The Tiny Hero of Ferny Creek Library

by Linda Bailey

  “Good. Now it’s my turn for a nap. All this excitement since you arrived—I can’t believe I’ve stayed awake all day.”

  “Go rest,” said Eddie. “I’ll stand guard while you sleep.”

  Min obeyed, making herself a bed atop a crumpled tissue. “Don’t wander off now.”

  “I won’t.”

  Seconds later, she was snoring. Stepping carefully so as not to rattle any papers, Eddie crept out of the tray.

  He stood guard, just as he’d promised. But after a long period of watchfulness, during which not one single thing happened except for increasingly loud snores from his aunt, he realized—there was nothing to guard against. The Squishers had all gone home.

  “Hmph,” he said out loud.

  He was bored.

  But how could he be bored? This was the Library!

  He wasn’t seeing the Library, that was why. And what was the point of being in the Library if he didn’t experience it?

  A tingle ran through his feet, tiny but quite thrilling. Eddie laughed, remembering how nervous his feet had been on the journey to the Library. Now, suddenly, they were brave and wanted to explore.

  But . . . no. He had promised Aunt Min he’d stay close.

  His feet argued back. The desk was close, they said. Up till now, Eddie had stayed near the paper tray. But the desk was much larger than that. Eddie could look across it and see the fantastic jumble of things he had noticed when he first arrived—things the Librarian must need in her job.

  What could they be?

  As he started to walk, his feet tingled harder. They seemed to have minds of their own.

  Pencils he found in abundance. Also, pens. A Librarian must have to write many things, thought Eddie. Sure enough, he found some. A list with the heading, “Kindergarten Story Time” followed by the titles of three books. Another list said, “Research—Solar System.”

  Eddie’s feet carried him on, past a glass bowl filled with gold stars. Behind these rose a giant tape dispenser and a huge box of tissues. Tucked between, like a joke, was a plastic duck. It swung when Eddie pushed it. (He had to run to get out of the way!)

  Looming above everything was a computer, its screen an enormous blank eye. In the daytime, it must have been filled with bright images. Now it was empty and gray. Smaller gray things—a mystery to Eddie—were attached to the big computer. Must be a computer family, thought Eddie.

  A framed photo caught his eye. He scuttled over. The picture showed a man and a woman hugging a curly haired dog. Eddie recognized the woman immediately. The Librarian!

  Beside the photo was a blue stamp pad, left open. Eddie knew all about stamp pads. The Teacher had one in Room 19. Pa had stumbled onto it one dark night and had come home blue. He’d left footprints all over the Teacher’s desk.

  Eddie kept his distance from the stamp pad.

  He found more yellow stickies. They were everywhere! The Librarian must really like stickies.

  He also found a mysterious straw basket, woven in lots of different colors. It was wider at the top than at the bottom, which made it extremely difficult to climb.

  What was inside? Eddie couldn’t stand not knowing. Slowly, with great effort, he hauled himself all the way to the top.

  It was worth the climb. At first the odd collection of objects in the basket made no sense. But then Eddie recognized one—a toy train with a smiling face.

  “Thomas the Tank Engine!” he cried.

  Recognizing Thomas made Eddie suspect that the other objects might also be clues to books. He made a list in his head so he could ask Aunt Min about them later:

  • a purple plastic purse

  • a box of crayons

  • a toy pig with big ears, wearing a red dress

  • a little silver jingle bell

  • a pair of children’s glasses with round lenses

  • a tall hat with red-and-white stripes

  • a long feathery pink thing that looked like clothing

  When Eddie saw the feathery thing—so soft to sleep on—he thought of Aunt Min. He tried to take it back for her. But it was too hard to drag.

  Fortunately, climbing out of the basket was not hard at all. When Eddie reached the top rim, he just dropped down.

  His last stop, closest to the Librarian’s chair, was the best stop of all. The Librarian’s teacup! The one she had been drinking from earlier. Eddie crept closer, admiring the lavish pink roses. When he reached the saucer, he glanced down and . . .

  Yes!

  There was tea spilled in the saucer. Lovely, clear, amber tea. Gone cold now—he tested it with his antennae. But still delicious, as he discovered when he took a sip.

