The Tiny Hero of Ferny Creek Library

by Linda Bailey

  “Wow, Alfie, that’s great! We can get Aunt Min out, too.”

  Alfie stopped dancing. “Uh, no. We can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I had to FALL, Eddie. There’s nothing to hold ONTO. I just FELL!”

  Eddie sighed. Alfie was right. Min couldn’t handle a long drop onto a hard floor.

  “Anyway, she’s too BIG,” said Alfie. “It’s a WEENSY gap. I had to SQUISH to get through.”

  “Oh, Alfie, don’t say squish.”

  “I know,” said Alfie. “Auntie Min didn’t like it, either. But I only squished MYSELF, Eddie. I HAD to. And I’m OKAY, see?” He did another prance.

  “Keep your voice down, Alfie, I mean it.” Quickly, Eddie explained about the Grischer—her exceptional hearing, her stealthy prowling, her speed and skill with a magazine.

  “Yeah, I KNOW all that. Auntie Min TOLD me.”

  “Is Aunt Min okay?”

  Alfie shuffled his feet. “Not really. She hardly moves, and she won’t eat. But she was glad I found that GAP, Eddie. She TOLD me to go. It was HER idea.”

  Eddie nodded, not surprised.

  Alfie looked around.

  “WOW!” he said. “Look at all this SPACE!” He ran in a big circle under the desk. Then dashed right into the open.

  “HEY!” yelled Eddie. “Get back here!”

  Alfie took far too much time to obey. On his way back, he spotted the shriveled remains of the blueberry behind a cord. He beetled over and poked them with his foot. “Can we EAT this?”

  Without waiting for an answer, he raced to the pad of stickies and crawled on top. “Is this where you SLEEP? What’re we going to do NOW? PLAY? I’ve been ALL COOPED UP, Eddie. Let’s DO something!”

  It was time, Eddie decided, to set his little brother straight.

  “Alfie,” he said in a quiet voice that he hoped would be an example, “there are three important rules here. Rule number one—keep quiet. Rule number two—keep quiet. Rule number three—”

  “KEEP QUIET?”

  “Right. And I know you’re not good at rules. . . .” He thought for a moment. Alfie was terrible at rules. “What did Aunt Min say to keep you quiet?”

  “Oh.” Alfie looked uncomfortable. “She said . . . well, she said that if I didn’t shut up, she’d EAT ME. I think she MEANT it, Eddie.”

  “Oh,” said Eddie. “Well then . . . that goes double for me, Alfie. If you don’t keep quiet, I will . . . er . . . eat you!”

  He gave Alfie his fiercest, hungriest stare, hoping the threat would work. It seemed unlikely. Who’d want to eat Alfie?

  He was surprised to see his brother twitch nervously. “Okay. I’ll be quiet.”

  “Good,” said Eddie. “Excellent.”

  What Eddie didn’t say was how glad he was to have company again—even if it was just Alfie. There’s nothing like being alone for a few days, with no one to talk to and nothing to look at except shoes, to make you appreciate your little brother, however annoying he might be.

  And so the brothers spent the day together, listening as the children came and went.

  One thing they discovered quickly—Hazel’s buttons were a great success. In each visiting class, there were children proudly wearing “please save the library” buttons, and many more children who wanted one.

  There was chatter about the Library Ghost, too. The Grischer tried to stop it, but she couldn’t be everywhere at once. So over the course of the day, listening to the children, Eddie and Alfie managed to piece together an interesting story.

  They found out that some of Ferny Creek’s students, including Hazel, had had a busy weekend. The mysterious yellow stickies that had appeared in the Library the week before had aroused the children’s curiosity, especially about the Library Ghost. They had become so curious about Miss Cavendish, in fact, that they’d searched for people who had known her. There were plenty of those around—parents, grandparents, neighbors. The children had asked lots of questions.

  And on Monday in the Library, those same children told Eddie and Alfie—without meaning to, of course, and without even knowing the bugs were there—what they had learned about Miss Cavendish.

