The fire was not my fault, despite what other people would tell you.
There was an art to herding children, and it was one I had yet to fully master. Someone like Lakshmi, the actual children's librarian, could calm the little terrors in a heartbeat. One time I saw her kneel down and explain to a child that books are meant to be read, not to be eaten. The little girl spat out the page she'd been chewing on, hugged Lakshmi, and trotted away to the puzzle table.
I was not Lakshmi. She had a dentist appointment that afternoon, leaving me as the supervising librarian at the Northern Ridge library branch. It was my first time having so much responsibility, and I was looking forward to proving myself. It was only my third month on the job.
"Don't set the place on fire while I'm gone!" she'd said as she left.
"Of course not!" I replied, blissfully ignorant of my rather flamey future.
Twelve children and their parents had signed up for the event. I was doing a double feature: Matthew Cherry's Hair Love and Robert Munsch's Stephanie's Ponytail. To get into the spirit, we encouraged all the participants to show up with wacky hair.
I'll admit I went a little overboard with my own hair to prove my dedication to the job. I tied the back half into a ponytail, and with the front half, I used bobby pins and a gross amount of hair gel to fashion it into a unicorn horn. I completed the outfit with a white tutu and a sparkling pink top.
It was a fashion statement of the century.
I finished setting up the bean bag chairs in the storytime room, which was lovingly decorated with an egregious amount of construction paper and Bristol board. I threw open the door, ready to greet the participants.
"Ms. Richards, why do you look weird?" Sarah Lynn asked.
Aghast, I watched as all of the children came in - none of them with wacky hair.
Sarah Lynn was one of our regulars; she and her father usually camped out on the purple bean bag chair right near the front. "Ms. Richards is a unicorn!" she cackled, spreading the word to the other kids as if this was the hottest gossip of the day.
I made eye contact with Wesley Takahashi, the librarian hovering near the door.
"Guess I forgot to update the invitation with news about the hair," he drawled.
I froze, letting the implication bounce around my head. Anger flushed through me. I wanted to sic the herd of children on him.
I knew it was all his fault. Things had been going wrong for the past week, with misshelved books, an offline catalogue, and missing keys. The glint in Wesley's eyes confirmed his nefarious involvement.
He was from a different library branch, but two weeks ago it was announced that he would be spending time at our branch to see if he could learn best practices to share with his team. Those of us at the Northern Ridge branch - me, Lakshmi, Melissa, and Matteo - had fallen into the "ride or die" category of friendship. Wesley, however, ate his lunches alone and left work as soon as his shift ended. The rest of us tended to hover in the break room and lick the wounds acquired from the day.
This is my confession: When Wesley first walked through the door to the library, backlit by the sun coming in from the parking lot, I thought he was cute. Hot, even, in a professor-with-his-sleeves-rolled-up kind of way. He was somehow rocking a button-down shirt and khakis, as if he'd stepped out of the spring edition of the J.Crew catalogue. His hair was a few shades darker than mine, and his cheekbones were so sharp you could use them to grate cheese. I should add, I love cheese, so it's certainly meant as a high compliment.
The problem started when Wesley opened his mouth, and my attraction died a quick, painful death.
That was days ago, and I still hadn't recovered from what he said to me.
"Are we going to read, now?" Sarah Lynn asked.
I realized I'd fallen into a spiral of Wesley-related thoughts, which wasn't a good sign. "Of course!" I said to Sarah Lynn. To the group at large I added, "Are we ready to read, friends?" Everyone cheered, and I felt like a rock star for these mini humans.
The feeling lasted for about ten seconds. Jacob wanted to use the washroom before storytime, and Bao discovered the tub of craft supplies hidden in the back of the room. I could see her eying the glitter glue, which would be a category 10 disaster if I didn't intervene. My plans for a perfect storytime were quickly fading.
Every time I solved one small crisis, another would pop up. I wanted to scream.
My friend Melissa always laughed at my discomfort with children, considering that my tastes tended to be fairly juvenile. I preferred chicken fingers over any other food; my notebooks were covered in stickers of cartoon dogs and cats. And yet, I couldn't manage to get twelve children and their parents all seated at once.
Two siblings started to pinch each other; one of the parents wanted to talk to me about the novel they'd written; Jessica was sobbing for no apparent reason. I related to her a bit too much.
Wesley clapped his hands loudly twice. "Is everyone ready? We're getting started now."
The children stared at him, wide-eyed, and went into their seats.
I wasn't sure if I should glare at him or thank him; I settled on ignoring his presence and sitting on the official Storytime Chair, which was designed to look like a throne.
