There were only a few chapters. Here were the chapter titles: 1. Why You Should Give to The World, 2. Honesty, 3. Fairness, 4. Kindness, and 5. Gratitude. I decided to walk over to a study carrel to see what it was all about.

           I was able to read the whole book in about an hour, and I’m not a really fast reader. It was pretty interesting, and if you asked me to tell you what it’s about here’s pretty much what I would tell you:

You can’t control other people, but you can control yourself and how you treat people. Also, what each of us gives to the world is important. It doesn’t feel that way in high school, but I guess it’s true. Honesty isn’t easy, or even natural, but it’s also important, and if we’re honest with people they will trust us. Fairness, according to the author, can’t be expected. The world isn’t fair, but we are obligated to be fair. In a way that didn’t make sense, but in a way it did.

Kindness isn’t hard to do, if we think about it, and we just have to be looking for opportunities to be kind. Like the author said, one person’s kindness can make another person’s world a better place. 

The last thing was about gratitude, and how having it – appreciating all the good things we have – helps us keep our perspective on the world. It’s really easy not to do that when you’re 17.

The funny thing is, nobody’s name was listed as being the author. And, there was no publication date or publishing company. But it had been there a long time. The pages were all kind of yellowish and musty. Not only that, but it had that paper sticker inside the front cover, like they used before bar codes, that showed when it had been checked out. The last time was in 1953. That’s the year my dad was born!

So, instead of artificial intelligence, I wrote my report about the book; how I found it, and what was in it. I have to tell you, that book has really made me think about me… I? No, me… and how I fit into the world.  

Most kids in high school aren’t very kind or honest. You can’t deny it. We complain about things not being fair, and we’re not often very thankful about what we have. But you know, I think I can get better about all those things, and maybe I can help make some people’s world better, in a small way.  Like, maybe Miss Darlington. That would be cool.