MATT & MIMI'S SHORT STORY THAT BEGAN THEIR SERIES
[EXPLANATION: Below is a short story variation that I wrote for the sudden and unexpected retirement of a school librarian at one of the schools where I worked. This variation is not identical to the one I gave her in 2007, partly because it does not give her name. Likewise, the novel that developed from this idea strays quite a lot from the tone of this story. In that novel, Matt & Mimi in the Middle Ages, the children are a bit older and somewhat more mature. Likewise, their grandfather morphed out of this story to become an archaeologist at a noteworthy Oregon University, and his name was changed from Longnapper into Longstrider. I have decided—now that I am back working on the novel and hope to have it published sometime in the next year—that I might as well make this short story available here on my website. I hope you like it. While I am at it, I should also give credit to a student from that same school, who gave me the idea to use the character names of Matt and Mimi, so Thank You to K.S.]
A Variation of the Original Story: The A. W. Mystery (initials are substituted for her name)
[Dedicated to this School Librarian (A.W.), and to all school librarians, everywhere.]
copyright © 2007 by EA Bundy
Mimi remembered their first adventure as if it had occurred just the day before. Her Grandfather Longnapper had been telling her and her brother about a mysterious librarian.
“You kids have to realize that was way back when I was a boy,” said Grandpa Longnapper. His story-voice had pulled his grandchildren even closer to him on the couch.
Mimi sucked in her breath and Matt said, “Ugh! Ancient history?”
“I know it’s hard for you to imagine that long ago,” the elderly man continued, “but for me, it’s as clear as yesterday, and sometimes even clearer, but we won’t go into that, for now.”
Matt asked, “Why was the librarian a mystery?”
“Yes, Grandpa. Tell us. Pleeease!” Mimi added.
“Oh, all right, if you really must know. At that time, the grade school building had those old burnt-orange bricks that were once so popular—oh, I don’t know—probably they were all the rage around the mid 1950s I guess….”
“Grandpa,” said Mimi, “what about the mystery?”
The old man cleared his throat. “Nobody appreciates the details of a good story anymore, just wants to go right for the action from the very first page.”
“Grandpa!” they yelled as one.
“I’m getting there. I’m getting there. Let me see. Oh yes, the mystery.”
His grandchildren breathed deep sighs of relief and settled back against the cushions of the sofa.
“The mystery isn’t exactly about the librarian. No, the mystery is more about a little room at the back of the library office. A place nobody knew of, forgotten until the school librarian accidentally stumbled into it. But a large part of the mystery is why did she keep it a secret, and why did she keep that small room hidden from the world?”
Grandfather Longnapper looked at Mimi, and then continued his story. “Nobody knows how she found that room, but it still wasn’t the central mystery. No-siree.”
Grandpa Longnapper scooted back on the couch and sighed as he remembered his childhood. “It wasn’t the librarian, nor was it the room. Neither of them was all that mysterious. The great unknown was the hidden treasure in the room. Well, not a regular treasure, you understand, but we’ll get to that in a minute.”
“What was it, Grandpa?” Matt asked, and his younger sister nodded in agreement.
The old man smiled down on them, “I’m getting to that. Let me tell the story.”
Mimi’s eyes stared up at him full of anticipation, but she kept quiet, hoping against hope that he would continue his tale, and stick to the point!
“You see,” he began once again. “I was only nine years old when a girl from my class and I happened to be in the library late one night. It was parent/teacher conferences and yes, we had those even back them. Anyway, we had crept in there looking for a certain book, but don’t ask which one, I don’t remember. I know we weren’t supposed to be in there. We were supposed to be with our parents. But it was only going to take us a moment.
“However, seeing the librarian walk into the library, we snuck behind a row of bookcases, not wanting to be caught. Peering around, we tried to determine if she’d heard us, and we wanted to make sure she wasn’t looking our way. She went to the back corner of the library office, glanced around without seeing us, and pushed against a spot on the wall.”
Mimi’s hands had twisted her shirt into a knot, but she didn’t seem to notice. She continued to stare fixedly at her grandfather’s face. His eyes gazed off as though he had been transported to a long-ago world.
“Then what?” Matt asked.
“Oh. Let me see,” their grandfather muttered.