I still hadn't figured out Wesley's deal. He'd admitted only a few minutes ago that he had purposely not included the details about wacky hair day in the invitation, and he was most definitely behind the other snafus earlier and the week. And yet, he'd wrangled the children together just now.
Something was up, and I was going to get to the bottom of it.
Before then, though, I had to survive storytime.
As I read through the first of the books, I could feel him watching me. Wesley. The weight of his eyes followed my every movement, as I turned each page, as I acted out movements. I felt uncomfortable, but I figured it was the fumes from my hair gel. The room was stuffy with so many people.
I tried to send Death Vibes his way, but it was quite difficult to do that when wearing a sparkly tutu.
I continued to read, and as the children smiled and laughed in all the right places, I wondered why I had been so worried about taking over for Lakshimi. Most days at least three librarians were on the schedule, but both Melissa and Matteo had today booked off. Wesley was technically my support staff today, even if I doubted the quality of his work. Our library page, ironically named Paige, was staffing the circulation desk.
It wasn't so hard after all, being the supervising librarian. Besides, the children's parents were here, so nothing would get out of control. Even though I was twenty-four, I didn't feel like a real adult. I still cried when I did my taxes, and not once in my life had I ever made risotto. The presence of those parents, the actual adults, guaranteed that everything would be fine-
A piercing shriek cut through the air.
The children screamed. "It's just the fire alarm!" I said, standing up. "Please leave in an orderly fashion-"
Parents hauled their children up and started to bolt towards the door. It was utter chaos. The kids were still yelling, the parents were fighting their way through the crowd, and the alarm was blaring. Wesley had bolted out of the room.
I figured it was a false alarm, like every other time. Only when I went into the main space of the library and smelled smoke did I truly understand.
"Get out of here!" I yelled unnecessarily, as the true terror set in.
I had never been trained for this situation. In past alarms I had proceeded outside with the other staff and patrons, but something didn't feel right about that. A captain goes down with her ship. Not that I had any plans to become a crispy version of myself - I just realized that I needed to make sure the library was completely evacuated.
Or, I could put out the fire.
I'm not sure where the thought came from, but I yanked the fire extinguisher off the wall and sprinted towards the source of the smoke: the men's bathroom.
In the back of my mind I knew this was a bad idea. I had a sudden flash of memory - the thick library fire safety manual. Sitting on my desk, unread. It was currently propping up the stuffed Kermit that lived at my workstation. I'd had so many things to do in the first months on the job that I had completely forgotten to read it. There was probably a whole chapter on how to avoid this situation in the first place.
When I opened the door to the washroom, I was struck by the burning at the back of my throat, of the smoke that plumed out from the garbage can. I realized then that I was a complete idiot, and that I had no idea what I was doing. I knew what to do if I caught on fire - stop, drop, and roll - but I had no idea how to actually work a fire extinguisher.
I ran back into the clearer air outside of the bathroom and frantically read the instructions on the extinguisher. Pull the ring, aim towards the base of the fire, squeeze the handle, and sweep the canister.
I took a deep breath and plunged back into the smoky bathroom.
Somehow the instructions got jumbled in my head - sweep? squeeze? aim? - but eventually I managed to pull the pin and squeeze. I yelped as a blast of chemicals erupted from the nozzle. An indeterminate amount of time later, the fire had been buried under a blanket of the chemical residue.
I stumbled out of the bathroom, my arms quaking so much that I dropped the extinguisher. I managed to make it outside just as the first fire truck pulled up.
"Are you okay?" Wesley was suddenly beside me. It was completely unfair that he looked so well put-together, with his dumb button-down Oxford and his too-clean shoes.
But that wasn't completely accurate. His eyes were bloodshot, as if he was actually upset. I didn't know that he was capable of human emotions.
It made me feel a little better about my own situation; I looked like a trainwreck unicorn. My horn had fallen to one side, and I could feel my glittery eyeshadow stuck to my cheeks. I smelled like burnt BBQ.
I could finally feel the tears start to come. I don't know why I was so mad - perhaps it was the genuine concern in his voice, or the fact that I'd messed up my first time being the supervising librarian - but I placed a hand on his chest and pushed him away. "I need to be alone," I said, marching off to the park across the street.
He let me go. As I sat on a bench, in a strange moment of weakness, a bizarre part of me wished he had followed.
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Hi, I'm EJ! This story is meant to be a love letter to libraries and books. Let me know what your favorite book is, and I'll do my best to drop a reference somewhere in the story :)
Updated every Sunday!