CHAPTER 7

I PUSHED the heavy door open and walked into the library. The air in the
library isn't like the air anywhere else, first it's always cooler than the air
outside, it feels like you're walking into a cellar on a hot July day, even if you
have to walk up a bunch of stairs to get into it.

The next thing about the air in the library is that no other place smells anything
like it. If you close your eyes and try to pick out what it is that you're sniffing
you're only going to get confused, because all the smells have blended together
and turned themselves into a different one.

As soon as I got into the library I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I got a
whiff of the leather on all the old books, a smell that got real strong if you
picked one of them up and stuck your nose real close to it when you turned the
pages. Then there was the smell of the cloth that covered the brand-new books,
the books that made a splitting sound when you opened them. Then I could
sniff the paper, that soft, powdery, drowsy smell that comes off the pages in
little puffs when you're reading something or looking at some pictures, a kind
of hypnotizing smell.

I think it's that smell that makes so many folks fall asleep in the library. You'll
see someone turn a page and you can imagine a puff of page powder coming up
really slow and easy until it starts piling on the person's eye- lashes, weighing
their eyes down so much that they stay down a little longer after each blink and
finally making them so heavy that they just don't come back up at all. Then
their mouths come open and their heads start bouncing up and down like they're
bobbing in a big tub of water for apples and before you know it,... woop, zoop,
sloop . . they're out cold and their face thunks down smack-dab on the book.

That's the part that gets the librarians the maddest, they get real upset if folks
start drooling in the books and, page powder or not, they don't want to hear no
excuses, you gotta get out. Drooling in the books is even worse than laughing
out loud in the library, and even though it might seem kind of mean, you can't
really blame the librarians for tossing drooly folks out 'cause there's nothing
worse than opening a book and having the pages all stuck together from
somebody's dried-up slobber.

I opened my eyes to start looking for Miss Hill. She wasn't at the lending desk
so I left my suitcase with the white lady there. I knew it would be safe.
I walked between the stacks to see if Miss Hill was putting books up. Three
doggone times I walked through the library, upstairs and down, and couldn't
find her.

I went back up to the librarian at the lending desk. I waited until she looked up
at me. She smiled and said, "Yes? Would you like to retrieve your suitcase?"
She reached under the desk.

I said, "Not yet, ma'am, could I ask you a question?"

She said, "Of course, young man, how may I help you?"

"I'm looking for Miss Hill."

The librarian looked surprised. "Miss Hill? My goodness, hadn't you heard?"
Uh-oh ! That's Number 16 of Bud Caldwell's Rules and Things for Having a
Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself, that's one of the worst
ones.

RULES AND THINGS NUMBER 16
If a Grown-up Ever Starts a Sentence by Saying
"Haven't You Heard, "Get Ready, 'Cause
What's About to Come Out of Their Mouth Is Gonna
Drop You Head first into a Boiling Tragedy.

It seems like the answer to "Haven't you heard" always has something to do
with someone kicking the bucket. And not kicking the bucket in a calm,
peaceful way like a heart attack at home in bed either, it usually is some kind of
dying that will make your eyes buck out of your head when you hear about it,
it's usually the kind of thing that will run you out of a room with your hands
over your ears and your mouth wide open.

Something like hearing that your grandmother got her whole body pulled
through the wringer on a washing machine, or something like hearing about a
horse slipping on the ice and landing on some kid you went to school with.
I answered, "No, ma'am," and got my stomach ready to hear about Miss Hill
biting the dust in some way that was going to give me nightmares.

The librarian said, "There's no need for you to look so stricken. It's not bad
news, young man."

She laughed a quiet, librarian-type laugh and said, "Really, it's not bad news.
Unless you had matrimonial plans concerning Miss Hill."

I pretended I knew what she was talking about, most times if you listen to how
grown folks ask a question they let you know what it is they want to hear.
I said, "No, ma'am, I didn't plan that at all."

She laughed again and said, "Good, because I don't think her new husband
would appreciate the competition. Chariemae ………. Miss Hill is currently
living in Chicago, Illinois."

I said, "Husband? You mean she got married, ma'am?"

The librarian said, "Oh, yes, and I must tell you, she was radiating happiness."
I said, "And she moved all the way to Chicago?"

"That's right, but Chicago isn't that far. Here, I’ll show you."

She reached under her desk and pulled out a thick leather book called Atlas of
the United States of America.

She thumbed through a couple of pages and said, "Here we are." She turned the
book to me, it was a big map of Michigan and a couple of the states that were
next to it.

"We're here." She pointed to the spot that said Flint. "And Chicago is here in
Illinois."

They looked pretty close, but I know how tricky maps can be, shucks, they can
put the whole world on one page on a map, so I said, "How long would it take
someone to walk that far?"

She said, "Oh, dear, quite a while, I'm afraid. Let's check the distance."

She reached under the desk and pulled out another thick book called Standard
Highway Mileage Guide and turned to a page that had a million numbers and
city names on it. She showed me how to find Chicago on the line that was
running across the page and Flint on the line that was running down the page
and then to look at the number that was writ where the two of them joined up. It
said 270.

She pulled a pencil out and said, "OK, this is how one figures the amount of
time required to walk to Chicago. Now--" She pulled a third book out.

Shucks, this is one of the bad things about talking to librarians, I asked one
question and already she had us digging through three different books.
She thumbed through the book until she said, "Aha, it says here that the
average male human gait is five miles an hour. OK, assuming that you could
cover five miles an hour, all we have to do is divide two hundred seventy by
five."

She did it and said, "Fifty-four hours! Much too long to be practical. No, I'm
afraid you'll simply have to wait until Mrs. Rollins comes back to Flint for a
visit."

Shucks. Chicago might as well be a million miles away from Flint and Miss
Hill might as well be a squashed, crunched-up mess in a washing machine
when it came down to helping me now.

I thanked the librarian for the bad news and went to sit at one of the big heavy
tables so I could think what to do next.

Going back to the Home was out, it used to be that we'd get a new kid every
once in a while, but lately it seems like there's a couple of new kids every day,
mostly babies, and they're most always sick. It's not like it was when I first got
there, shucks, half the folks that run it don't even tell you their name and don't
remember yours unless you're in trouble all the time or getting ready to move
out.

After while I got my suitcase and walked into the regular air and stinking
smells of Flint. That library door closing after I walked out was the exact kind
of door Momma had told me about. I knew that since it had closed the next one
was about to open.

I went back under my tree and before I knew it I was asleep.