Mimi said, “The librarian pushed on a place in the wall, and then?”
“A hidden door opened,” he continued, “and she went inside. We waited, and waited, and waited, for her to come out.”
Matt asked, “Did she?”
“Finally. And she had her arms stacked high with books.”
“Well it was a library,” said Mimi. “That’s not so strange. It was just a book storage room, right?”
The old man cleared his throat. “That’s exactly what we thought at first, but when she piled the books on the checkout counter in the main part of the library, one slid off to the side, unnoticed. That’s how we first began to catch on to the real mystery.”
“What was it?” Matt begged to know.
Their grandfather sighed. “I’m getting to that. Now, where was I?”
“A book fell to the side,” reminded Mimi.
“Right,” said Grandfather Longnapper. “When Mrs....
“Oh darn it,” he said loudly, “I can’t recall her last name, but it started with a W, I do remember that much. Anyway, when she left the library after locking all but that one book in a drawer, we ran over very quietly and took the small volume. I do not remember the reason. My friend Sylvia Sleuth grabbed it. We all called her Sly…though I’m not sure now what the reason was for that.”
Matt asked, “What was so special about the book?”
“Nothing, as far as we could see.”
Mimi exclaimed, “But Grandpa, you said….”
“Who’s telling this story, anyway?” he asked.
His grandkids kept quiet, and he began again. “We, or I should say my friend Sly, carried the book away to her house. She started reading it that night, but then became very tired and set it beside her on the bed, turned out her light, and went to sleep.
"She called me first thing the next morning because it was the best story she’d ever begun to read. Nevertheless, when she awoke at dawn, it was missing—just disappeared. She did not know how she could return it to the library.”
“Was that the mystery?” Matt asked. “A disappearing book?”
His grandfather shook his head. “Oh, no! That was only a little part of the puzzle. Even in those days, we had electronic connections to what was called the Internet. Sly was so worried she would have to pay for that book titled The Night the World Changed that she decided to see if she could find an inexpensive, used copy on the World Wide Web. She couldn’t even find a new copy. She wondered if the book really existed. It didn’t seem to. That is when we decided to become book detectives. We wanted to solve the Mystery of the Disappearing Book.
“The next thing you know,” their grandfather said, “I was appointed our library lookout, and Sly was hidden down behind the checkout counter, trying to pick the locked drawer with a twisted paper clip and a safety pin. She’d read all about that in a book on junior spies. Amazingly, she succeeded, but the books were no longer there.”
“What did you do next, Grandpa?” asked Mimi.
The look on the man’s face became serious. “I’m not proud of this part, or picking the lock, and I want you two to promise me you will never do anything like it.”
“We won’t,” they chimed in together.
“After school, me and Sly hid in the storytelling room at the back of the library. It doubled as a stage, if I rightly recollect. Anyway, a long time passed. The lights were turned out, and doors were locked.”
Mimi gasped, “Were you locked in? Were you scared?”
“Oh, we were scared alright,” the man said, “but we weren’t locked in. The doors had those push bars on them so they would always open from the inside in case of fire. Everyone else was locked out, but we weren’t locked in. Still, it was not long before dark, and we were doing something very wrong.”
Matt asked, “What happened then?”
“I followed Sly, and she went into the library office, right to the wall where the librarian—we’ll call her Mrs. W—had somehow made the secret doorway open. We pushed everywhere we could think of, but nothing happened. We were both tired, and Sly was getting cranky.
"In fact, when I said we ought to go home, she got mad. The next thing I knew, she leaned back hard against the wall by where we were standing—and something strange happened.”
“What?” Mimi half-screamed.
Her grandfather said, “There was a loud, eerie noise, like a groan deep inside the plaster, and suddenly that hidden door began to open.”
“Did you go inside?” Matt asked.
The man shook his head. “Not at first. We knew the book had disappeared, and we worried what might happen if we entered that seemingly forbidden place. Would we disappear too?”
His grandkids looked concerned.
“Just when I was about to tell Sly we ought to get out of there, she crept quietly inside the doorway. I was so worried about her, I went in too. The room was more spacious on the inside than I would have thought, and it was stacked floor-to-ceiling with books. There was a stepstool, and a ladder was leaned against a tall bookcase. The musty smell of old tomes greeted us, and the ceiling somehow glowed so we could see inside the room. Sly went straight to the little stepstool and retrieved a small volume, yelling, ‘This is it, The Night the World Changed!’
