To My Young Friend

Everything is different. Well, not everything. Some things are the same but they feel different to Jake and that’s what matters. He walks down an unfamiliar road a block from his new house looking for something; he didn’t know what sort of something, just something, anything. This street is different, this bush is different, this rock is different, this door is different. Wait, this door is very different; Jake didn’t even recognize it from yesterday. He stopped and looked at the odd, out-of-place door; it was old and big and wooden with little windows. Curious, he walked up and stood on his tiptoes, peering through. On the other side he could see a desk with a little sign sitting on it that simply said, Library. What kind of library? Jake tried the doorknob, it was unlocked, and he slipped inside. There was no one to greet him, so without saying anything he started to walk around and look at the shelves. The books were all neatly in order without a spec of dust on them. It was so clean it honestly made him a little nervous. At the end of every aisle he’d look around the corner cautiously; if anyone else was there, he wanted to see them before they saw him. Satisfied, he rounded the corner and started down the next aisle. Stopping in the middle, he decided that he may as well pick up book. His eyes roamed the shelf until one caught his attention: a big, old, thick, green one; one that looked like it was for grownups. He grabbed it and tugged, pulling the massive book from the shelf. Once it was in his arms, he realized how heavy it was; he dropped it, and as it hit the floor it made a loud smackthud kind of sound that echoed through the whole building. Jake stood motionless, listening to hear if any footsteps were on their way to find him. Hearing nothing, he let himself breathe again in relief.

“Something I can help you with?” a voice said suddenly.

Jake spun around in surprise and tripped over the book he’d dropped, falling on his backside. He looked up and saw, what seemed to be at the time, an impossibly tall woman. She was wearing a purple dress with white spots, a red scarf around her neck, and white thick-rimmed glasses.

She looked down at the book between Jake’s legs. “Please don’t damage Library property,” she said, picking up the book with one hand and putting it back on the shelf. She reached out that same hand to Jake and lifted him to his feet.

“Thank you,” Jake said politely. “Sorry for dropping the book.”

She gave it a quick look over. “That’s quite alright. No harm done it seems,” she said, turning back to him. “You must be here to make a donation.”

Jake was confused. “A donation?”

“Of course,” she said. “To the Library’s collection.”

“I don’t have any books with me,” Jake said.

The woman looked him over. “What’s your name?”

“Jake.”

“Welcome to the Library, Jake,” she said. “I am the Librarian.” She shook his hand firmly. “Now, is there anything I can help you to find?”

Jake thought for a moment. “Do you have any books with dragons in them?”

The Librarian pursed her lips before she answered. “Not in the way you’re thinking I’d expect. We’re strictly non-fiction here.”

“Non-fiction?” Jake asked.

“That’s right,” she answered, walking away from him.

Jake hurried behind her, struggling to keep up with her long steps.

“Books about people,” she continued. “Real people. Real people doing real things” She approached one shelf and waved her hand along it as she walked saying, “Extraordinary people; astronauts, warriors, physicists, poets, chemists, architects, philosophers.” When she got to the end she turned back to him. “People like you.”

Jake only knew a few of those words but he knew one thing for sure, “Not like me.”

“Why not?” the Librarian asked as she started taking books off a nearby cart and placing them on the shelf.

“I don’t even know what a,” he tried to remember how she’d said it, “fisolofer is.”

“That’s, philosopher,” she corrected.

“See?” Jake insisted. “I’m not extraordinary at all.”

As the Librarian went for another book that was just out of reach, Jake watched as it seemingly moved from the cart to her hand on its own. He rubbed his eyes.

“It’s the extraordinary parts of people that make extraordinary things happen,” she said as she took the cart and began walking back toward the front of the Library. She paused as she passed him and bent down to look him in the eyes. “And everyone is extraordinary in some way,” she said before continuing down the aisle.

“Everyone?” Jake followed her back to the desk where she was loading up another stack of books he hadn’t noticed before.

She paused, turned around and looked down at him, a smile forming on her lips. “Everyone,” she said.

Suddenly, a new sound filled the Library. It was like the sound of drums and it was getting closer and closer. Coming down the shelves in a wave, all the books were starting to dance! Jake watched in fearful amazement as the books jumped up and down in rhythm, one after another joining the parade. The Librarian reached out her hands and books began to fly off the shelves and circle around her. She took one and opened it up; reaching inside, she grabbed the very words off the page and threw them into the air. A flash of light! Jake covered his eyes and all the drumming suddenly stopped. After a moment a new sound arrived in his ears, the sound of an engine, and he could feel the wind blowing all around him. When he opened his eyes he found himself standing on the wing of a plane high above the ocean! The Librarian was standing behind him, holding his shoulders.

“May 20^th, 1927!” she shouted. “Charles Lindbergh made the longest flight ever over the Atlantic ocean from New York to Paris!”

Jake looked down, watching the water speed by beneath them. It was so close he felt like they might crash but somehow he wasn’t afraid. Charles pulled back on the controls and the plane started to climb. Higher and higher they went until they were passing through clouds. Jake couldn’t see anything and the air was so cold he started to shiver. The plane kept going up until they were even above the clouds. Jake looked down at the clouds beneath them, the were like the floor of a bouncy castle. As they passed over another cloud, Jake saw a big, black storm cloud hanging in the sky below them. Lightning flashed inside of it and Jake could hear the thunder.

The Librarian came close to his ear. “It was Charles’ extraordinary bravery that made this flight extraordinary.”

She she let go of one of his shoulders and another book appeared in her hand. She opened it and another flash blinded him. Suddenly, everything was calm. The only sound Jake could hear was thepeck peck peckof a pencil. When he opened his eyes, he found himself standing in a boy’s bedroom. At a desk on the other side of the room was a boy only a couple years older than himself, writing and reading out of a textbook.

