libraries | Austin Mystery Writers

By M. K. Waller

Shakespeare said, “A sad tale’s best for winter,” but this is only October, and in Texas, that sure ain’t winter. And I don’t feel like telling a sad tale.

Halloween is near, so I shall tell a scary tale, one about a wicked witch and innocent little children.

But with a reminder: Sometimes it’s the innocent little children you have to watch out for.

For you to fully appreciate the trauma inflicted here, a preface—

My university degrees are in English and biology. I trained to teach secondary students. High school. Teenagers. People as tall as I am. Usually taller.

Mid-career, I was invited to take the position of school district librarian. I had neither education nor experience in the field, but both my employers and the State of Texas said that was okay—I was an English teacher, I could do anything. I would start working in August, two weeks away, and then jump back into graduate school for a second master’s degree when January rolled around. I’d do fine.

I thought both the State and my employer were a little crazy, and I hadn’t planned a return to grad school, but I was a little crazy, too, so I accepted the offer.

And both the library and I were fine. I was more than fine. I absolutely adored library work. It was like putting together a big puzzle—so many different pieces. And a couple of years later, here came computers and networking and T1 lines and the Internet and the world wide web and . . . A wild learning curve, perpetual continuing education. On-the-job boredom? Not a chance.

Library school was—not adorable. It was challenging. Some courses were nerve-wracking. When they said library science, they meant science. In the words of the Library of Congress cataloger teaching the Organization of Materials course, as she looked out over a sea of bewildered students— “Come on, people. Cataloging isn’t rocket science. Rocket scientists couldn’t handle it.”*

But nothing was so challenging—or so nerve-wracking—as the two days a week I spent in my own elementary school library with the little people. Very little people. The ones some teachers called, privately, the ankle-biters.

I loved little children, nieces and nephews and such. I would play with them for hours on end. But they came in twos and threes. At the library, little children came in hordes.

Nothing in my formal education had prepared me to be in the same room with them. In all my fifteen years as a librarian, I was never prepared. They always managed to surprise me.

And now, my story for Halloween.

Oh—you must also know the story of Hansel and Gretel. In case you’ve forgotten, here’s Wikipedia’s summary:

Hansel and Gretel are siblings who are abandoned in a forest and fall into the hands of a witch who lives in a bread, cake, and sugar house. The witch, who has cannibalistic intentions, intends to fatten Hansel before eventually eating him. However, Gretel saves her brother by pushing the witch into her own oven, killing her, and escaping with the witch’s treasure.

Okay, to the story.

*

This is the story of Cuthbert, a five-year-old boy
who visited
my school library
for twenty minutes every week.
My job was to teach him about the library.
I’m not sure what his job was.
But he was very good at it.

*

Once upon a time, I read “Hansel and Gretel” to a class of kindergarteners. The audience, sitting rapt at my feet, comprised sixteen exceptionally good listeners, a fact I later regretted.

While I read, Cuthbert sat on the floor beside my chair and stroked my panty-hose-clad shin. Small children find panty-hose fascinating.

When I reached, “And they lived happily ever after,” Cuthbert stopped stroking and tugged on my skirt. I ceded him the floor.

“But it’s a good thing, what the witch did.”

Because he spoke kindergartener-ese and I sometimes didn’t, I thought I had misunderstood. Come again?

“It’s really a good thing, what the witch did.”

I should have slammed the book shut right then, or pulled out the emergency duct tape, or something, anything to change the subject. But I’m not very smart, so I asked Cuthbert to elaborate.

His elaboration went like this:

When the witch prepared the hot oven to cook and then eat Hansel, she was doing a good thing. Because then Hansel would die and go to Heaven to be with God and Jesus.

I smiled a no doubt horrified smile and said something like But But But. While Cuthbert explained even more fully, I analyzed my options.

a) If I said, No, the witch did a bad thing, because it is not nice to cook and eat little boys and girls, then sixteen children would go home and report, Miss Kathy said it’s bad to go to Heaven and be with God and Jesus.

b) If I said, Yes, the witch did a good thing, because cooking and eating little boys and girls ensures their immediate transport Heavenward, then sixteen children would go home and report, Miss Kathy approves of cold-blooded murder and cannibalism. Plus witchcraft. Plus reading a book about a witch, which in our Great State is sometimes considered more damaging than the murder/cannibalism package.

c) Anything I said might be in complete opposition to what Cuthbert’s mother had told him on this topic, and he would report that to her, and then I would get to attend a conference that wouldn’t be nearly so much fun as it sounds.

Note: The last sentence under b) is not to be taken literally. It is sarcasm, and richly deserved. The earlier reference to emergency duct tape is hyperbole. I’ve never duct taped a child.

Well, anyway, I wish I could say the sky opened and a big light bulb appeared above my head and gave me words to clean up this mess. But I don’t remember finding any words at all, at least sensible ones. I think I babbled and stammered until the teacher came to repossess her charges.

I do remember Cuthbert was talking when he left the room. There’s no telling what his classmates took away from that lesson.

If I’d been in my right mind, I might have said something to the effect that God and Jesus don’t like it when witches send people to Heaven before their due date.

But the prospect of talking theology with this independent thinker froze my neural pathways.

And anyway, I was using all my energy to keep from laughing.

*

*I know most people think librarians are educated to do two thing: stamp books and say, “Shhhhhh.” Those people are dead wrong. Someday I shall publish a post—maybe an entire book—upending all the common misconceptions about librarians. It will be a page-turner.

*

This post appeared on Telling the Truth, Mainly, in 2011 and again in 2012. I like to repost around Halloween, because the season cries out for scary stories, and that day with Cuthbert was pretty darned scary. (I’ve never thought of myself as a witch, but some people probably did. And still do.)

The discussion about fairy tales and religion took place over twenty years ago. I think about it often and feel lucky I’ve never had a nightmare about it. But I remember Cuthbert fondly for giving me both the worst and the best day of my career. He was adorable.

***

M. K. Waller’s short stories appear is several anthologies, the latest of which is Kaye George’s Dark of the Day: Eclipse Stories (Down and Out Press, 2024). Her novella, Stabbed, was co-written with Manning Wolfe. She also writes as Kathy Waller. Read more about her at kathywaller1.com and follow her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/kathy.waller68/

She lives in Austin, Texas.