“I told her she had to be quiet, but she was so excited she jumped all around, and I thought she would knock over one of the stacks of books for sure. Instead, she plopped down right there on the floor and began to read aloud. It was a wonderful story that dazzled me from the first page. Neither of us wanted to stop reading.” He paused.
“Was that the mystery? Was it solved?” Matt asked.
“Oh, no,” his grandfather replied. “The mystery was just beginning, but that book was our best clue. You see, that small volume didn’t really exist.”
Mimi piped up, “Then how could you read it?”
“Initially, we could only read it all the way through in that room,” he replied. “It turned out that Mrs. W was the keeper of those special books. There were no other copies anywhere on earth. She, being the guardian of the room, had the power to lend out those hardbacks to certain children; the ones she knew would love reading them, take special care of them, and return each one on time.”
Matt asked, “Did you read any others in that room? What were they about?”
“Each one told of another world, or another time,” the man said. “And that was a big part of the mystery, but not all…. No, there were many other aspects to the great unknown hidden in there. It took us a long time to unravel its secrets. In fact, they are still being deciphered.”
Mimi asked, “Desief…?
“Figured out,” He explained. “They haven’t been completely understood even today—after all this time. I’ve spent my entire life at the task, and so has Sly. We were hoping to find someone, maybe two someones, to carry on our adventure. I thought perhaps….”
“Could we Grandfather?” Matt asked. Mimi jumped up and down on the sofa, hollering, “Yes, please let us!”
“We’ll see,” the man replied. “But right now it’s time for bed.”
The two children screamed as one, “No!"
Mimi screeched, "You can’t stop now.”
“Perhaps in the morning,” he replied. “But here is a book for each one of you, though I don’t want you to stay up all night, reading.”
They gaped at the covers of two hardbacks the likes of which they had never seen before. “Are these…?” Mimi began. Her grandfather just patted her on the head, smiling.
“You’ll have to see for yourselves—now—off to bed…!”
[And that—dear reader—is the real beginning of what came to be known as The Mystery of the school Librarian, (That's Mrs. W, of course.)]
IN CASE YOU DIDN'T NOTICE, THERE IS ANOTHER MATT & MIMI SHORT STORY UP IN THE NAVIGATION BAR UNDER SEQUEL SAMPLES, TITLED:
CHRISTMAS 2012—MATT & MIMI
A Variation of the Original Story: The A. W. Mystery (initials are substituted for her name)
[Dedicated to this School Librarian (A.W.), and to all school librarians, everywhere.]
copyright © 2007 by EA Bundy
Mimi remembered their first adventure as if it had occurred just the day before. Her Grandfather Longnapper had been telling her and her brother about a mysterious librarian.
“You kids have to realize that was way back when I was a boy,” said Grandpa Longnapper. His story-voice had pulled his grandchildren even closer to him on the couch.
Mimi sucked in her breath and Matt said, “Ugh! Ancient history?”
“I know it’s hard for you to imagine that long ago,” the elderly man continued, “but for me, it’s as clear as yesterday, and sometimes even clearer, but we won’t go into that, for now.”
Matt asked, “Why was the librarian a mystery?”
“Yes, Grandpa. Tell us. Pleeease!” Mimi added.
“Oh, all right, if you really must know. At that time, the grade school building had those old burnt-orange bricks that were once so popular—oh, I don’t know—probably they were all the rage around the mid 1950s I guess….”
“Grandpa,” said Mimi, “what about the mystery?”
The old man cleared his throat. “Nobody appreciates the details of a good story anymore, just wants to go right for the action from the very first page.”
“Grandpa!” they yelled as one.
“I’m getting there. I’m getting there. Let me see. Oh yes, the mystery.”
His grandchildren breathed deep sighs of relief and settled back against the cushions of the sofa.
“The mystery isn’t exactly about the librarian. No, the mystery is more about a little room at the back of the library office. A place nobody knew of, forgotten until the school librarian accidentally stumbled into it. But a large part of the mystery is why did she keep it a secret, and why did she keep that small room hidden from the world?”
