The lost library book

By Dumisani khumalo

The interest got lost when he lost the library book The book read like a mystery, capturing all his minds eye ,,thrown to it  by it's muse ,and taking him long digesting the hearty revelations 

.He could not put it down, and by the time he did ,he was reading it once again ,if not looking at it's cover, colours ,and its attractive abstract art, giving it that look that made book lovers tastes judge books by the cover., 

There came curious eyes from his classmates boffin interest from creative writing ,and it grew as more of them got hooked to it's attractions.

William came to him and asked about it ,so he just took a peek into it's interesting content ,pictures ,colours ,and stories . Short stories by Rudyard Kipling and his ever indelible poem " IF", that caught his attention and mindset,pouring it out to the realism and the truth with it's lurid imagery ,as much as he wanted it recited in their literature, poetry club and read in class,to make an impression over it's learning and zeal .

He did not want to make an impression for himself .He was William the tormentor for that.

William stood by his desk for a while and read some lines out ,absorbing their content and asking how he found the book ,in a scanty library such as theirs

The library was a treasure chest for the school ,and only librarians seemed to have a better choice from it .

A limited number of books ,as the shortage of text books was rife in the independent country , these were borrowed,and a penalty charged when books came late .

This was done making it possible so that other students had to have a chance at them too.

They were four streams for each class ,from form one to four ,and each class had forty students ,while the library had a pile up of donated books ,old rugged books ,and books donated by the SPCA ,with a bundle of old magazines.

The librarian had to put cards to books and magazines went out to those in upper classes .Lower classes had a chance at cut up paper cartoons .

William started some horse play and the rest of the students joined in .They were beating each other with pieces of wet paper wrapped up into balls and thrown to stick at everything,including human faces ,walls ,tables and chairs.

The paper got wet from the classroom fawcett they drank from at that opportune moments of break time.

Who ever started the chaos could not be identified as the class teacher came in ,and caught students who were at the front ,promising to punish them 

They had to clean up ,and they had to tell the teacher who had started all the noise and chaos.

William and his escape to his desk and chair was swift .He .made good time before he had to be caught out himself .He was taking his laugh out at his friends and just making his desk tidy. This made the slow walking teacher look on all of them ,asking who started the noise and paper sticking wet paper sticking at the walls,desks and chairs .

The culprit had to be known ,but no one was betraying the others ,and William was just thinking about this book Joseph had ,and ,missing from his quest .

For having such a book, one had to ask him the day he returns it ,so that the day he returns it that is when you can get it too,as the long dreary queue was obvious,they were many suitors already ,to one book.

Joseph looked befuddled too ,as suspiciously,he checked frantically for it and looked at him ." William ,where did you take my book ?" he asked ,looking at him sternly .

William did not answer ,but like a smart Aleck that he was he was trying out the best he could to deny charges laid aganist him by trying to be asking Joseph for the second time ,where his book was ,

Joseph was not going to allow him to go outside .The book was still in class of course ,and if it was not him ,someone else was taking chances .

 Lost in the confusion ,the book the two searched for was right there within their perimeter ,and they asked about it in the end,to no results coming ,even when they had both chances to search everyone interested in it , ,and the class teachers curiosity was made,as  the discovery of the book came from under a classmates shirt .

He had already been on the first punishment and now the next ,and Joseph realised that he had a few days left before he had to take it back .So he needed to make a deal with William ,so that he could have the book in the next return to the library .

That was not as planned ,and obviously the book went missing again than was expected ,and as supposed to be,it left the classroom , ,or someone had it at his side to read.

 The torment was in the number of days it was supposed to have gone and that it slowly began to accumulate money,.Meaning that a day cost about a dollar on the green back 

Time passed ,and the class was swept clean once again ,as students turned everyone upside down for it before the lessons started ,and after class ,

He looked for the book on the first culprit ,until he found it in one of his lockers .Possibly he had put it there going for sports ,or someone too was tricking him.

The strange thing is he could hear William as.he recited the words with his humming to the muse of the poem "IF" ,and as he craned and carried his eyes at him ,he smiled.

 Nothing appeared to come up for Joseph to clear the way for him to return the book and he could not  take the book back into the library for fear of the penalty ,,nor the person interested in it asking for it anymore .That meant William in Joseph's mind.

He had to devise a way to take it there and pay nothing ., and asking his close mates ,nothing came up . William was also playing his own tricks on him.busy reciting pieces of it so once in a while.

The librarian came into class to check on books that were missing .He had a good look at his schedule ,and Joseph went cold for a while. There was silence and fear that could be cut by a knife ,and he waited patiently to be called ,and nothing happened. He opened his  desk and saw the book right in front of him .How was he missing this one out and not pronouncing it and it's taker. ,and he did not think about paying the money at all .Troubles that he did not want at all.

Then William came up to him with a smile again ." Need some help my chap ? What can I do for you ,I know you have an overdue book in your desk" 

"Me?"Really, you do, you miscreant .You took it the first time .What now ? "

The two went to a corner and the one was telling other how they could take the library stamp and put in their own dates .But who would be brave enough to do such a thing ? 

They did ,and walked up to the librarian ,and asked for books they knew they did not have.The librarian looked up his lists ,and as quick to want to prove a point that he knew his stuff in the library ,he went to the shelves ,and looked at the books the boys had asked for and put a date for them to come back and check on ,that is close to the ones that were recently returned date stamped ,and he would have them since there was such pressure in his library. .

As he did so stamp the books ,they had done so to theirs and put it in the rack and threw some on the floor and tried to return the others back .

That was the escape ,but there was this nagging card he had put to question as Willie started his musing over the poem "IF" ,and said ," If you were caught ....if you were arrested and put in jail ,if ? " and it rankled his friend ,,seeing iwhat it meant to him and no one . else.

After all ,he was the one who took the book in the first place, and he was not going to be able to make him able to read the book as early to create his interest in it and the library anymore ,since his cards would betray him from one book to the next,and found only with the librarian. William only promised him to take the cards as well ,for the whole class.