This story was originally published under the title “Snowball of Lies” as part of my senior writing portfolio for the 2018 Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. My portfolio was awarded the Gold Key, and was subsequently included in The Best Teen Writing of North Dakota 2018. Enjoy!
I have read eight thousand, three hundred and ninety-two books.
I mean, what else are you supposed to do when you live in a library? We read. My brother Jude has read eight thousand, four hundred and twenty-five books. Our library has eight thousand, four hundred and twenty-six books. So, doing some simple math, we can conclude that I have exactly thirty-four books left to read. And, doing some even simpler math, we can conclude that Jude has exactly one book left to read. And then he’ll be free.
Jude’s last book is called Walking on Paper Bridges.He’s been saving it for a long time. When he reads it, he can leave the library for the first time in his life—and maybe the last time. But he’s been waiting. He wants me to come with him.
I am a very good reader.
Jude is seventeen and finished his second-to-last book about two years ago. I’m almost twelve, and, well, have thirty-four to go.
We estimate I’ll be done in about three weeks.
But there’s a problem. Jude is in a mood and hasn’t spoken to me for days. And as I pick up my eight thousand, three hundred and ninety-third book, he sits on the stairs that lead to our secret home’s exit, hidden behind the swinging bottom two shelves of L-through-R fiction, waiting for Vivian Marie Booker Public Library to close. He has a pile of reread books in his arms. And I don’t want to voice my fears because I’m afraid it will solidify Jude’s resolve.
I’m afraid he’s only going to return with one book.
The clock on the wall ticks to eight o’clock, which means the library has just closed. A few stragglers are likely still lined up at the front counter. Mr. Bethel is probably making his rounds, checking to be sure no one is left. We still have about half an hour to wait before the rest of the staff leaves for the evening. Bethel tells us they have to put the last of the returned books back on the shelves, straighten chairs, clean restrooms, and check the computer records. Then the library doors will be locked, and we can come out of our hiding place below the shelves.
Having read eight thousand, three hundred and ninety-two books, I have learned a lot, even though I’ve never left Vivian Marie Booker Public Library. I’ve learned about almost every place anyone has written a book about. I’ve learned about magical lands and real cities that both frighten and intrigue me. I’ve read the best and worst love stories ever written. I’ve read every word in each of the five dictionaries in Vivian Marie Booker Library. You’d think the encyclopedias would be the hardest, and they are. My least favorite was the Index. Seriously. The set has an entire book as an index. And every book means every book. I got that out of the way as soon as I understood what an index was—probably when I was about seven. It was a bit of a splash in the face after reading the entire fifty-three book Animal Pals series.
The lists are on the wall facing the stairs inside the hideout. The only measure of success at having completed reading the Index was one measly check mark on the wall. It joined hundreds of others. There is a list for me, an identical one for Jude, one for Dad, and one for Mom.
Mom always said she liked to savor each book. She took her time and enjoyed the words, the stories. She had only read six thousand and three when she died.
Dad read them all and left. He promised he’d come back, but he didn’t.
So now it’s just me and Jude. And Mr. Bethel, the head librarian and the only other person in the world who knows our secret. Who knows we exist.
Bethel is one of those older folks with a white beard and round glasses who looks like he belongs in a library. Or maybe it’s just because I know him. He takes good care of us, bringing us food and keeping us safe. And he’s got a plan for our first time venturing into the real world, the world beyond the glass doors. Oh, yes, he has it all worked out for us. Very careful. Very safe. He cares about us very much.
The big hand on the clock seems faster than usual tonight. Jude’s eyes haven’t left it; he’s nearly bouncing with impatience. It’s hard to hide in a library, you know? Everything is so quiet. At least there are no distractions. We can just read all day during open hours.
Footsteps approach, and even though I know who it is, my heart speeds up. With a click and a creak, the shelves swing open and Bethel’s voice floats down. “All safe, you two.”
Jude climbs out and is off in a flash, brushing right past Bethel. I gather my return stack—only two today—and crawl out as well. The fresh air holds the familiar scent of coffee and musty pages. Bethel looks perplexed behind his owlish glasses. “Is Jude all right?”
“In a mood,” I say, still not daring to say much more.
“Don’t worry, dear. He’s just anxious because you’re so close to finished. What is it, thirty-three, now? But don’t worry.” Bethel’s eyes sparkle as he leans close to me. “You will both have a wonderful first outing.”
I nod. Yes. Both of us. Together.
Jude returns quickly, bookless, clutching his stomach. “Bad stomachache,” he says unconvincingly, slipping back down.
Bethel opens his mouth, then closes it. He’s brought us supper. A container of macaroni and cheese. I throw my arms around him and whisper “Good-night!” before he can inquire further. I slide through the shelves back into the hideout, leaving Bethel with my finished books.
