Woolgathering

I'd read plenty of books in my quest to figure out what was wrong with me, so I was pretty sure I wasn't imagining it when I realized something might be wrong with Miss H— the librarian. She wasn't very talkative; she spent most of her time curled in the chair behind her desk, literally curled, with her knees drawn up to her chest and a book balanced on top of them. Her limp hair was grey but she had that kinda moony look adults never have, so I couldn't tell what age she might be. It didn't matter anyway. I was young. For all I knew she could have lived there, in that library, forever.

  I heard some ladies— the same pitying ones that tell me no child should have a library for a babysitter— I heard them call Miss H— a state monument. They said the trustees on the board couldn't bear to see the old thing torn down; her whole life was this place, she didn't go anywhere else, and she was efficacious to the task so it was fine. Well, they didn't say efficacious. Nobody but Miss H— and I used words like efficacious, and like I said, Miss H— didn't use many words at all.

  I watched her a lot when I wasn't reading. I know I'm much more intelligent than most the people I see on the street, but I have the attention span of an inebriated squirrel, so I'd glance up a lot. And she'd turn those pages hungrily, then stare with rapt intent at the ceiling, then read some more. Every day the same. Except that wasn't all. No... she was real furtive about it, but one day I caught her. She looked at me. She'd noticed me.

  This might not seem significant to you. All I can say is that she was a mystery. I hungered to explore, for all that I was also a coward. I thought up lots of things to say to people, measured out how much of my lexicon I should us so as to impress and not scare them. I studied them. But I never actually got around to talking to anybody. Not since I'd given up on talking to Mom. I was deathly afraid Miss H— would disappoint me, or more that I'd disappoint her. The very thought of it made me squirm because she just had that air about her. People hustled past her like they did me.

  In spite of all that she'd looked at me, though, and that was just enough to get me to leave my seat wedged between the bookshelves and pad over the abused carpet toward her.

  She was buried in her novel again. She didn't notice me. Somehow I was sure she was doing it on purpose.

  I was afraid I'd wasted my courage, because suddenly I couldn't pry my tongue loose and my chest constricted with that augury of tears I never could stand in myself. That's how young I was. I was going to cry because it felt so unfair, I could have sworn her eyes beckoned me, and yet there she sat in studied nonobserv—.

  Buried as I was in self-pity I jumped when she spoke.

  “I was wondering what you were thinking,” I heard that sapient, centuries worn voice she's got say like dust breathing over rustling, forgotten pages of lore.

  “Before you looked at me, Ma'am?” Ma'am was what they said in stories. I didn't know no-one said it anymore.

  She nodded, though her pupils didn't lift from the text.

  “I was pondering why they always tell us we have to start out with good grades and lots of sacrifices but the heroes in stories don't start out doing much at all— just sitting staring at grass and such and thinking— and people don't like it much when I do it. And anyway, history says all the bad things just happen over and over again and one hero's another's villain and all the heroes do bad things anyway, so what do we need them for to begin with? I— um...” I willed my lips to stop flapping. I'm always so chattery, so superfluous when I'm nervous. All I was doing was being a fool again— especially since it was just this kind of talk my Mom didn't like. If thinkers were heroes and heroes did bad things, I supposed it made sense. But then, that was awfully depressing, and I didn't think I was hero material anyway, which was more depressing still.

  “Those are some long-winded thoughts,” Miss H— replied tonelessly. “Anyone ever tell you to stop them?”

  “I can't, Ma'am.”

  “...That's a problem, isn't it?” Her eyes had stopped darting over the pages on her knees.

  I didn't know what to say. I was afraid I'd answer wrong and lose everything. But she didn't talk again and even when I muttered a goodbye she didn't respond, appeared to be in a daze, so I left that day and I really did cry on my way home.

  I cried because I was a child and I shouldn't have to deal with bittersweet encounters like that yet.