Short stories to read on a bus, a car, train, or plane (or a comfy chair anywhere). Includes the novella «Duck Creek». Colin David Palmer
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Автор: Colin David Palmer
Издательство: Издательские решения
Жанр: Приключения: прочее
isbn: 9788381049436
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‘So how long has he been coming here?’ a third mother asks, one who has only recently moved into the area but whose child had been attending this library session with a friends’ daughter for over four years.
‘The Library opened in 1996, September I think it was, and it was only a matter of weeks after that,’ Rebeccas’ Mom replied.
‘A man, that man Mr Cole, has been coming here every Saturday for nearly six years and nobody knows anything about him?’ the third mother asks with a mix of absolute wonder and total disbelief plain as day on her face.
Instead of a reply almost all of the women look at each other and simply shake their heads.
‘He’s good lookin’, I know that!’ squeals Rebeccas’ Mom, and they all break into excited laughter and babble now about how he is probably great in bed, but he does what he does because he used to be married and his own wife and kids were tragically killed. ‘Bec Honey’ her Mom asks, ‘has he ever said anything about himself at all, you know, where he comes from or anything like that?’
The women are immediately quiet again. They all wait as if their next breathe is dependent upon little eight year old Rebeccas’ response to her Mother.
‘No Mom’ the babble begins again at once, but almost supernaturally ceases as Bec speaks again. ‘There was this one time when Billy Smithers cried.’
Rebecca stopped talking because she realised that there was over twenty pairs of adult eyes peering at her, searching her face, hanging on once again for lifes’ breath. She was only eight and her little lips pursed – the attention was scary. A tear scrabbled down her cheek from one eye and her lips began to tremble.
‘It’s alright Honey’ her Mom squatted down and wrapped her arms around Bec. ‘Go on, it’s okay.’
‘Billy Smithers he cried and … sniffle … and Mr, Mr … sniffle … Cole just said to him that it was okay to cry … sniffle … to go ahead, cry and that we would all cry too so that Billy wouldn’t feel so bad. He, he … sniffle … said that he, Mr Cole … sniffle … had seen too many tears already, but we should all still go ahead and he would try too, for Billy…. sniff.’
After a moment’s hesitation the verbal analysis began again. This time they stopped only because the horrible realisation dawned upon them all at once. Billy Smithers had been going to the library on these special days for only a month. He only went for a month because he had died – his whole family had died. The entire Smithers family perished in a house fire which only their Burmilla cat, Bungendore, had survived. Soft murmuring reminded those in the crowd who had forgotten, as if it were possible that such a horrendous event could be forgotten.
‘What did Mr Cole do to Billy to make him cry Bec?’
‘Nothing Mom’, Bec’s confidence was mostly restored now. ‘He just did what he always does – tells stories.’
Before any more patter could eventuate, Mrs Stevens herself opened the front door.
“Good morning ladies, morning kids’ she chirped, and began counting infant heads as they excitedly filed past her. ‘No running’ she warned, though none of them had shown any sign of doing so.
Mrs Stevens had been the Head Librarian for almost three years and a Council Librarian within the local municipality for a total of 34 years. She had never seen so many kids regularly attending any Library service. As she had told many mothers over the years, she knew as little as they did about the mysterious Mr Cole and she couldn’t even tell them about the stories he told the kids because neither she nor any of her staff were allowed to be present either. Sure, some parents had been uncomfortable with this and withdrawn their children, forbid them to attend, but those children kicked up so much of a continual fuss about missing out that within a week or two, the parents usually relented and allowed them to return, if there were any vacancies still available that is.
And the results spoke for themselves. Every single child who attended became remarkably well mannered, improved at school in some cases to the extent that the local Primary School Assistant Headmaster showed up and wanted to attend a session ‘for the information of the Education Department’, he had pompously announced. That session did not proceed – Mr Cole was adamant that NO adult, in fact nobody over the age of twelve could attend. He displayed no anger, only futility, he was not argumentative, simply obstinate. His only answer to the question of ‘why’ was that it was not possible for him to tell his stories in the same way if there was an older child or an adult present. For the children, it just would not be the same. And his results were indisputable.
The only other session that had been delayed was when Mr Cole ‘discovered’ a video camera secreted in ten year old Jamie Sinclair’s bright yellow Digimon back pack. Mr Cole stated the discovery resulted from the low battery warning bleeper activating itself on the camera as the children had gathered and sat down excitedly awaiting that weeks’ story. Mr Sinclair told a disbelieving Mrs Sinclair later that night that he had fully charged the battery pack as she had asked.
Apart from the occasional mother making surreptitious flirtatious suggestions to Mr Cole (he was indeed a handsome man and he did not wear a wedding ring), it was his results with the children that remained the prime motive behind the continuing sessions.
When they first started it had only been with five children, so Mrs Stevens’ predecessor had informed her. Within a month that figure had grown to 25, and in the second month, they had to cap the number of attendees to 60 as no more could comfortably fit into the annexure where Mr Cole told his stories, and there was no other suitable venue within the Library and Mr Cole himself refused to go elsewhere. The library was the only venue that he could ‘do what he did’ he advised them. Consequently, there was a waiting list of more than a thousand children waiting to get into the sessions but as almost all the children currently attending had been going since the first year, and only ceased to attend when they either moved away or became too old (there was usually a huge farewell celebration whenever one of the kids reached the age of thirteen and could no longer attend the sessions. Remarkably, but not surprising to their parents, the kids themselves accepted that they could no longer attend with all the aplomb of an university student on graduation day, and each and every one of them went on to be in huge demand by big business and political parties alike, even before they had finished school), or as in the sad case of the death of Billy Smithers. The vast majority of that thousand names on the waiting list would never get to see or hear Mr Cole tell one of his stories.
Mothers and Librarians, the long, long waiting list and even Billy Smithers was forgotten now, inside, the annexure secured. The children sat in a semi-circle facing him, their faces quietly and eerily intent as they knew he would not begin until there was absolute silence.
The annexure itself was designed to be a relatively noise free environment so that 20th century technology of videos, satellite and pay television showing documentaries and wildlife programs and even audio books could be enjoyed by patrons without being interrupted by the obstreperous behaviour of normal library life. Anybody who still believes that libraries remain a haven of peaceful solitude has not recently attended a public library, so the annexure was included СКАЧАТЬ