“Who’s that?” he asked.

“Albert Einstein,” the Librarian said.

Jake was surprised. The pictures he’d seen of him were always of an old man. “Are you sure?” he asked.

The Librarian laughed. “I’m sure,” she said. “Before he was a world famous scientist, he was just a boy, but he was no less extraordinary. Not because anyone knew his name, but because of his extraordinary love of knowledge.”

They watched quietly as the young Einstein studied, every time he came up with the answer to a new question he smiled widely. Jake looked up at the Librarian. “Learning is extraordinary?” he asked.

“That’s right.”

Jake looked back toward Albert but discovered he was suddenly back in the Library.

“And every day more, extraordinary new chapters are being written,” The Librarian said, looking at the stack of books. “Honestly, it’s getting rather difficult to keep up.”

Jake laughed and she smiled at him.

“So, I’ll ask you again,” she said. “Would you like to make a donation to the Library?”

“Of my story?” Jake asked excitedly.

The Librarian nodded.

She was right, Jake did have a story; it was a sad, painful story. The more he thought about it, the less interested he was in sharing it. “No. I’m okay,” he said, looking at his feet.

“It must be a pretty sad story,” she said.

Jake nodded. He could feel the tears in his eyes, “I just want to forget about it.”

“Forget? No! Never forget.” she said.

Her response surprised him. He looked up at her. “Then what do I do?”

The Librarian smiled. “Tell it.” She reached out her hand and a book came flying through the Library, called by magic to her hand. She opened the red and white checkered cover and quickly flipped through the pages before transporting them again to a new place.

Jake found himself in the corner of a small room with two small beds, a table and black and white pictures taped to the wall. The room was so narrow and cramped you could hardly even walk between the beds to get to the door.

“Where are we?” Jake asked.

“Amsterdam, 1944.”

Suddenly, the door opened and a girl a few years older than Jake came in, closing the door behind her. In her hand she held a small, red and white checkered book just like the one the Librarian picked out. She sat down at the table, taking a pen eagerly from a small pouch.

“Who is that?” Jake asked.

“Anne Frank,” the Librarian answered again. “She and her family live here with another family and one other man.”

Jake watched as Anne wrote, her face bright and cheerful. “She looks happy,” he said.

“She and her family have been living here secretly for almost two years,” the Librarian said. “She can’t go outside, she can’t see her friends. There are people trying to arrest her.”

Jake looked up. “What did she do?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

The Librarian put her hand on his shoulder. “All Anne ever did,” she explained, “was be herself.”

“I don’t understand,”Jake said.

The Librarian smiled at him. “That’s okay. There’s a lot you’ll learn about her when you’re older,” she said. “That little book she’s writing in is her diary, she’s been keeping it since her thirteenth birthday, writing nearly every day about her life and the dangers she and her family are facing. She wants to become a journalist when she grows up.”

“Does she?” Jake asked.

“No,” the Librarian answered. “In a couple months, the people who are after her will find her and she’ll be sent to a horrible place with her mother and sister. None of them will survive.”

Watching Anne, Jake felt a heavy sadness come over him. “We have to warn her,” he said.

The Librarian looked down at him. “It’s too late, Jake.”

Unhappy with that answer, Jake tried again to step forward, to get Anne’s attention, to warn her. But his feet wouldn’t move. Some sort of magic kept his feet glued to the floor. He opened his mouth to shout but nothing came out. He struggled, growing more and more upset. Anne looked up from her diary toward the window and their eyes met. Jake’s sadness quickly turned to anger; he was angry at the people who were after Anne and he was angry at the Librarian for showing him this. He tried again to break free and finally tumbled forward, falling to the ground. He looked up, shouting, “Anne!” but he discovered he was back in the library. Anne was gone.

“It’s all a part of history now,” the Librarian said as she put the red and white checkered book down on the desk.

Jake stood up, wiping his eyes. He picked up the book and opened it, hoping to be sent back to Anne’s room, but the magic wasn’t there.

“Anne thought the first book she’d try to have published was that diary,” the Librarian said, continuing her work. “She spent hours editing it and rewriting it, making it perfect. She had an extraordinary love for writing, and an extraordinary bravery to record what was happening.”

“But she died,” Jake said.

“That’s right,” the Librarian said. She smiled. “But that didn’t stop her.”

Jake looked up at her in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Anne’s story was far from over,” she said, pushing the loaded cart back to the aisle.

Jake hurried after her, the diary clutched in his hands. “Tell me what happened,” he demanded.

The Librarian began sorting the new books as she talked. “Anne’s father, Otto, survived. When he returned to the place his family had been hiding, he found Anne’s diary still on the floor where it had been dropped the day they were captured. He found her other writings as well and decided to publish the diary on her behalf.”

“Did people like it?” Jake asked as if everything up till now hinged on the Librarian’s answer.

She grinned. “Very much. Her words in a time of fear and hopelessness inspired the world, and she lives on in the hearts and minds of many.”

Jake smiled.

The Librarian took another book off her cart and handed it to him.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“Open it.”

Jake did and found all the pages were blank. He looked up at the Librarian in confusion.

“That book,” she said, “is for your story.”

Jake looked down at the empty pages, touching them with his fingertips. “But what do I write?” he asked.

“Write what happened. Write your feelings. The words will come to you once to start.” she said. “Oh! I almost forgot.” She reached into her dress pocket, took out a pencil and handed it to him.

Jake took it and sat down at a desk, turning his book to the very first page.