Back to Books : WORD For Teens | Day 004

The Library Before First Period

Or, in which we learn that throwing books is a really bad idea.

I am a nerd. I wear the label proudly, as do most of my friends. We call ourselves the Nerd Herd; I've been called Queen of the Nerds; our favorite English teacher calls himself our Emperor, and our librarian argues with him and insists that she is the one who really leads us.

Either way, last year was my last year of high school. (Sad!) The group of us spent as much time as possible in the library before we left - during lunch periods, whenever we had a free period, when our teachers would let us out of class.

But, most importantly, we hung out in the library before first period.

This was something that we had done since freshman year. The entire point of this post is that going to the library - or at least, in my case - is a great way to make friends. I would need both hands and both feet to count the number of people I've met and become friends with just by hanging out there. We're computer geeks, book nerds, comic obsessed, manga lovers - you name anybody who falls under the 'May Be Socially Awkward' division, and we're in the library. And you become really good friends with your librarian.

This is very beneficial. And I can't even start with the number of stories I have from the library that would have gotten us in trouble had my friends and I not been close to my librarian.

For instance:

Sophomore year, my friends Keith and Gerald and I were working on a project for our English class. We had two options: make a video of whatever skit we were working on, or present the skit live to the front of the class. None of us liked the idea of presenting the skit live. We were all rather awkward in front of large groups.

Besides, our skit involved throwing things.

See, we had to write a scene, ten years after the end of the play, for The Taming of the Shrew. I was playing Kate, Keith was playing Petruchio, and Gerald was playing a poor servant who gets hit as I throw books.

Our librarian at the time was Mr. Stevens. (This changed at the beginning of our senior year, and I'm closer to that librarian than I ever was to Mr. Stevens. She also happens to read WORD regularly, so we always have a lot to talk about.) Now, Mr. Stevens was your typical nerdy male librarian. He agreed to let us stay after school and perform the skit, and he would film it for us. He even supplied old, kind of crappy books for me to throw so I wouldn't have to ruin any of mine.

Now, I have really bad aim. It took multiple tries to even get a shot that looked like I had hit Gerald. Most of the time, I ended up hitting Keith.

But none of my bad aim compares to what happened to poor Mr. Stevens. As Gerald went to toss one of the books back to me, it flew at an awkwardly low angle just as Mr. Stevens was standing up.

And it hit him in a very, er, precarious spot.

Needless to say, I coudn't stop laughing, Keith was rolling on the ground, the library assistant was doubled over, and Gerald was trying to help Mr. Stevens stand back up.

He still let us finish filming, too.

What was the point of this story? You can make friends in the library so long as you just say something. Talk to your librarian. Ask what other people are reading. Just say hi and introduce yourself.

Oh, and if you can't aim - don't throw things.