A Llama in the Library

by Johanna Hurwitz

  Copyright © 2014, 1999 by Johanna Hurwitz

  Illustrations copyright © 2014, 1999 by Mark Graham

  All rights reserved

  Published by StarWalk Kids Media

  Except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and articles, no part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher. Contact: StarWalk Kids Media, 15 Cutter Mill Road, Suite 242, Great Neck, NY 11021

  www.StarWalkKids.com

  Originally published in 1999 by Morrow Junior Books.

  ISBN 978-1-62334-872-4

  For the new Mrs. Hurwitz:

  Kimberly Elizabeth Bogdan Hurwitz

  With love from the old one

  CONTENTS

  1. An “Event of Nature”

  2. The Other White House

  3. “Fly Away Home”

  4. There Is a Ghost!

  5. Alana Brown

  6. The Accident

  7. Llama Marinara

  8. Ghosts on Toast

  9. Nature Takes Its Course

  10. A Llama in the Library

  1

  An “Event of Nature”

  When I walked into school on the first Friday of September, a voice called out to me. “Hey, Adam, do you know what day this is?” Of course I knew.

  In my school in Wilmington, Vermont, the same thing always happens on the first Friday of September. It’s a day that every fifth grader has joked about and waited for, and it’s not because it will be followed by the weekend. Every year on the first Friday of September the fifth-grade boys and girls are separated from each other, and everyone gets to see a video about sex.

  “Today’s not Friday, it’s Sexday,” Ryan announced to all of us when he walked into our classroom that morning.

  Of course, living out in the country as we do, almost all of us have seen animals reproducing around us. Gary’s family has a dairy farm, and he has helped when the calves are born in the spring. Kim’s grandparents raise goats over in Putney. Ryan’s parents breed dogs. And almost everyone has a cat that gave birth to kittens or a few chickens hatching eggs. So we know a lot about the subject of reproduction already.

  It seems silly not to let everyone sit together in a classroom to discuss reproduction. But I guess it’s one thing to understand about chickens and kittens and another thing to look at a video with cartoons of a naked human male and female.

  Later in the morning, when the boys were sitting on the floor of the darkened gym watching the video, there was a lot of whispering and giggling. I heard at least two kids saying “Gross!” under their breath when the cartoon male’s sperm traveled up the vagina of the cartoon woman.

  “Bingo!” someone called out when one of the sperm succeeded in uniting with the waiting egg cell.

  Mr. Hanford, our phys ed teacher, had already turned the lights on once to be sure everyone was paying attention and not getting silly about what he called “these important events of nature.”

  So this time he ignored the outburst and let the video continue. We watched as the cells multiplied and became a human embryo. We learned that when the sperm cell and the egg cell join together, the result is smaller than a period at the end of a sentence. I wanted to stop the tape right then and think about it a bit. Imagine being smaller than a dot!

  The video went on. At the age of forty days the embryo weighs less than a book of paper matches. After eight weeks the unborn baby is called a fetus.

  “That’s when the feet develop,” a voice called out, and once again there was a lot of giggling.

  It takes a long time for a human baby to grow—much longer than for a chick or a kitten or a lot of other kinds of animals. Of course, the video speeded up the events, and within ten minutes a baby was born.

  “I know all about this stuff already,” Ryan boasted in the dark.

  “I’m glad we’re not girls,” my best friend, Justin, whispered in my ear. “Who’d want to go through all that?”

  “Well, luckily our mothers were willing, or we wouldn’t be sitting here right now,” I pointed out to him. But he was right. I wouldn’t want to be a girl either.

  Despite all the talking during the video, when it was over and we had the chance to ask questions, all of us felt much too self-conscious to say anything. It was even worse when we were back in the classroom with the girls. They’d been watching another print of that same video in the lunchroom. No one wanted to look anyone else in the eye, and there were lots of red faces and muffled giggles. I’m sure every guy in fifth grade was thinking the same thing: Which of them would I ever want to do it with? When Mrs. Wurst told us to take out our math books, for once we were glad it was math time.

  Most of us fifth graders have known one another since kindergarten. Over the years we’ve learned which kids we like and which we’d just as soon never see again. It’s only when someone new moves to town that there are a few surprises. This year there’s a new girl in our class—Alana Brown. Her last name may be Brown, but she’s got long blond hair, which she always wears in a single thick braid down her back. I haven’t really talked to her at all, but sometimes I catch myself watching her. Like on the first day of school, the principal had stopped in our classroom to greet all of us.

  “Last year you had bales of work,” he’d said, “but soon you’ll discover that fifth grade is the worst.”

  Right away Alana and I laughed at this pun on our teacher’s name. It took the other kids a couple of seconds to catch on. Afterward I realized that Alana probably didn’t even understand all of the principal’s joke. Our fourth-grade teacher was Mrs. Bayles.

  Anyhow, I don’t know if it’s because she’s new or because there’s something special about her, but I think I like Alana a little. Just a little. I can’t imagine making a baby with her, or with anyone, ever. But I would like to squeeze that long golden braid of hers, just once.

