“We had pizza at school today,” I tell Miss Lilah before I push a handful of cheesy crackers into my mouth. She always has a snack bag behind her desk and lets me eat crackers before I go back to the shelves. But she won’t let me eat while I read. I might get the books dirty.
She waits for me to finish chewing and asks me, “Any vegetables?”
“Corn and salad. But I hate corn.” I take another handful of crackers and give her back the bag. I wish I never had to eat corn again. I always pick it out on soup night, if Mama doesn’t see me do it.
Miss Lilah puts a clip on the bag and stashes it. “I have something for you,” she almost sings.
“Book Five?” I say a little too loud. She shushes me and shows me the cover. But when I reach for it, she holds it closer to herself. “Do you have homework?”
I growl and squint my eyes at her. She lays the book on her desk.
“It’s just decimals. I won’t need decimals when I grow up.”
“Oh, yes, you will. Decimals are in money.”
“When am I ever going to have money?”
“Isaac,” she says with a voice like Mama’s when I pick up a candy bar in the store and she thinks I’m going to steal it. I’d like to steal Book Five right now and run to the bathroom where I could lock myself in a stall with it. But instead I just stomp my foot and take my backpack to the table in the magazine section next to Jenny. She’s a ficus tree I named when Miss Lilah first decided to let me water the library plants every Monday. That was back during the summer when I could spend all day here, and not just a few hours after school.
I sit so Miss Lilah can see me fold my arms and not open my backpack, but she doesn’t come make me do my homework. She’s helping some old lady put the stack of paperbacks she just checked out into a plastic grocery bag. I look out the window. Just as I thought, it’s about to rain. Miss Lilah keeps a bunch of grocery bags behind her desk so the books won’t get wet. I think she’s a smart lady, but then I remember I’m mad at her.
I keep my arms folded for a few more minutes, but she never even looks at me. Then I lean back in my chair and balance on two legs. When I do that at school, it always makes my teacher snap, “Four on the floor!” But Miss Lilah just collects some of the magazines that need to be shelved and carries them past me. I don’t see her, but I hear her whisper from the next row, “I’ve already read it, you know. It’s even better than Book Three.” I put my chair down and sit a little straighter. We both have always agreed that Book Three is the Best. Book. Ever. She finishes shelving, and then passes me again. “Two words,” she says. “Time travel.”
She walks on like what she just did is fair. She knows how bad I want Peter to go back in time and save Katie from the dragons. I open my backpack and pull out my math. I bet Peter never had to do decimals.
Working on math always makes me sleepy. I lay my head down and dream Miss Lilah has me on top of a book cart and we’re running from the dragons. But then the real Miss Lilah wakes me up and warns me that the library will close in an hour. “Does Mom know?” she asks.
“Yeah, she wrote down the hours and taped them to the dashboard.”
Miss Lilah nods and gives me Book Five and her pressed-flower bookmark. I think Mama’s cleaning that huge First Community Church today, so I’ll get the whole hour to read before she comes for me and I have to give the book back to Miss Lilah.
I am all the way to Chapter Six when Miss Lilah turns off half the lights to let everyone know it’s time to go home. I put her bookmark in my place and take Book Five to the desk. She lays it out of sight of anybody else who might want to check it out and lets me stand there while she finishes with the last family. Then she turns out the rest of the lights except for the one above her desk. She tells her helpers to go home, and we stand there waiting for Mama.
“Do you want me to look over your homework?” she asks.
“Nah, decimals are easy.”
She just gives me a look like she knows I’m lying, but before she can say anything, I see Mama pull into a parking place. She looks tired.
“Let’s use my umbrella to walk out,” Miss Lilah says, and she bends to reach into the cubby behind her desk. “Oh, I almost forgot. I want to give you something.” She pulls out a paperback copy of Book Three. It has tape all over it where someone ripped the cover, and the spine has a fresh layer of glue holding it together.
“I’m sorry it’s been loved a little too much,” she says, “But it hurts me to throw away a book.”
I don’t know what to say. I start to take it from her, but she turns to put it in a plastic grocery bag, just like for everybody else.
I still don’t say anything when Miss Lilah walks me to the car. She holds the umbrella over me as I push the box with my school clothes to the other side to make room in the back seat. She waves and says hi to Mama, and then she’s gone.
“She’s a nice lady,” Mama says.
I open the book. There’s a big black stamp that says “Discard” on the inside of the front cover. But Miss Lilah has written in purple cursive above and below the stamp, so now it says “Not a discard; a gift.” I smile.
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