TBC Publishing Pride Month Flash Fiction Challenge #4

TBC Publishing Pride Month Flash Fiction Challenge, 4 of 30

Title: Library Secrets

Author: R. Scott Tyler

Genre: Mystery

Word count (500 max): 497

“I’m heading to the library, Mom,” Lewis said as he bounded down the stairs. The spring on the screen door made it slam back against the frame, and his mom glanced to the back porch, where her son had just disappeared.

Lewis had his book bag over one shoulder and walked quickly toward downtown. He was going to meet Caden at the library after his dentist appointment.

The library in their small town was on the second floor of the big old municipal building, just across the wide wooden floor from the dentist’s office. When the doors to the library and the dental office were both closed, one couldn’t hear the occasional screams of panic or pain from the kids in the office.

Now, Lewis could hear crying coming from the dental office, so he quickly turned into the library.

“Hi, Mrs. Stevenson,” he said as he came in and set the bag of books from last week on her desk.

“Hi, Lewis,” she replied, taking the books from him and indicating the other end of the far room where he could see Caden sitting at a table with a book in front of him.

Lewis took a moment to smell the sweet but musty smell of books, and he smiled. Then he cut through the stacks to get to Caden unseen. When he got there, he quietly put both of his hands over Cadan’s eyes and said, “Guess who?”

“Well, I’m hoping it isn’t the dentist’s nurse, come to give me a shot,” Caden replied. He swung an arm over his head but missed Lewis because he’d already ducked. It was not a new move by Caden, and Lewis was aware of how to avoid it.

They spent the next half hour or so looking through the shelves for books that were new to them or the following books in the series they were reading. There was a stack of half a dozen books for each of them when Lewis finally said, “Should we go take another look?”

“Yeah, let’s. I couldn’t figure it out yet,” Caden replied.

Lewis moved to the darkest corner of the library, where the books were the oldest, the dustiest, and never seemed to get checked out. There was one book that had intrigued one of them a couple of years ago when they started Junior High. When one of the boys had tipped it out of the shelf, the whole bookshelf popped open.

They snuck into the room back then and found a dark, cobwebbed antechamber with desks and even older books; many looked like journals. It became their secret hideaway, and they spent a lot of time there, especially when they felt like just hanging out together.

When they’d had enough of talking about other boys in Junior High, they started paying more attention to the room they were in and the old books that were in it. Last week, Caden found one that looked like an old journal written by his great-grandfather.

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