The Katy Geissert Library

Lost and Found

“Mom! C’mon let’s get going, it’s going to close soon!” I quickly put on my little blue jacket, my favorite pair of blue Power Rangers socks, and my light blue shoes, not wanting to stay inside my apartment for any minute longer than I have to.

“Alright, Alright!” My mom exclaimed, also in a hurry to get out of the house. As soon as my mom got ready, I raced as fast as I could to our car and into my blue booster seat. My mom quickly followed behind me, keys in hand, ready to take me to the place I had so longed to go. As soon as she put on her seat belt, my mom drove off towards our destination as fast as possible.

When we finally reached our destination, the place where my eagerness was pointed towards, I would have raced out of the car and through the building’s double doors if I were able to undo the buckle of my booster seat. As soon as I entered the tall building, I let out a scream so full of energy, it would have woken a bear up from its winter hibernation. As far as I could see, in every shelf of the aisles, there were books. Large books, small books, thick books, thin books, books about cooking, books about dinosaurs, books of every size, color, and shape lined every bright corner of the room. I was in the library.

The Katy Geissert Library was 3 stories high. The first story was nothing more than a hall which housed the library’s checkout counter, as well as the town’s civic center. The second floor of the library was lined up wall-to-wall with books for older audiences, as well as, dictionaries, thesauruses, and every other reference book you could possibly need. The third floor, however, was in my five-year-old mind, the best floor of the library. The third floor was filled with items made for the hands of curious children at any age. There were shelves of books all around the library, each short enough so that anyone could easily reach up and take hold of the book they wanted to read. In one corner, there were three round tables, and all three of them had a large pile of LEGO’s for children to create whatever they wanted to. In another corner, someone was reading a book aloud to a group of kids, all closely huddled together, paying attention to every word the reader spoke. And I stood in the middle of it, basking in all of the sights the large open room had. I didn’t know where to start my adventure first. Should I go play with the LEGO’s? Or read? Or listen to someone else read for me? I decided to start by playing with the enormous stacks of LEGO’s, creating houses and buildings as if I were a professional architect, creating models of my future masterpiece. Several houses later, I ventured out to the many rows of bookshelves to find a few books to read, my mother following close behind to keep track of where I was going. I found two or three books from the Magic School Bus series, and sat down at a table and began to read. I was in my own plane of existence when I was reading, oblivious to any noise or disturbance happening around me. And it was this deep engagement that would soon lead to a big disaster.

As I finished reading the book I was holding, I looked up towards the seat in front of me, expecting to see the figure of my mother sitting down, also enjoying a book of her own. There was nothing in the seat except a cold empty air which slowly crept up towards me. My eyes darted around from location to location, but she seemed to be invisible among the mass of bookshelves. It was as if I was the only one there left stranded in a sea of paper. I slowly slipped out of my seat, wandering around to try and find her. Desperately trying not to shed tears of fear, I called out to her in the open space, ”Mom? Where are you?”