  Aunt Min would be so pleased.

  Bursting with his news, he ran back to tell her. But she was still in a deep snooze.

  “Hmph,” muttered Eddie.

  He settled down to wait. He watched the clouds drift in snowy puffs across the skylight. He stared out at the trees, their leaves shimmering in the late afternoon sun. He thought about his parents—and then stopped because he was almost positive they were angry with him.

  However angry they might be, he knew what he had to do. Look after Aunt Min.

  He checked on her again.

  “Hmph!” he repeated.

  He wiggled. He stretched. He stared at his feet. Tingling again . . .

  And that’s when Eddie (or possibly his feet) figured something out.

  At that moment, the Library was his. All his. Not just the paper tray. Not just the desk. The whole magnificent, glorious, magical room. For however long it lasted, this Library—and every book in it—belonged to a bug named Eddie.

  He might never have this chance again. . . .

  CHAPTER

  8

  Giddy with excitement, Eddie shinnied down the desk.

  He knew exactly where he was going. Away he ran, making a beeline for the fancy red cabinet at the back of the Library, his feet tingling so hard, they were practically on fire.

  As he passed the story-time carpet, something caught his eye. Something lying on top. Could it be . . .

  If Eddie had stopped to think, he might have remembered his father’s warning. Watch out for carpets! But he didn’t think. What Eddie did instead—in a great unthinking rush—was turn, scramble onto the carpet, and run toward the book that lay open in the middle.

  After only three steps, he stopped. He barked out a laugh. This was the most peculiar “running” he had ever done. Definitely the slowest. His legs kept dropping between tufts of wool. His body rose or sank with every move he made.

  His father was right. Carpets were weird.

  But he struggled on gamely till at last he reached the book. He climbed onto the left-hand page and looked around.

  A chapter book. He had never read one of these alone before, only with Aunt Min’s help. The page was old and had obviously been read many times. He could tell by the way it felt beneath his feet. Worn. Soft. Fuzzy.

  The page was so comfortable, in fact, that Eddie did something he’d never done before.

  He lay down on the book.

  “Like a feather bed,” thought Eddie. He had never actually felt a feather bed, but he’d heard about one in a princess story.

  He did a little roll, breathing in the book’s smells. Dog. Old grass. Happiness.

  Rolling again, he picked up a new smell. Tuna fish. Someone had read this book while eating a tuna sandwich. Yes, there! He could see the oily stain on the paper.

  What an excellent book, thought Eddie. Good for sleeping. Good for rolling. Good for smelling. And most of all, good for . . .

  He headed to the top-left corner. Then, walking across the letters one after another, he began to read.

  . . . the Littles were up early as a general rule. Stuart was a great help to his parents and to his older brother George, because of his small size and because he could do things that a mouse can do and was agreeable about doing them.

  Eddie’s mandibles went slack
in astonishment. Of all the books in the Library, the one that was waiting on the story-time carpet was about . . . a mouse! A mouse was bigger than a bug, he knew that. But not a lot bigger. And a mouse certainly knew how it felt to be tiny in a big world.

  Eddie was entranced.

  Letter by letter, word by word, he read on. Stuart’s mother (not a mouse, for some reason) had lost her ring down the drain of a sink. How could she get it back? Stuart was the only one small enough—Eddie loved this part—to crawl into the drain to fetch it. Stuart was also clever about holding onto a piece of string, so that he could be pulled out. In fact, there was a drawing in the book of Stuart being lifted out of the drain, his mother’s ring safely around his neck.

  But at the bottom of the page—

  The words stopped! Right in the middle of the story.

  Eddie snorted with annoyance. He hated when this happened. What came next? Was Stuart’s mother excited to get her ring back? Was she proud of her son?

  If only he could turn the page.

  Never had he done such a thing on his own. The few times he had helped Aunt Min to turn pages, he’d discovered that it wasn’t easy. And some pages, he knew, were too heavy for any bug to turn. (Except for Grandpa, of course. Grandpa George had been so big and strong, he could turn any page he liked.)