  Now here’s the amazing thing that happened. That very same evening I was sitting in the living room watching a baseball game on TV. Our cat, Molly Stark, was on my lap, and my parents were sitting on the sofa watching the game too. My little sister, April, was upstairs, asleep in bed. It was the seventh-inning stretch, and the Red Sox were so far behind that there didn’t seem to be a chance in the world of their winning. I put Molly Stark down on the floor and stood up.

  “Adam,” my dad said, “we hear you saw a film in school about babies. As a matter of fact, your mother and I have some good news on that subject ourselves.”

  “Yeah?” I asked. Since I was a Red Sox fan, I really needed some good news at that moment.

  “You’re going to be a big brother again,” Mom said.

  “Again?” I asked. I was only six years old when April was born. Actually, April’s a cute kid, and most of the time I don’t mind her at all. But now the noise and mess and confusion of a new baby would start all over again at our house.

  Then I thought, My parents had done that stuff I’d seen on the video. I tried to imagine my dad’s sperm inside my mother. All right, I thought. So they had to do it to make me. And sure, once they had a boy they wanted a girl. But why do it again? What did they think they’d get this time?

  “We aren’t going to tell April about it for a bit,” my mother said. “The baby isn’t due until early April, and that will be much too long for her to have to think about it. Even a week seems to take forever when you’re four years old. So we’ll keep this a secret from her for now, but we wanted to share the news with you right away.”

  “It won’t be a secret for long.” My father grinned, and he leaned over and patted my mother’s stomach. Mom smiled back at him. Soon she would have a big fat tummy that would be the embryo growing i
nside her. I turned my head to watch the commercial on the TV screen so they wouldn’t notice me turning red.

  As expected, the Red Sox lost the game. I went up to bed, and just before I fell asleep, I thought about what Justin had whispered in my ear while we were watching the video. Thank goodness I was born a boy.

  2

  The Other White House

  The next morning I thought about the new baby as I sat eating breakfast. I wondered how it might change things in our lives. Mostly things were pretty good for me. I had spent the entire summer vacation bonding with our pet llama. And the summer had concluded with my getting both a second llama for our family and the gift of a mountain bike for myself. I almost didn’t get that bike, because money was a bit tight just now. A new baby would bring new expenses, I realized. Luckily my mom had started her llama trekking business, and it seemed to be growing more successful all the time.

  I was just wondering how long it took for a baby llama to develop when Justin peeked through the screen door that leads into the kitchen. He called out hi and walked right inside. That’s how at home we feel at each other’s houses. But even though he was my best friend, I’d already decided that I wasn’t going to tell him that my mother was pregnant. At least not for a while. After yesterday’s video he’d tease me something fierce. I’d wait a few weeks until those cartoons had faded a little in our memory.

  “Morning, Justin,” my mother said. “I’ll put another English muffin into the toaster for you.”

  “What’s that gook you’re putting on your muffin?” Justin asked, pointing to my breakfast.

  I looked down at the jar I was holding with its pale yellow contents. “Dandelion jelly,” I told him. “My mom made it last spring. Didn’t you ever have any here before?”

  “That’s not what it looks like to me,” Justin said as his muffin halves popped up from the toaster.

  “It does look a little like honey,” I admitted, biting into my muffin. “It even tastes like honey.”

  Justin leaned close to me. “It looks like a jar of piss,” he whispered.

  I gave him a jab with my elbow. Luckily my mother didn’t seem to have heard him. She likes Justin, but she sure wouldn’t have liked him speaking that way in our kitchen.

  “Don’t you have any of your strawberry jam, Mrs. Fine? You make the best strawberry jam of anyone,” he told my mom.

  “I appreciate your flattery,” my mother said. “But I don’t feel up to going down to the basement to get the strawberry preserves. Try the dandelion jelly. I think you’ll like it.”

  “Yeah. Close your eyes if you have to,” I muttered to Justin, but he ate his muffin with butter instead.

  April walked into the kitchen, still in her pajamas and still half-asleep.

  “Oh, goody. Dandelion jelly,” she said when she saw what I was eating. It made me laugh. Like said, April’s a cute kid.

  “Don’t forget the llamas,” my mother called to me as Justin and I got up from the table.

  “Mom, you know I’d never forget them,” I protested.

  My mom is proud of her business: She takes tourists on hikes. She packs a picnic lunch for everyone, and Ethan Allen and Ira Allen, our llamas, carry the food. The tourists go gaga over those two animals of ours. No wonder. Llamas are very lovable. They’re gentle, handsome, clean, and fun.

  “I’ve got a great plan for us for today,” Justin announced as we walked out into the yard. “We’re going looking for ghosts.”

  “Come off it,” I responded, tipping over the huge bucket that held water for the llamas.

  “Really,” Justin insisted. I turned on the outside tap, and Justin hosed fresh water into the pail for Ethan and Ira. “Last night my father told me about a ghost up at the White House.”

  Before you decide that the president of the United States has a problem, let me tell you that the White House Justin was talking about is not the famous one in Washington, D.C. It just so happens that we have our own White House here in Wilmington. It’s a big inn for tourists. I’ve never been inside, but my father took my mother there for dinner to celebrate their wedding anniversary last year. They said the food was great, but they never said anything about a ghost.

