The Library Gnome

Mrs. Thomas, the librarian looked once more at her watch.  She sighed.  “Quitting time at last!”  She opened the drawer below the counter where she had locked up her purse.  A large aspirin bottle fell to the floor.  “Oops, empty.   I’ll have to stop and pick up some more on the way home.”  She rubbed her forehead in the exact spot where the pain usually began.  As she shut the lights and locked the door, she almost thought she heard movement amongst the shelves.  She turned the lights back on and searched for the source of the noise.

“I am over-due for a vacation,” she said in a hoarse whisper to herself.  She closed her eyes and imagined relaxing on the white sands of a tropical beach.  She pictured the damp salty air washing over her face while she watched the sea roll in and out.  “Ahh, no shelves, no books just the breeze and me.”

The library opened at ten o’clock the next day.  Mrs. Thomas nearly arrived late.  She had forgotten to bring the new bottle of aspirin and had to return home to fetch it.  “Surely, I’ll need it,” she thought.

She unlocked the main doors and cautiously entered.  “Well, everything’s in place, but then, it usually is.”  She put away her personal items and waited for the library regulars. 

Mrs. Thomas looked at the calendar on the checkout stand.  “Tuesday the third; I expect Mrs. Findlay will come in today.  Sure enough, just then, in walked the older woman, her back curved downward as if she carried an unseen burden.  She deposited two books in the book drop and walked towards the French literature section.

Mrs. Thomas braced herself wondering when it would begin.  Her right hand fondled the aspirin bottle while the left hand shook in anticipation.  This time, she hadn’t long to wait.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Thomas,” squeaked Ms. Findlay’s crackled voice, “the pages are in this book are blank.”

The librarian popped two aspirin and rubbed that spot on her forehead. “She groaned and startled the older woman.  ” Not again!  I really do need a vacation; a long vacation.”

Mrs. Findlay decided not to get any books that day and walked out the door at a brisk pace.  Twice, she looked back over her shoulder and mumbled something to herself.

The empty book rested on the counter in front of Mrs. Thomas.  The librarian broke out in a cold sweat behind the checkout counter.  All her muscles contracted.  Her face looked pinched and her brows knitted tightly over her eyes.  Two customers had already asked if she felt well, and she admitted to one of them that she didn’t.

She didn’t hear the muffled munching sounds from the fairy tale section of the children’s books.

In the afternoon fifteen minutes after school dismissal, the boy came in with his mother.  She spoke to the pale librarian about a library card for her son while he wheeled himself to the children’s books.  He started to reach for a book and then stopped.  “Hello, he said looking between “The Elves and the Shoemaker” and “Santa’s Elves”. 

Two shiny yellow eyes squinted back at him.

“Get out of here,” growled a raspy voice. 

“You’re not very polite,” scolded the child.  Didn’t your mom teach you any manners?  You should say hello back.  What are you doing there anyway?” 

“I said, get out of here.  Are you deaf?”

“No, that’s not my disability.  Don’t you see?  I’m in a wheelchair because I can’t walk, but my hearing works very well.   I can’t reach the top shelf.  Would you do it for me?  I want to read the book about Snow White.  I saw the movie last week.”

“Kid, I’m a gnome.  We aren’t nice to humans.  We scare humans, play tricks on them.  Why aren’t you afraid?  Boo!”

The boy laughed softly so as not to be shushed by the librarian.  “You’re silly.  And you’re not scary either.  Why do you want to scare people?  That sounds mean to me.  You must not have many friends.”

“I scare people because that’s what gnomes do.  I don’t want any friends.  Now, leave me alone!”

“Do you live here in the library?”

“Yes, right here.  Now get lost.  It’s my bedtime.”

The boy continued undaunted by the gnome’s attempts at rejection.  “Do you know that you have ink smeared all over your face?  I wash my face when it’s dirty.  Mom makes me.  Doesn’t your mom make you wash up when you’re dirty?”

“No.”

“Anyway, my name’s Billy.  What’s your name?”

“Grimflix.  Now, weren’t you leaving?”

“Hi, Grimflix.  I’m glad to meet you.  I never met a gnome before.  Will you get that book for me now?  Otherwise, I’ll call Mom to get it for me.  You’ll like her.  She can get grumpy like you, but she’s really very nice.  I bet you are too.  Mommm…”

“Shhh, don’t call her.  Grownups don’t like magical creatures.  They don’t believe in us which makes us disappear; very unpleasant business.  I had to leave my last library because of a nasty encounter with a grownup.  Here, take your book and go away.”

“Bye Grimflix.  I’ll look for you the next time we come to the library. 

Grimflix growled at the boy and then curled up behind “The Giant Book of Elves and Gnomes.”  Before long, his quiet snoring blended into the shuffles of feet and whispers of children.

Later, Mrs. Thomas wondered if she could safely take another dose of aspirin.  She stared once more into the empty pages of “The Complete Works of Honore de Balzac” and “A Tourist’s Guide to Paris”.  She shook her head and just kept mumbling, “Why me?  I’ve been a good person.”