  Eddie stared at the page. It didn’t look heavy.

  He headed for the book’s outer edge, as Aunt Min had taught him to do, and carefully crawled underneath the page. He continued to crawl until he reached the middle of the book, where the page above him was sewn in. Then, pushing his head really hard against that page, he kept crawling. Push, push, push, push, push. This was the difficult part—like pushing an avalanche up a mountainside. He wasn’t actually moving much, but yes . . . the page was rising! Push, push, push, push, push. Higher now. And higher. One final mighty heeeaaave!

  The page, with a great FLAP of air, flopped over.

  And so did Eddie. He did a somersault!

  Laughing, he got to his feet. Then he looked around. He was standing on two new pages. He had done it! All by himself. He wished Aunt Min was here to see.

  He scampered to the top of the page and read the next sentence.

  “Oh, my brave little son,” said Mrs. Little proudly, as she kissed Stuart and thanked him.

  Feeling a rush of pleasure on Stuart’s behalf, Eddie read on. And on. And on. He forgot about Aunt Min. He forgot about the Library. He even forgot about the school. He was deep inside the story now, lost in Stuart’s world. . . .

  KA-BANG! The Library door crashed open.

  Eddie jumped.

  Rrrrrumble, rrrrrumble.

  “Uh-oh.” He knew that sound.

  The Cleaner!

  Yes! There he was, pushing his big cart full of supplies. Pail, mop, dusters, and . . .

  Vacuum cleaner!

  How could Eddie have forgotten? Every evening, the Cleaner came to Ferny Creek Elementary. Every evening, the bugs made sure they were safely home before he arrived. It was the number one rule in Eddie’s family. How could he forget?

  Rrrrumble, rrrrumble. The cart rolled across the Library on rubber wheels, heading straight for . . .

  Eddie.

  CHAPTER

  9

  Eddie jumped like a flea. In two stupendous leaps, he reached the bottom of Stuart Little and threw himself onto—

  “Oh, no!” he remembered. “The carpet!”

  It was as if it had been waiting for him. The second he landed, it seized his legs.

  “Oh, please,” begged Eddie. “Not now!”

  He thrashed with all his strength against the tufts. He forced his body forward. But every time he freed his legs, the carpet grabbed them again. It was like walking in quicksand. And with each step, he listened for it. The terrible ROARRRR that could only mean—

  The vacuum cleaner!

  The vacuum cleaner, as Eddie knew only too well, was the most horrifying machine in the world. Every evening, it rolled across the floor, sucking up everything in its path. Coins, dirt, paper clips, crumbs. Even—and most terribly—insects. Living or dead, the vacuum didn’t care. It sucked entire families into its belly of filth. One dreadful evening, Min had seen the Cleaner empty the vacuum’s belly. She would never speak about it again. She said the carnage was too awful to describe.

  And now that very same vacuum was right behind Eddie—just waiting to do its foul work. Would Eddie take his last breath in a bag of dirt?

  He struggled on through the carpet. He flailed and thrashed. At long last, he dropped, exhausted, onto the pale linoleum floor.

  As he lay there gasping, he listened again. Where was it? The ROARRRR?

  He looked around.

  The Cleaner stood quietly beside his cart, his back to Eddie. Behind him waited the vacuum, its cord still wound up.

  Eddie did a little leap of joy. The vacuum had not gobbled him up! It hadn’t even been turned on. Astounded by his luck, he headed for the desk.

  When he heard a strange sound behind him, he picked up his pace but felt no real panic. It was only a bit of splashing.

  “Splashing?” thought Eddie.

  He turned to face—

  A gargantuan tangle of ugly gray snakes! Coming straight at him!

  No, he thought. Not snakes.

  The mop!

  Its huge tangled ropes—filthy and foul—were pushing a wave of water. The wave hit! It lifted poor Eddie right off his feet. And before he could catch his breath, the monster mop had swallowed him whole. Deep into its innards went Eddie, tossed like a grain of sand—forward, backward, sideways. If he could have fought back, he would have. But the mop was too strong. A tsunami! Its thick, murky water was suffocating.

  All Eddie could do was curl up.

  Wait.