Grandfather Longnapper looked at Mimi, and then continued his story. “Nobody knows how she found that room, but it still wasn’t the central mystery. No-siree.”
Grandpa Longnapper scooted back on the couch and sighed as he remembered his childhood. “It wasn’t the librarian, nor was it the room. Neither of them was all that mysterious. The great unknown was the hidden treasure in the room. Well, not a regular treasure, you understand, but we’ll get to that in a minute.”
“What was it, Grandpa?” Matt asked, and his younger sister nodded in agreement.
The old man smiled down on them, “I’m getting to that. Let me tell the story.”
Mimi’s eyes stared up at him full of anticipation, but she kept quiet, hoping against hope that he would continue his tale, and stick to the point!
“You see,” he began once again. “I was only nine years old when a girl from my class and I happened to be in the library late one night. It was parent/teacher conferences and yes, we had those even back them. Anyway, we had crept in there looking for a certain book, but don’t ask which one, I don’t remember. I know we weren’t supposed to be in there. We were supposed to be with our parents. But it was only going to take us a moment.
“However, seeing the librarian walk into the library, we snuck behind a row of bookcases, not wanting to be caught. Peering around, we tried to determine if she’d heard us, and we wanted to make sure she wasn’t looking our way. She went to the back corner of the library office, glanced around without seeing us, and pushed against a spot on the wall.”
Mimi’s hands had twisted her shirt into a knot, but she didn’t seem to notice. She continued to stare fixedly at her grandfather’s face. His eyes gazed off as though he had been transported to a long-ago world.
“Then what?” Matt asked.
“Oh. Let me see,” their grandfather muttered.
Mimi said, “The librarian pushed on a place in the wall, and then?”
“A hidden door opened,” he continued, “and she went inside. We waited, and waited, and waited, for her to come out.”
Matt asked, “Did she?”
“Finally. And she had her arms stacked high with books.”
“Well it was a library,” said Mimi. “That’s not so strange. It was just a book storage room, right?”
The old man cleared his throat. “That’s exactly what we thought at first, but when she piled the books on the checkout counter in the main part of the library, one slid off to the side, unnoticed. That’s how we first began to catch on to the real mystery.”
“What was it?” Matt begged to know.
Their grandfather sighed. “I’m getting to that. Now, where was I?”
“A book fell to the side,” reminded Mimi.
“Right,” said Grandfather Longnapper. “When Mrs....
“Oh darn it,” he said loudly, “I can’t recall her last name, but it started with a W, I do remember that much. Anyway, when she left the library after locking all but that one book in a drawer, we ran over very quietly and took the small volume. I do not remember the reason. My friend Sylvia Sleuth grabbed it. We all called her Sly…though I’m not sure now what the reason was for that.”
Matt asked, “What was so special about the book?”
“Nothing, as far as we could see.”
Mimi exclaimed, “But Grandpa, you said….”
“Who’s telling this story, anyway?” he asked.
His grandkids kept quiet, and he began again. “We, or I should say my friend Sly, carried the book away to her house. She started reading it that night, but then became very tired and set it beside her on the bed, turned out her light, and went to sleep.
"She called me first thing the next morning because it was the best story she’d ever begun to read. Nevertheless, when she awoke at dawn, it was missing—just disappeared. She did not know how she could return it to the library.”
“Was that the mystery?” Matt asked. “A disappearing book?”
His grandfather shook his head. “Oh, no! That was only a little part of the puzzle. Even in those days, we had electronic connections to what was called the Internet. Sly was so worried she would have to pay for that book titled The Night the World Changed that she decided to see if she could find an inexpensive, used copy on the World Wide Web. She couldn’t even find a new copy. She wondered if the book really existed. It didn’t seem to. That is when we decided to become book detectives. We wanted to solve the Mystery of the Disappearing Book.
“The next thing you know,” their grandfather said, “I was appointed our library lookout, and Sly was hidden down behind the checkout counter, trying to pick the locked drawer with a twisted paper clip and a safety pin. She’d read all about that in a book on junior spies. Amazingly, she succeeded, but the books were no longer there.”
“What did you do next, Grandpa?” asked Mimi.