Meanwhile, in the fairytale shelves of the children’s books, the library gnome chuckled and whistled two verses of “Frere Jacques” before he swallowed the word, “Paris”.  His full belly rumbled.

Two weeks later, Billy and his mother returned to the library.  A new librarian stood behind the desk.  Billy hardly noticed.  He rolled over to the children’s books and called, “Grimflix, where are you?  I want to show you something.”

Grimflix’s face popped out of a tall book with the word, “castle” half hanging from his mouth.  He glared at Billy then sucked in the rest of the word and swallowed.

“Not you again, kid.  What do you want this time?”

“Look, Grimflix.  Yesterday was my birthday.  Lots of friends came to my party.  I’m six now.  I got my own library card.  Do you have a library card too?”

“Kid, I don’t check out books.  I eat them.  I live in the library because I eat words.  Go away.  It’s my lunchtime, and I have a craving for castles and giants.”

“You eat books?”

“Just the words, kid.  That’s what library gnomes do.  Now, if you please, I am really hungry.  The number book I had for breakfast just didn’t fill me up.”

"But Grimflix, if you eat up all the words, soon we won’t have any more stories.”

The gnome lifted up his pointy chin to get a better look at Billy’s face.  “So what?” he shouted.  “I don’t care!  No one cares about me anyway.  Why should I care if you don’t have stories?”

The new librarian looked at Billy and put her forefinger to her mouth.  Billy’s mother gave him a disapproving look.  He started to protest that he didn’t say anything when he had a great idea.

“Grimflix,” he said softly, “have you ever had a birthday party?”

The gnome looked at him without speaking. 

Billy went on not seeming to notice the silence.  “My friends and I could give you a party.  We’ll make you a special birthday book with delicious happy words in it.  When you finish the words, we’ll make some more.  What do you think?”

“Could I have chocolate cake and ice cream? 

“Yes, three flavors of ice cream with chocolate sauce and whipped cream.  We’ll add a piñata filled with candy and lots of balloons.  Would you like balloons?”

“Yes, red ones.  I want red balloons.  When will you bring me my birthday book?”  Grimflix didn’t want to act too excited, but no one had ever given him a birthday party.  “Could it be today?”

“Well, Grimflix, you will have to be patient.  Mom always says that to me.  My friends and I will have to make your book first.  I’ll be back in two weeks.”

Billy didn’t return in two weeks.  Grimflix had just finished eating all the words in the preschool books when he heard his name.  He looked into the eyes of a new child, a boy about the age of Billy.  Brown eyes flashed at yellow ones as if light swords battled for supremacy of the galaxy.  The new boy rocked back and forth on his two legs.   The two stared at each other for a few moments until the boy remembered what he had come to say.

“Billy told me to give this book to you.  He is very sick and can’t come back to the library, but he wanted you to have this birthday book.  We all helped him make it”

The boy held out a book made of lined papers stapled together.  The words inside had been written in wavy pencil strokes by children’s hands.

The gnome grabbed the book and scurried behind the shelves to munch in peace.  He loved the words, “red balloons” and “chocolate cake” the best.  While residue from the word, “chocolate” still smudged his face, he found more words at the end of his book.

“Dear Grimflix.  I am sorry I couldn’t come to your birthday party.  I have to stay in bed a long time because I got sick again.  If you ever get out of the library, come visit me.  I will put more words in your book.  Love, Billy Ortega:  23310 Basal St.”

Library gnomes rarely ever leave their libraries, but Grimflix really wanted to taste more of Billy’s delicious words.  “It’s just for the words and nothing else,” he assured himself.  So one evening around midnight, he slipped out of the library clutching his birthday book in one hand.  He made sure he closed the door behind him.  Then he began the search for Billy’s house.  When he found it at last, Grimflix slithered through an open window. 

The door to Billy’s room stood ajar.  The night light flickered when Grimflix entered.  The gnome rushed into the shadows out of habit to escape his enemy, the light.  Billy’s arm was attached to a tube that connected to a sack filled with liquid.  Drops from the sack flowed through the tube into Billy’s arm.  The sleeping boy clutched a folded piece of paper.  Grimflix saw the writing.  It said, “New Words for Grimflix.  The Gnome grabbed the paper.  On it Billy had written, “Best friend, happy, smile, gnome, companion.”  Grimflix took the paper and gobbled the words.  He tried his best to keep a smile from spreading across his face.  When he failed to do so, he wiggled between two books on Billy’s table and went to sleep still grinning.

Thus it was that Grimflix went to live with his friend Billy Ortega.  He lived in Billy’s bookcase where he curled up each night with his special birthday book.  Every morning, Billy filled the book with new and interesting words.  Sometimes he made whole stories for the gnome’s entertainment and growing appetite.  In the afternoon, the gnome told Billy stories about enchanted forests.  Some of those stories went into his birthday book.  Billy told his mother that when he got better he wanted to be a writer.