  Like the fact that she was famous for her cookies. She called them Cavendish Cookies and always arrived with a jar full, asking the children to help her out because “I made too many.” She liked birthdays, too—anybody’s, everybody’s—and thought books were the best gift of all. Also, she really did have a dog—a golden retriever named Charlotte Brontë who loved, more than anything, to be read to. Dogs were not allowed in Ferny Creek Elementary, but an exception was made for Charlotte Brontë because so many children had learned to read by having her as their audience.

  And then there was the whoopee cushion. Miss Cavendish’s nephew gave it to her for her birthday, and she liked to bring it to school and hide it on the comfy couch or the story-time chair. After it made its noise, she would put it away again till everyone forgot about it. She brought it out only once or twice a year, but there were plenty of adults in Ferndale who still remembered Whoopee Cushion Day.

  “What’s a WHOOPEE CUSHION?” asked Alfie.

  “Shh,” said Eddie.

  The bugs also learned that occasionally Miss Cavendish would read to herself in some corner of the Library and entirely forget where she was. Children would give a gentle poke to rouse her. She called it her “reading trance.”

  Eddie grinned when he heard this. That was exactly what happened to him—a reading trance. He just hadn’t known what to call it.

  Eddie loved the stories about the Library Ghost, but the whole time he was listening, all he could think about was Aunt Min.

  Could she hear the stories? Eddie hoped so.

  And when the stranger came into the Library at the end of the day, Eddie hoped that Aunt Min could hear her too.

  The stranger was a complete surprise.

  Her name was Adelaide Glossup, and she knew more about the Library Ghost than anyone else in Ferndale.

  CHAPTER

  26

  When Adelaide Glossup stepped into the Library, she clapped both hands to her cheeks. “Aunt Louisa’s cabinet! I haven’t seen that in years!”

  Without another word, she walked straight to Miss Cavendish’s brightly painted cabinet. The Principal followed, while under the desk, Eddie and Alfie settled down to watch.

  “My aunt Louisa made furniture,” said Adelaide Glossup, running her hand over the woodwork. “She was quite well known, and this is an especially beautiful piece. Oh, look! Some of Aunt Lou’s old books are still on the shelves.”

  She reached for one. “I don’t believe it! Here’s Anne of Green Gables. My favorite book as a child . . . and this was the very copy I read.”

  “A classic,” said the Principal, smiling agreeably. “And so is this cabinet. So kind of your aunt to donate it to our Library.”

  “Excuse me?” said a quiet voice.

  The Principal jumped. “Oh! Ms. Grisch! I didn’t notice you there. This is Adelaide Glossup. She’s the niece of our famous Miss Cavendish.”

  “I see,” said the Grischer. But it was clear from her voice that she didn’t see at all.

  Adelaide Glossup pointed at the cabinet. “I wanted to see this again. One of your students—a little girl named Hazel—is my neighbor. She came to see me on Saturday, asking about my aunt. What a surprise! I thought everyone had forgotten Aunt Lou by now.”

  “Oh, she’s not forgotten here,” said the Principal, smiling.

  “I can see that. There’s one of her rocking chairs, too. She made three or four of those. Called them her Reading Rockers. I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is, Mr. Steadman, to see Aunt Lou’s work here. I know how she loved this Library.”

  Eddie and Alfie listened to all this from a distance, of course. But closer to the cabinet, some fifth graders were researching weather and climate.

  One of them, a girl, spoke up now. “There’s a picture of Miss Cavendish here, Mr. Steadman. In o
ur Library.”

  “There is?” said the Principal. “Where, Tanika?”

  “Over by the atlases. I’ll show you.”

  A moment later, the Principal was back, blowing dust off a framed photograph. “Tanika’s right. I have no idea how this photo got hidden away back there. We must bring it into the open.” He propped it against some books on the cabinet.

  “Are you sure that’s wise?” asked the Grischer. “Ms. Glossup, you may not be aware, but there have been some very disturbing manifestations in this room. Sounds. Sightings. Messages. Mr. Steadman is aware of the details.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Adelaide Glossup. “Hazel told me. My aunt seems to have become a bit of a . . . legend in this Library.”

  “Exactly,” said the Principal. “Legend. Not ghost.”

  Ms. Glossup chuckled. “Well, I don’t believe in ghosts, and neither did Aunt Lou. But I love the idea that her spirit lives on in this Library. She was a remarkable woman. Had a huge influence on all of us—her nieces and nephews. Most of all on my cousin Gregory, of course.”