The look on the man’s face became serious. “I’m not proud of this part, or picking the lock, and I want you two to promise me you will never do anything like it.”
“We won’t,” they chimed in together.
“After school, me and Sly hid in the storytelling room at the back of the library. It doubled as a stage, if I rightly recollect. Anyway, a long time passed. The lights were turned out, and doors were locked.”
Mimi gasped, “Were you locked in? Were you scared?”
“Oh, we were scared alright,” the man said, “but we weren’t locked in. The doors had those push bars on them so they would always open from the inside in case of fire. Everyone else was locked out, but we weren’t locked in. Still, it was not long before dark, and we were doing something very wrong.”
Matt asked, “What happened then?”
“I followed Sly, and she went into the library office, right to the wall where the librarian—we’ll call her Mrs. W—had somehow made the secret doorway open. We pushed everywhere we could think of, but nothing happened. We were both tired, and Sly was getting cranky.
"In fact, when I said we ought to go home, she got mad. The next thing I knew, she leaned back hard against the wall by where we were standing—and something strange happened.”
“What?” Mimi half-screamed.
Her grandfather said, “There was a loud, eerie noise, like a groan deep inside the plaster, and suddenly that hidden door began to open.”
“Did you go inside?” Matt asked.
The man shook his head. “Not at first. We knew the book had disappeared, and we worried what might happen if we entered that seemingly forbidden place. Would we disappear too?”
His grandkids looked concerned.
“Just when I was about to tell Sly we ought to get out of there, she crept quietly inside the doorway. I was so worried about her, I went in too. The room was more spacious on the inside than I would have thought, and it was stacked floor-to-ceiling with books. There was a stepstool, and a ladder was leaned against a tall bookcase. The musty smell of old tomes greeted us, and the ceiling somehow glowed so we could see inside the room. Sly went straight to the little stepstool and retrieved a small volume, yelling, ‘This is it, The Night the World Changed!’
“I told her she had to be quiet, but she was so excited she jumped all around, and I thought she would knock over one of the stacks of books for sure. Instead, she plopped down right there on the floor and began to read aloud. It was a wonderful story that dazzled me from the first page. Neither of us wanted to stop reading.” He paused.
“Was that the mystery? Was it solved?” Matt asked.
“Oh, no,” his grandfather replied. “The mystery was just beginning, but that book was our best clue. You see, that small volume didn’t really exist.”
Mimi piped up, “Then how could you read it?”
“Initially, we could only read it all the way through in that room,” he replied. “It turned out that Mrs. W was the keeper of those special books. There were no other copies anywhere on earth. She, being the guardian of the room, had the power to lend out those hardbacks to certain children; the ones she knew would love reading them, take special care of them, and return each one on time.”
Matt asked, “Did you read any others in that room? What were they about?”
“Each one told of another world, or another time,” the man said. “And that was a big part of the mystery, but not all…. No, there were many other aspects to the great unknown hidden in there. It took us a long time to unravel its secrets. In fact, they are still being deciphered.”
Mimi asked, “Desief…?
“Figured out,” He explained. “They haven’t been completely understood even today—after all this time. I’ve spent my entire life at the task, and so has Sly. We were hoping to find someone, maybe two someones, to carry on our adventure. I thought perhaps….”
“Could we Grandfather?” Matt asked. Mimi jumped up and down on the sofa, hollering, “Yes, please let us!”
“We’ll see,” the man replied. “But right now it’s time for bed.”
The two children screamed as one, “No!"
Mimi screeched, "You can’t stop now.”
“Perhaps in the morning,” he replied. “But here is a book for each one of you, though I don’t want you to stay up all night, reading.”
They gaped at the covers of two hardbacks the likes of which they had never seen before. “Are these…?” Mimi began. Her grandfather just patted her on the head, smiling.
“You’ll have to see for yourselves—now—off to bed…!”
[And that—dear reader—is the real beginning of what came to be known as The Mystery of the school Librarian, (That's Mrs. W, of course.)]
IN CASE YOU DIDN'T NOTICE, THERE IS ANOTHER MATT & MIMI SHORT STORY UP IN THE NAVIGATION BAR UNDER SEQUEL SAMPLES, TITLED:
CHRISTMAS 2012—MATT & MIMI