Ms. Lucy

Ms. Lucy                                                                                                            Zhanna McAtee

            I used to be so shy it would be painful to watch. My mother would introduce me to one of her “friends from work” and my tongue would go stiff. I would halfway hide behind my mother’s legs and hope the office workers would refrain from addressing me directly.

            I would also have a really hard time making friends at school, so I needed something to do during recess. I always loved to read but I had a hard time finding books that I liked. So, my mom took me to the library. She suggested that I find a nice looking librarian to talk to, then tell her what kind of books I wanted to read so she could get some for me. Mom assured me on many different occasions before we even got to the library that all librarians were really kind to all the kids.

            When mom finally found a parking spot at the Aiea Library, she led me inside and pointed out the two children’s’ librarians on duty. Both were female, but one of them looked very old and the shape of her nose scared me. Instead I decided to ask the younger-looking, black haired woman to find me something in the children’s section.

            As I timidly inched my way up to her desk with the nametag “Ms. Lucy” in big bronze letters sitting prominently on top of it, the librarian looked over her skinny spectacles at me. When I got into whispering range, she asked kindly (just like mom said she would), “Hello. What do you need help with?”

            I knew I was suppose to whisper in the library, but my voice was so ridiculously soft that Ms. Lucy looked at me funny. “Excuse me? What did you say?”

            “Ummm…” I tried to gather my thoughts and remember what I was here for. “A book?” I was proud of myself for forming two coherent words.

            “What kind of book?” Ms. Lucy was very patient with me as I stood there for a while.

            “Ummmmm… can I have one with magic in it?” Ms. Lucy smiled and stood up from behind her desk. She looked tall to me (but when you’re only 3 feet high every one looks tall). She walked over to the children’s section and quickly pulled out four different picture books, one after the other. She took the 3^rd one from the pile and told me, “This one’s my favorite.” With a wink and an adoring smile she turned back to her desk.

            I read the four books before my mom was done browsing through her adult fiction section, so I put the books back into the “return to shelves” basket and asked Ms. Lucy for a few more. She gladly helped me.

            To my delight, mom and I continued to go to the library every week after that, and during each visit I would ask Ms. Lucy to help me find some good books. The piles she pulled for me grew rapidly, and soon I was taking twenty books home at a time. I never failed to finish them all before the week was over. Instead of sitting at the wooden benches and starting to read the massive pile of literature right after it was handed to me, instead I would sit in a chair opposite Ms. Lucy’s desk with the tower of pictures and words in my lap, and we would talk until my mom was done finding her novels.

            Ms. Lucy and I got to know each other very well. She began to expect my visit on a weekly basis and knew both me and my brother by name. Ms. Lucy was a big, scary, intimidating adult, and she quickly became my first best friend. Ms. Lucy the librarian.