  “Gregory?” repeated the Principal. “Cavendish? Excuse me? Do you mean . . . Gregory Cavendish? The writer?”

  “Why, yes. He’s my cousin.”

  “Gregory Cav—I just read his new book. Didn’t he win—”

  “Yes,” said Ms. Glossup.

  “Oh, my goodness!” The Principal was suddenly breathless. “I had heard that Gregory Cavendish had some connection to Ferndale, but I never imagined he had anything to do with . . . my goodness, this is amazing!”

  “Aunt Lou encouraged Greg,” said Ms. Glossup. “His reading, of course. Then his writing. He talks about her often.”

  “My goodness!” said the Principal for the third time.

  “Yes, indeed,” said Adelaide Glossup with a smile. “Well, thank you, Mr. Steadman, it’s been a real pleasure to visit. So many wonderful memories of Aunt Lou.” She returned Anne to the cabinet.

  “Not at all.” The Principal beamed. “Come anytime.”

  In a rush of good feelings, the Principal and Ms. Glossup left the Library. The fifth graders left soon after.

  But three of them stayed behind. Two boys and a girl.

  “Ms. Grisch?” said one of the boys.

  “That’s Janek,” whispered Eddie to his brother.

  “Who’s Janek?” asked Alfie.

  “Aren’t you . . . the young man who helped me pack boxes?” asked the Grischer.

  “Yes,” said Janek. “And I . . . I mean we . . . were wondering. Can we please unpack the graphic novels?”

  “Excuse me?” said the Grischer. “Unpack?”

  “Yes,” said the other boy. “We’re writing our own graphic novels. Me, Janek, and Emma. For our social studies projects. Janek told us you put the graphic novels in boxes. But we need them—for research.”

  “Plus we want to be graphic novelists,” said the girl. “When we grow up.”

  “Not me,” said Janek. “I want to be a cartoonist. In the New Yorker.”

  “I want to make books like Wimpy Kid,” said the other boy.

  “So you see,” said the girl, “we need the books. Could we please unpack them, Ms. Grisch?”

  “For heaven’s sake,” said the Grischer. “Can’t you get them out of the public library?”

  All three children stared at her in shock.

  “Oh, very well,” said the Grischer. “As if I don’t have enough to do.”

  A few minutes later, Eddie and Alfie were treated to the odd sight—or at least it looked odd to Eddie—of the Grischer packing the science fiction books into boxes while the fifth graders unpacked the graphic novels out of other boxes.

  “I don’t UNDERSTAND the Squishers,” said Alfie.

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Eddie. “None of us do.”

  And with that, he felt a sudden pang. Out of all the bugs in the family, the one who had the best understanding of the peculiarities of Squishers was Aunt Min. She would definitely have something to say about these boxes.

  How Eddie missed his aunt. And how he would have loved to set her free!

  CHAPTER

  27

  The moment the Grischer left for the day, Eddie and Alfie scurried up the desk leg.

  “Aunt Min?” said Eddie through the keyhole. “Are you there?”

  “Hey, Auntie!” said Alfie. “Look at ME! I’m OUT of PRISON! I’m FREEEEE!”

  “Alfie, stop it,” said Eddie.

  It took a long time for Min to reach the keyhole.

  “I’m so glad,” she said hoarsely. “Alfie . . . free.”

  Eddie peeked inside. “Are you okay?”

  She looked awful. He couldn’t see much in the murkiness of the drawer, but he could tell she was wasting away.

  “You have to eat more,” he told her. “Alfie and I are going to the teachers’ room tonight. We’ll find you something tasty.”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Aunt Min?”

  He couldn’t tell whether she had walked away or just dropped to the bottom of the drawer. Either way, it wasn’t good.

  “Aunt Min? Are you okay?”

  In the teachers’ room later that night, Eddie and Alfie found a chunk of pear, only slightly spoiled, as well as a cracker and a jelly bean. Eddie told Alfie to leave the jelly bean behind.

  “It’s not food, Alfie.”

  “So what?” said Alfie. “YOU got to eat LICORICE! Auntie Min even said so. You got to eat it ALL NIGHT LONG!”

