I shake my head. A few seconds later, we pull off onto a side road. He turns off the engine and doesn’t make a move to get out yet.
“I always thought you’d make a swell teacher,” he says. I’m shocked. Not only has nobody ever said this to me before, I never woulda guessed in a million years that Clayton Alexander Jr. sits around dreamin’ up career paths for me.
“Really?”
“Sure! You’re patient. Probably the smartest person I know. You’d be great,” he says. I take a deep breath. He must be joking. This is some kinda flattery trick.
“Clayton? How you figure I’m the smartest person you know? We don’t know each other that well.”
“Quiz me,” he says.
“Do what?”
“Ask me a question about you and see if I know the answer. Then decide how well I know you.”
This is just silly. I think for a minute. I really wanna stump him.
“All right. Which one a my sisters is older?”
Clayton looks at me like I’m bonkers. “Twins! They the same age!”
“Ha! Nope. One of ’em’s just a li’l bit—”
“Coralene is two minutes older than Doralene,” he replies smoothly, and I’m stunned speechless. How could he possibly know that?
“Ha yourself! I know you,” he says proudly. “And just to clarify? I said you were probably the smartest person I know. Jury’s still out. Could go either way.”
I laugh and just shake my head, not knowing what to do with him.
“Well? Did you know I hate kids?”
“Doesn’t everybody till they have ’em?” he asks, and then opens the door and gets out. I start to open mine, but then I see him pick up speed and race around to open it for me. Only thing is, I still got hold of the handle and he’s got momentum, so he nearly tears me outta the car just by force.
“Shit,” I laugh, stumbling to catch my balance.
“Sorry,” he says, and then smiles self-consciously. “I wanted to be a gentlemen. You gotta gimme a chance.” He reaches out for my hand and I give it to him, and he walks us up to a squat building I’ve never noticed before.
“What is this place?”
He puts a finger over his lips but beams. He leads me down a few steps to a side door below street level. He turns the knob, and the door opens with a mild screech. Apparently, nobody locks this place up. We go inside, and it is pitch black.
“Don’t move,” he says, and I hear his footsteps walking away. I put my hands out in front of me and immediately bump something hard. Not as hard as a wall, but it doesn’t budge. I don’t like being trapped in small places. I can’t hear his steps anymore, and I can’t see. It feels like I’m trapped in a shrinkin’ box. Clay’s absence is makin’ me nervous, and a thought takes me by surprise: this is the same kind of fear I felt earlier today when the Stranger appeared. The memory of him fills me with dread, and now I’m hyperventilating. I know I am gonna die if I don’t get outta this place. Whatever has caged me in starts to quake, and I feel a headache moving in.
“Clay?” I call.
Then: light! Faint at first, but it slowly gets brighter. Candles. I can now see that I’m stuck between the wall and huge stacks of heavy boxes. They stop quaking and sit perfectly still as the headache passes. I take a moment to collect myself and allow my breath to settle.
Clay comes and helps pull me free. I feel so much better to be in a larger space again, I almost jump for joy.
“You all right?” he asks.
“Yeah. Yeah, I am now,” I tell him breathlessly.
That’s when I take in our surroundings. Clay has lit over a dozen old candles, and they’re spread all around… books. Books everywhere. The ghostly light illuminates big cardboard displays with painted animals and pictures of children. A border at the top of one wall displays the cursive alphabet.
“Clay? What is this?”
“You never been here?” he asks.
I shake my head. He claps his hands one time and does a little dance, seamlessly transforming into a far younger version of himself.
“I was hopin’ you hadn’t. Come here,” he says, pulling me over to one section. “This used to be the colored children’s library.”
“What? Why didn’t nobody tell me ’bout this?” Good lord! If I’d known about this place, I’da spent just about every day a my childhood hiding out here readin’ everything in sight. Why was this a big secret? A second later I gasp at the sight of a mouse emerging from a wall. Clay stamps his foot at it, and it disappears.
“Yeah, a lotta people don’t know. Closed down before we were born. Look at this.” He points to a decrepit shelf. My eye goes right to The House at Pooh Corner, and I pull it out. It’s dusty, and some of the pages are frayed, but I can tell it was nice once. The cover feels like leather, and the drawing on the front looks similar to other Pooh pictures I’ve seen, but it’s fancier, more like an engraving.
“I useta love this book.”
“Look up there.” He points to a faded, yellowing sign at the top of this section. I have to squint to make it out, but then I see it. NEW BOOKS FOR 1928. Wow. Hard to imagine that these old books were new once.
“Crazy, right?” he asks. “Most of ’em are older than these. At some point, they closed it, but nobody ever did anything with it. Never redistributed the books. Never fixed up this old space. It’s almost like… like they’d rather lose money on a property, let all this perfectly good furniture and these perfectly good books rot, than give colored kids a chance to read. A place to go.” He picks up a copy of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and, my god, I do believe that Clayton just wiped a tear from his eye.
“How’d