It’s a pity some people don’t understand the commonness of a lie. A lie is as common as a snowflake in winter.
Very.
It’s only a rare selection of us, the clever ones, who understand how to catch these snowflakes on our tongues and keep them from melting. We spit them back out as bigger, better lies and shape the world with them.
The world is a snowball of lies.
It was difficult for my parents to convince Jude he needed to read the entire library. I remember quietly burying myself in a book while he built towers with blocks and knocked them down, making us all cringe at the clatter.
Bethel kept a few board games in the kid’s section, and Jude would bring down checkers or a deck of mismatched cards. I would play games with a book in one hand, and often he would get frustrated and give up on me because I was too distracted. The reading came naturally to me; I was content to be a good little girl sitting in the corner with a book all day. But Jude was always restless.
Why did they make us live in a library? Maybe if it wasn’t all I’d ever known, I’d ask questions like that.
I don’t remember a distinct day when Jude changed his mind. It happened slowly after Mom died. He read all the books she’d never read first, and then declared his last book to be Walking on Paper Bridges. It was the last one she’d read.
As I expected, Jude does not have a stomachache.
He was hiding a book under his shirt, and now he sits in the corner, staring at the front cover.
It’s Walking on Paper Bridges.
“Jude,” I say.
He looks up at me. Then he flicks open the cover and turns to the first page.
“Jude, no. You can’t. You can’t leave me here!”
“Yes, I can—and you can’t stop me. This is my own choice.”
“No. I’ll—I’ll take it from you—I’ll get someone else to check it out…”
He turns the page.
“I’ll tell Bethel!”
He laughs. It’s a harsh laugh, one I’ve never heard from my brother before. “You would never.”
He’s right, of course.
I count the pages as he reads them and listen to Bethel’s soft footsteps as he cleans up for the night. After ten pages, I can’t watch anymore. There are only two hundred and four. I’ve read it. I stomp into my bedroom and slam the door. Only at night is it safe to do that.
My room is barely big enough to fit my bed and a dresser. I crawl straight under the covers and punch a pillow. Jude is going to leave me. I have to come to terms with it.
I decide the only thing to do is read. Number eight thousand, three hundred and ninety-three.
It’s the problem with people, you see. They’re too trusting. And I could write a thousand pages on why you ought to never trust another soul but your own.
But that’s another story, for another cup of coffee.
The End.
It’s morning. I stayed up half the night finishing The Liar. It made me uneasy, and I didn’t sleep well even after I closed the cover.
I hear the telltale click that means Bethel has brought our breakfast and lunch. I hop out of bed and hurry upstairs to meet him, not even caring that my hair is a mess of tangles. It’s pointless to care about your appearance when you live in a library. He hands steaming plates down to me, along with a few cans of fruit. Jude is nowhere to be seen. His door is closed. I can only hope he was too tired to finish Walking on Paper Bridges.Or that he had a change of heart.
“I finished The Liar,” I whisper to Bethel, grabbing it off my bed and handing it up to him.
“How was it?”
I hadn’t liked it. Too dark and creepy. I was scared to close my eyes last night, and every noise I heard made me jump. “Not very good.” I shrugged. “Well, it’s just another book.”
“Just another book,” he repeats. I leave him crouched at the entrance and cross the room to put a check mark on the wall next to The Liar.
“Is Jude still in bed?”
“Yes. I think he’s still sick.” It’s not the first time I’ve lied to Bethel, and it won’t be the last. It doesn’t make me feel any better about it, though.
“Well, come find me if he needs me. Have a good day, my dear.”
Eight thirty-six. The library opens at nine during the week. The staff will be arriving any minute. I sigh and open number eight thousand, three hundred and ninety-four.
I love books. I never tire of their adventures. I’ve read the best and the worst Vivian Marie Booker Public Library has to offer. Through them I’ve discovered the real world—what I can’t see from the windows. When we leave, I want to travel. I want to see oceans, mountains, woods—not only that, I want to experience them the way the books tell me they’ll be. I want to feel the salty spray of blue water in my face and hear waves crashing in my ears. I want to smell the fresher-than-fresh air as I bask in the enormity of a single crest pressed up out of the earth. I want to close my eyes and feel the stillness of trees around me and the moist ground beneath my bare feet, knowing when I look again I’ll see the sparkling stream and the trees whispering their green secrets high above my head.
I want to live. But I’m afraid life isn’t as good as the books make it out to be.
Jude doesn’t make an appearance until exactly 12:32 pm. I remember the time, because it is the exact minute I understand that Jude is really leaving.
He’s been packing. I’d heard him moving around in his room, and sure enough, he comes toting his old backpack. It’s stuffed full. Clothes, I’m nearly certain. He’s not taking books, that’s for sure. And he’s not coming back.
