The scribbles on the desk blotter add up to a week of hard work. Wiggles and circles and jigs and jags unconsciously drawn as I stopped to catch my breath. The filing cabinets are haphazardly stacked with books waiting to be appropriated to the proper box. Partially filled cardboard boxes crowd the office floor. The hot smell of melting plastic from the heated laminator breaks my spell. I toss aside the pen as I glance out the wall of windows. The narrow dingy hallway is crowded with the hot, flushed, and sweaty bodies of 6th graders, both girls and boys dragging in from afternoon PE. The air is spiked with dancing hormones as they shuffle, push, and punch their way to the classrooms. Dusty unread books, the warming scent of the carpet as the hot sun peeks in the outside windows making a pool of light on the floor, and the noises of chattering children are fighting in my mind. Combined with the acrid burning odor of scorched day old coffee it hits me hard. That sick to your stomach feeling that it will all soon be gone. The library is being divided, three-fourths of our student body are being reassigned. The faded blue cement block walls will be the home of a new group, the K – 6. We are getting the littlies, the lower grades, the criers, the snifflers, the scared. Hundreds of our books are leaving home and I am retiring.
