Del pulled their bike up outside a bright pink and yellow trailer as Mac ran up behind with Cheese zig-zagging behind back and forth across the alley in search of interesting smells, but not wanting to get left behind by the two friends. Del leaned over the wooden porch railing and knocked on the edge of the screen door. A child’s round face appeared at the edge of the door. “Hey guy!” the child called, “some people are here! And I want some Kool Aid please!” The child walked off, as a voice approached, “go get me your sippy cup and I’ll get you some Kool Aid.” Roe’s face poked around the edge of the screen door. “Oh hey!” He said brightly. “What’s going on?” Del looked over at Cheese, not scratching a little under the stairs at something, and said “We’re heading to the library and wants to know if you all want to come with. I was gonna look for some books on my list.” Del held up a piece of scrap paper, “and Mac put up a flier last week inviting people to come join his writing group. It starts today and we’re going to get there early and find a good spot where people can find him.” Roe smiled big, “That’s cool you made fliers for your writing group! I have to get leave a note for my cousin and pack up some snacks and diapers, we’ll meet you there!” Roe turned back inside, “Hey Bennie, how does the library sound? Go find your shoes too and we’ll walk down there.” Del remounted their bike, riding in slow circles around Mac and Cheese as they headed down the alley and out to the street. From there Del rode in the street, with Mac and Cheese running a little behind on the shoulder to keep up. They came to the main road and instead turned down a path through a neighbor’s flooded pasture, the muddy stream and pond for horses and goats made a nice home for tall grass to ride through away from cars. Cheese ran off after smells, running this way and that way, and Mac jogged after Del’s slow riding bike, readjusting his backpack every so often, his composition notebook, erasers, pens, pocket dictionary and thesaurus bouncing inside against his back. They crested a hill behind a long building: the back of the library, and Del rode down fast, turning with a skid in front of the lock up for the bikes. They turned back to see Mac rolling down the hill giggling, with Cheese barking and chasing him down the hill. Mac stood up, and brushed the loose grass off. Del looked down and wiped their shoes off before they went towards the building together. They stopped in front of the bulletin board inside. Mac’s poster was still there and most of the slips at the bottom were torn off. “Hey that’s cool!” Del whispered, pointing to the missing slips. The poster said writing group would be starting in fifteen minutes, outside under the oak tree where there were benches, grass and shade. Mac looked a little nervous. “What if Cheese doesn’t like meeting so many new people at once?” Mac whispered to Del. Del shrugged. “You usually let him run around at parties even, and he’s always good, I bet he’ll be fine. I’m gonna go find my books and then I’ll come find you. Roe and Bennie should be over too in a while.” Del waved and walked inside and Mac and Cheese headed over to the shade by the oak.
Del looked at their slip of paper. “Zoobooks, Tigers!”, “Animorphs, #13”, “find book about plants that grow in the desert and also about fruit trees”, “book about stars but not that astrology thing”. Del breathed in the fragrance of the air, like old pages, then started searching the shelves: “nonfiction, a-d, nonfiction e-h” on the other end of the rows a poster showed a map of the library by subject: “cartography, mathematics, botany, astronomy, zoology, physics, science fiction, mystery”. Del added little notes to their paper and hunted down a stack of books, crossing things off with a pencil stub as they went. They finally found everything they were looking for from the shelves and walked their wobbly stack to the front, carefully setting everything down so they could get a neatly folded tote bag out and from inside it, a library card with worn out lamination. The librarian smiled at the stack of books. “Looks like you got some good ones here” he said, and he checked them out one by one. “Are you doing the library’s summer reading challenge this year? They have a water bottle you can win.” Del smiled big. “I need a new water bottle for my bike! I’d like to do that this year.” The librarian fished around under the cabinet and pulled out a little booklet. “Here’s where you write down what you read and at the end of the summer turn it in for your water bottle.” Del took it with the books and put everything in the tote. “Thanks!” They said in a not overly loud whisper. They headed for the door. Just then Roe and Bennie burst in, with Bennie dragging Roe in a beeline towards the picture books. “Hey” Del whispered as Roe was dragged past, “did you know they give you a water bottle for reading all summer? Ask them for the booklet when you two check out books. You have your library card right?” Roe turned back and nodded quickly, “I have my library card. I’ll see you outside soon.” Del kept walking, wanting to go check out Mac’s writing group.
When Del got outside they found a circle of people in the shade, some had remembered pens and paper, some had forgotten and were sharing with others. They were talking and writing together. Del sat down on the edge next to someone they didn’t know. “Hey, I’m Del. What are you all writing about so far? I checked out some books before I came over.” A person about their age with medium length hair and a macrame necklace looked up from writing in a spiral notebook. “We decided to write about things that help us imagine things, so I was writing about shapes in the clouds. That girl over there was telling that other guy she’s writing about different smells like flowers and stinky socks.” Del glanced up and smiled. “Cool.” they said, and got out a piece of paper and pencil from their totebag. “Something that helps me to imagine things is when I watch my friend’s dog and I think about what it would be like to be a dog. What thoughts he’s thinking about and why he does what he does.” Del started scribbling faster with their pencil, not noticing until they were startled that Roe and Bennie had finished up inside and walked over. Roe smelled faintly of diaper cream. It was an observation Del wasn’t sure they would have made if not for the imagination writing exercise, and kind of noticed that. Smells made you wonder and imagine, and that was something Del hadn’t paid much attention to before.
“Hey what are you all writing about? Bennie and I were thinking about trying to do some writing and drawing together.” Del smiled, “that would be cool like a book you two make or something. Everyone is writing about things that help them imagine. I’m writing about Cheese. Some other people are writing about clouds and socks. ” Del pointed at the dog, snoozing under the tree. Bennie looked at Roe and dictated, “I want to write about the wagon ride here, how some of the bumps are scary but I still like when we go fast enough to pretend it’s a rocket and all the toys and bugs and rocks I like to keep in my wagon.” This was said as Bennie rifled through a bag which contained snacks and was also in the wagon. “Do you want to draw a picture too or only write down the words?” Roe asked, having retrieved paper and crayons from the wagon bag. Bennie thought a moment, and replied “I also want to draw pictures. I’ll draw the pictures and will you please write down some of the words I said and also some of your words and we can make a book to read later?” Roe nodded. “That sounds really good. I actually think everyone here gets a turn to read their words so you can have a turn here or we can save it for when we go home again.” Bennie’s eyes got big at the offer of getting a turn with everyone else “I want a turn here with everyone!” Bennie said. He looked over at Mac and Del, “Thanks for inviting us to come.” Mac smiled and gave Bennie a high five. “I’m glad you came!”
Storyteller Doll 