#53 Lilliput

Dear diary,

I’m writing this from the miniscule country town of Lilliput, the first stop-off point for the Mobile Library. There isn’t much in this town, just the obligatory local pub, general store, some farms and a McDonalds. The people are nice and friendly and all, don’t get me wrong, but a little small-minded. Perhaps it’s due to their stunted intellectual growth, seeing as they don’t have a library to call their own – sometimes I feel my knowledge dwarfs some of the patrons’. I’ve noticed that many of the locals come up to us with the tiniest of problems and have very short attention spans. They tend to steer clear of Large Print and borrow more of the compact-sized books, which they don’t hold onto for very long.

But despite all that, I really like it here. Just me and Pepper and Heb… Oh, I should probably explain.

Yesterday Pepper and I were at the library making the final preparations to head off on our outback tour with the Mobile Library. I packed the last few books into my bag, after unwrapping them, of course. A strange regular, Cornelius Xiang, has been returning all of his books over the last week, wrapped as presents. Public libraries: they attract the nice and the nutty, not always distinguishable (and not always just the patrons).

Anyway, Pepper and I packed everything into the van and started off on the long drive. I toggled on the SatNav but couldn’t get it quite right. At first it was a man’s voice but he kept coughing midway through the instructions, then a foul-mouthed woman’s voice telling us exactly where we should go. Eventually we settled for the text version translated from Japanese by someone whose grasp on the English language was rather hazy. Once we’d worked out that “Turn wrong” meant go left, and “You’re light” meant go right, we were fine.

After the first hour of driving we stopped off and Pepper went to check that the inflatable toys she’d set up in the Junior section (it’s a very large van) hadn’t popped in the heat. From the passenger seat I head her walk around to the rear of the van, open the back doors and scream. I made to run over to her but was strangled by my safety belt, which slithered around me and held me tight. I panicked for a while then realised Pepper was arguing with someone. I untangled myself with great effort and went around the back to see what the all the commotion was.

Bron’s son Bronson was sitting with Pepper, faces sulky and berating, respectively. There was a moment of awkward and confused silence, then Bronson spoke. He said he wanted to come with us but his mum had said no, it was too dangerous in the outback for a young shelver. He’d secretly rebelled and stowed away in the van. He said he was going under an alias – his middle name, Hebron, or Heb for short – in case anyone from the towns we visited recognised him. Pepper and I exchanged glances, knowing there was n chance of that happening out in these parts.

Heb looked so downcast and full of guilt that Pepper comforted him while I made us some tea. I mixed in a bit of whisky from Pepper’s flask (she likes a swig before each storytime to calm her stagefright, she tells me) and handed it to him. Within minutes he was asleep and snuggled up to the blow-up elephant, and we continue on our way to Lilliput, which was only a little way off.
We’re off in a few days to the town of Ironwood. See you then!

-Jay

#52 Travel

Dear diary,

Wow, you’d think the library would slow down this time of year, but it really doesn’t. I’ve been kept busy with all the regular library things, plus heaps of activities and ‘secret projects’ (which Boudecia made me swear to take to the grave unless they become public knowledge, whichever comes first). It’s been a while and I have to post something here for the Learning 2.something Program, otherwise I don’t get paid. No, seriously.

So it’s fitting that I have some big news to tell about one of the ‘secret projects’ I’ve been working on.

Many years ago, the mobile library van was involved in a head-on collision with a library building, in an accident that claimed the life of one writer-cum-librarian, Penny “The Pen” Guin. Since then it has been sitting in a garage waiting to be demolished or salvaged.

Pepper originally wanted to convert it into a mobile children’s library, but it was rejected on the grounds that children shouldn’t be encouraged to enter vehicles with strange adults, and so the idea was shelved. When I became a Library Officer – the crowning achievement of my life so far – I helped her to get the project back on the road, except as a generic collection of traveling books.

BiblioTech gave us a grant to get the Mobile Library up and running, and we put the finishing touches on it yesterday. I painted the van and gave it some of my best artwork – all of my clothes have stripes and smears across them. Pepper gathered the collection from various sources, some of which she had to go to court for.

But now it is complete. We’ve decided to travel out to eight country towns all over rural Victoria. I’m so excited about the prospect of promoting literacy to bogans. I was amazed to hear how few rural areas had a local library; I mean, how can people live in such substandard conditions? Well they won’t have to live much longer (like that) because we’re coming to pay them a visit!

So yeah, we head off just after Christmas. We spend a few days in each town before moving on to the next. I’ve never heard of any of them before, but Pepper assures me she’s had contact with the authorities there and they’ve made all the preparations for or visit. Hooray!

Anyway, before I go I’d like to wish you all a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Crazy Kwanzaa, Really Good Rizal Day and a Fantastic Festivus. Take care over the silly season!

Hee hee, ee hee hee!

-Jay, shelver explorer