  “What?” said Eddie.

  “And you ate it ALL UP! You didn’t leave any for ME!” added Alfie. “Only a horrible LUMP full of SPIT!”

  Eddie reeled backward. He was so mad, he started yelling the same way his brother did. “What are you TALKING about, Alfie? I didn’t WANT the licorice. I didn’t even LIKE the licorice. I just—I just—oh for CRYING OUT LOUD, Alfie, go ahead and EAT THE JELLY BEAN!”

  “Goody,” said Alfie. “Thanks, Eddie.”

  Alfie ate a very big hole into the jelly bean. Then he gave a loud burp and was happy to leave the rest behind.

  On the way back, both brothers carried chunks of pear for Min. She liked pear, Eddie knew, and it was full of water.

  She probably needed water.

  The Library was bathed in moonlight when they returned.

  “Aunt Min?” called Eddie. “Are you there?”

  “AUNTIE MIN! COME TO THE KEYHOLE!” hollered Alfie.

  When she finally arrived, all she said was, “I’m not hungry.”

  “But you must be thirsty,” said Eddie. “Eat this pear. Please. You need to keep your strength up so . . . so you can walk home, when we get you out.”

  Aunt Min managed, with great effort, to haul herself to the keyhole. Her eyes looked faded and dull.

  “Oh,” she croaked. “Moonlight . . . pretty.”

  Eddie couldn’t speak.

  “Eddie?” she whispered.

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t get . . . hopes up.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean . . . glad Alfie’s safe . . . but me . . . a good long life, Eddie . . . wonderful adventures . . . maybe I won’t. . . .”

  “Don’t say it, Aunt Min!”

  “Not the . . . worst thing . . . in the world.”

  “Yes, yes, it would be! It would be the worst thing ever! Don’t give up. There must be something I can do.”

  “Sometimes,” said Min slowly, “nothing . . . to do.”

  Impossible, thought Eddie.

  That night he couldn’t fall asleep. As his brother dozed on the pad of stickies under the desk, Eddie moved out into the open. He needed to gaze at the stars. He didn’t believe in wishing on stars, but that night he felt desperate enough to try, choosing a particularly bright one that stood out from the others. It twinkled back in what seemed to be a friendly manner . . . but it offered no answer. Eddie wondered if his wish was too big.

  Turning away, he searched his own brain instead. How co
uld he rescue his aunt? Ideas came. None good. His mind raced in circles from one terrible idea to another. Round and round and round.

  It was his worst night of worrying—ever.

  CHAPTER

  28

  Tuesday began with a flurry of activity. Hazel’s buttons had been noticed all through the school. Before classes even started, the Library was filled with children, parents, and teachers, all trying to find out more about the please-save-the-library campaign.

  “Come ON,” yelled Alfie. “Let’s LISTEN!”

  And before Eddie could stop him, he ran right out into the open, racing pell-mell along an electrical cord. Eddie gasped and dashed after him.

  Seconds later they were both huddled behind a gray plastic box with cords plugged into it like the legs of an octopus. Alfie was quiet—a situation that might have had something to do with Eddie’s deathly tight grip on his mandibles.

  Together they listened to a group of adult Squishers. Parents, guessed Eddie.

  “I don’t get it,” said a mother. “Save the library from what? Ms. Grisch, do you know?”

  The Grischer cleared her throat. “Perhaps . . . excessive costs?”

  “Costs?” said a father. “Of course there will be costs. Worth every cent, if you ask me. Just look at this space book. Amazing!”

  The Grischer tried again. “But we have the internet now and . . .”

  “The internet?” said someone else. “Hah! Ask the internet something, and you get 1000 answers, most of them useless. How are kids supposed to deal with that?”

  “My kids love this library,” said the father.

  “Well, then, what are we saving it from?”

  “I don’t know,” said the first mother. “But it’s all Hazel talks about.”

  “It has something to do with Miss Cavendish,” said a father who had just arrived. “Remember when we read to her dog?”

  “Charlotte Brontë!” said the first mother.

  Everyone laughed.

  Alfie, meanwhile, was squirming madly. He had just noticed some children on the floor on the other side of the desk.