He sits by the entrance, clutching Walking on Paper Bridges.It’s closed, and there’s no bookmark. So, he’s finished it.
“How was it?” I mutter bitterly.
Jude snorts. “Top third, but barely. It was a little disappointing, honestly. For all the praise Dad gave it, I was expecting more.”
“Don’t talk about Dad.”
“Why shouldn’t I? You loved him, and I’m about to do exactly what he did to us.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, as if that could block out his voice. “You don’t know what he did to us. Maybe it’s not—”
“Not his fault? You’re right, genius. It’s not his fault.”
I open my eyes to stare at him. “What are you talking about?”
“Oh, I almost forgot.” Jude crosses the room and sticks his thumb in the inkpot, smearing his final check mark on the wall. We both stare at it for a moment. The finality of what Jude is about to do is slowly seeping into me, freezing me from the inside out.
He saunters back to the stairs and picks up the book again. “You know what we always say,” Jude says, flipping the latch and peering out to make sure no one is in the aisle. “Just another book,” he whispers, hoisting himself up and shutting the swinging shelf.
I am alone. The silence overwhelms me for about three heartbeats, and then I sprint up the steps and crawl out after him.
I usually have a few hours, at least, to mentally prepare myself, to remember all the best excuses if I’m seen leaving the hideout or if any of the librarians ask where my parents are or if anyone asks why I’m in the biography section.
But I have to watch…I have to see whether he’ll follow through, if he’ll get caught somehow…I have to see Jude’s first steps outside.
He’s moving quickly. I stay far enough behind him so I can jump behind a shelf if he looks back, but he doesn’t. Just like that, he’s at the door. He slips Walking on Paper Bridges into the return slot and stops.
For one last moment, he’s a seventeen-year-old boy who’s read an entire library and never stepped outside.
Then he slips out and hurries down the steps without hesitation. I’m too far away to see his face, but I’m sure it’s impassive. Don’t want to look like a seventeen-year-old boy who’s read an entire library and never stepped outside.
I slowly approach the return slot and reach through, heart pounding. Walking on Paper Bridges is still there. With a quick glance around to see if any of the librarians are paying attention, I return to the hideout as quickly as I dare and sit on the steps, drowning in the silence, clutching Jude’s last book to my chest, wondering what I did to deserve my brother’s abandonment.
The answer, of course, is nothing.
I throw the book against the wall of titles and it falls with a thud to the ground. I have to bite my palm to keep my sobs silent. There are people walking above my head.
Through my tears I see that a folded sheet of paper has fallen out of Walking on Paper Bridges.
Bethel’s been lying to us.
It’s Jude’s hurried scrawl.
They all have. Mom and Dad, too. They didn’t come for a challenge, like they’ve always said. They came because they had to. Dad got fired, Mom couldn’t pay the mortgage…suddenly they were a breath away from being homeless and Dad begged Bethel to take them in and Bethel said he would let them stay free of charge until they’d read the whole library. He wouldn’t let them leave because he didn’t want the word to get out that the library was some kind of homeless shelter. And it went too far. He wouldn’t even call a doctor when Mom got sick. That’s how much he cares about his secret.
The note goes in my pocket. Walking on Paper Bridges goes back on its shelf. And that’s where Bethel finds me.
“Echo? Is everything all right?” he whispers, noting my tear-streaked face with concern.
“Yes, Bethel. Everything’s fine.”
“Where’s Jude?”
Suddenly, it’s too much. Forget the thirty-two books. I’ve lost everyone who knows I exist. I’ve been lied to by the man standing before me. I don’t want to spend a night here alone. I’m done being the good girl. I’m done being quiet.
“I’m done.” I say it out loud. Too loud. Bethel is stunned.
“Echo?”
“I’m leaving.”
I spin on my heel and run to the doors.
He follows me through the library, trying not to make a scene. I throw books off the shelves and stomp. I fling open the shelves exposing our hideout. “I’m leaving!” I call gleefully to the people staring at me in shock.
I pause with a hand on the door. Another rule broken. Bethel hates fingerprints on the glass.
Bethel calls my name again, desperately. But I fling open the door. I have to find Jude.
The sky is so much better on this side of the glass.
It’s like when you realize that you’ve never seen your own face in person. Only reflections. And people say if you saw yourself walking down the street, you wouldn’t recognize your own face. You roll your eyes down as far as you can but can barely make out the tip of your nose. And you gaze at your own eyes in the mirror, wondering whether they’re the same in real life.
It’s like I broke the mirror. I see the real sky, and it’s more beautiful without windows in the way. It’s the same sky. But it’s better on this side of the glass.
“Everything’s fine, Bethel.”
The world is a snowball of lies.