  Forward, backward, sideways.

  Forward, backward, sideways.

  He would never know how long it lasted. At some point, the mop was hoisted up—with Eddie still inside—and dumped with a mighty SPLASH into deep water.

  The force of it released him.

  Suddenly, with a great SCHWOOOP, the mop was gone. Eddie swirled helplessly in its wake as he rose to the surface.

  Bobbing up, he stared bleary-eyed at his surroundings. He was floating in a metal pail. Coating the water’s surface was a layer of scum. Here and there floated yellow-gray suds.

  “Help!” yelled Eddie as a broken potato chip floated past.

  But there was no help.

  He scrabbled frantically with his legs. A new fear arose. “Am I going to drown?”

  Then he remembered. “Water bugs!”

  Aunt Min had read a nonfiction book about them—where they lived, what they ate, how they swam.

  “How did they swim?” Eddie searched his memory. Something about paddling their legs. Like oars.

  Had Eddie ever seen an oar? Never.

  “Try!” he said out loud. “Try!” And with only the tiniest notion of what paddling might be, Eddie paddled. Mostly this turned out to be moving all his legs at once as fast as they could go. Somehow it kept him from sinking.

  But for how long?

  His paddling took him to the inner wall of the pail. It was shiny and rose high and smooth. Impossible to climb. As Eddie grasped in vain for a foothold, his heart sank.

  He could never crawl out of this pail. Not in a billion years.

  “Think!” he told himself. “Think about this pail.”

  He searched his memory again. Once he had peeked from the crack-in-the-wall as the Cleaner pushed his mop around the room. The Cleaner would return to the pail every now and then and put the mop in the water.

  Yes! Eddie was now almost sure that the mop was going to plunge into this pail again. He knew what he had to do. He just hoped he could stay afloat long enough to do it.

  The waiting seemed to take forever. At last he heard the Cleaner’s footsteps returning. THUD. THUD. THUD.

  Eddie paddled to the middle of the pail. He screwed up h
is courage. This was going to be difficult. Maybe impossible. And it was going to hurt!

  “Be brave,” he told himself. “Like Stuart Little.”

  He waited while the Cleaner picked up the mop. SHLUP!

  He waited while the Cleaner wrung the mop out in a special little side compartment of the pail. SHWOOSH!

  He waited, reminding himself that sometimes the way you get out of trouble is the same way you got in.

  Then suddenly—yes, now!—the mop dropped fast, into the pail. Eddie stopped paddling. As the mop hit, he reached with all six legs and grabbed on. He fastened his body like a burr to one of the soggy ropes, and as the mop rose up, he held on. Water poured in a powerful cascade over Eddie’s body, trying to dislodge him, trying to force him back into the pail. But he held tight.

  He felt a wild swing as the mop dipped again into the little compartment for a wringing out. But he knew that was coming too. He clung fiercely as the ropes were squeezed hard against the metal. SHWOOSH!

  “Oof!” went Eddie! It was worse than he’d expected. The squeeze was fierce enough to crack a bug’s exoskeleton. Eddie’s guts felt ready to pop.

  But before that could happen, the mop rose up again. Eddie hung on. Yes! Time for his final move. As the mop was lowered to the floor—he let go.

  He hit the floor an instant before the mop. Immediately, he zigged to the side—just before the Cleaner’s big black shoe came down. CRASH!

  And there—like a miracle—was the desk.

  Eddie ran for his life!

  When he was safe behind the desk leg, he scrunched himself into a small, trembling ball. He listened as the sloshing sounds went on and on. When he heard the ROARRRR of the vacuum, he shuddered, grateful to be out of its path. He waited to hear the cart rrrrumble down the hall. Then, finally, he began the long, slow climb up the desk. Never in his life had he felt so tired.

  Aunt Min was waiting, wringing her feet. “Eddie? Is that really you? Holy dung beetles! What on earth happened?”

  Eddie tried to explain, but he didn’t get far—

  “I thought you were getting stomped on!” cried Min. “Or sucked up! Or drowned by that dratted mop!”

  “A little of each,” mumbled Eddie. “But I’m okay now.”