  “How come we never heard about a ghost there before?” I asked Justin. “If there really was anything spooky going on so close to our homes, wouldn’t we know about it?”

  “My dad says they don’t want to frighten the guests away. Think about it. Would you want to stay in a strange town and share a hotel room with a ghost?”

  I laughed. Ethan Allen had begun drinking some of the fresh water. He lifted his head and looked at me with his intelligent gaze. Then he lowered his head and continued drinking.

  “Even our llama knows there’s no such thing as a ghost,” I said. “Next I suppose you’ll tell me that your dog, Matty, is a really a werewolf. You’ve been reading too many of those horror books.”

  “Come on,” said Justin. “Let’s bike over to the White House. What can we lose?”

  “Can we just walk in?” I asked him. Why would a fancy tourist inn let a pair of kids wander around inside looking for ghosts?

  “You could take some of your mom’s flyers. It would give us a perfect excuse for going there. Tell them that you just want to drop them off,” Justin explained. “Only once we’re there, we can ask to see the inside. We could say we’d always wanted to look around, since it’s so famous.”

  Justin had a point. My mom had had an ad made for her llama trips. It’s printed in the Valley News, our weekly newspaper, but she also had several hundred copies of it printed up on bright yellow paper, which we distributed around town.

  “Okay,” I said. I ran into the house and grabbed a handful of the flyers. “You’ve got to fill me in on everything your dad told you,” I insisted to Justin.

  So as we rode our bikes along toward the White House, Justin told me all the details.

  “The White House was built before the First World War by a man named Martin Brown who had piles of money. His wife, Clara, just loved the house. They lived there for almost fifty years, except of course it wasn’t called the White House then. I’m not sure the house was even painted white in those days either. Mr. Brown died in 1962.”

  “That’s the year my dad was born,” I said. It seemed like a long time ago to me.

  “Well, Clara Brown was pretty old herself by then, and everyone thought she’d sell the house. But she loved it so much that she insisted on living there alone,” said Justin.

  “And did she?” I asked.

  “Yep. She stayed there for another ten years until she died too. She was ninety-five years old. Then the house got sold, and it became an inn. But my dad said it’s claimed that the spirit of Clara Brown remains inside the house. Lots of times there are unexplained noises. Sometimes the doors slam shut when there isn’t a breeze or anything to cause them to. Windows bang closed all by themselves. Weird things like that.”

  “Justin,” I said, “that’s crazy. They have two big collies at the White House, Eleanor and Rosie. Everybody knows about those dogs. Their picture is in all the ads. I bet one of the dogs bumped into a door and shut it.”

  “Yeah? Could a dog make a window shut itself too?” Justin asked.

  “Maybe the window sash broke,” I said. There had to be an explanation. I refused to believe that there was a ghost haunting the White House. Still, I was curious to see the inside of the place. I’ve only gone past it about a hundred thousand times.

  3

  “Fly Away Home”

  After making our way up a couple of steep hills, we finally reached our White House. It may not be as famous as its namesake in Washington, but it’s still a pretty neat house. More a mansion than a house, I guess. No ordinary family would live in a place with so many bedrooms and an almost equal number of baths. There were just a few cars parked in the driveway. I figured most of the guests were already off sight-seeing for the day. The dogs came up to inspect us, but they were accust
omed to strangers, so they didn’t bark; instead they wagged their tails happily when we gave them each a friendly pat.

  “Let’s leave our bikes here,” said Justin, pointing to a place near the side of the house.

  My bike is still so new that I’m a little nervous about just leaving it anywhere, even with the padlock on it. But you can’t go about holding on to your bike all day long, so I got off and attached the lock. Then I removed the yellow flyers from the saddlebag on the back and followed Justin.

  Inside the door we could smell bacon and coffee and other good breakfast smells. We could hear the tinkle of dishes too. Obviously a few of the guests were still finishing their morning meal. No one stopped us, so Justin and I just kept on walking.

  “Quick,” said Justin, pointing to a flight of stairs. “Let’s go up.”

  But for a few seconds I just stood looking with amazement at the high ceilings and the fancy chandelier hanging down. The stairs were covered with such a thick pile that I couldn’t even hear Justin’s footsteps as he ran up them. I wondered who had gotten the contract to carpet this huge place. My dad owns Fine Carpet & Tile on Route 100. It would have been a great job for him.

  At the top of the stairs we could see many doors. Most were closed. Justin walked over to an open door and walked inside, and I followed him. I was nervous, not because of ghosts but because we were intruding.

  Inside the room there was a huge unmade bed and luckily no sign of any occupant present. Another door inside the room led to its bathroom. The room still seemed damp from the shower a guest had recently taken, and there were wet towels on the floor. You’d think someone who had the money to stay at a place like this would know enough to hang up his towels. If it was the ghost, it sure had bad habits, I thought. My mom would have a fit if I left our bathroom in such a mess.

  “Look,” I said, picking up a tiny red ladybug with black spots off the sink. “I wonder how she got here.”