Tales from the Library: forest

Today I locked myself in the interview room and cut out big letters from sugar paper. I am working on a wall display. The letters are brown and are meant to look like wood. The theme is nature. I am also cutting out flower shapes. And leaves. I am glueing the leaves onto the letters. I am glad I am not out in the Library proper. It's been too busy lately. I'm trying to think of other reasons to lock myself in here. This room is so peaceful. I have pulled the blind across so no one even knows I'm in here.

I found some blue paper in the cupboard. It is a kingfisher blue. I wish there was more of it, but the sheet is small. I would wrap myself in this paper if it was bigger, and if it was thinner. But it won't bend around a body very well at all. I decide to make it into a bird. The bird's underbelly will be orange, for contrast. The bird will perch on top of the letter “d”, above where the leaves are glued. It will have more the effect of a branch than of a tree. But that will be okay.

The other year, the theme was Pirates. I got to say “arrrrr” a lot. We made pirate hats and wore them. It changed the air in the Library. It felt like an adventure. These leaves and wooden letters are supposed to lend an air of the forest to the Library. Oh the irony. There will be butterflies and beetles for small hands to cut out, to colour in. And we will read stories about hedgehogs and rabbits, and other woodland creatures. I remember when they made “hedgehog” flavour crisps. They were amazing. The stories won't be about hedgehogs being eaten.

If I hadn't run out of green paper, I would lock myself in the interview room tomorrow, and the day after that, and I would cut out leaves of all shapes and sizes. I would cut out so many that they would fall off the table and into massive piles on the floor. I would stick a ball of Blu Tack to each leaf. And when the children came in, I would press one leaf into each tiny hand, and after counting backwards from three, I would whisper to them to stick their leaves to the walls, to the windows, to the bookshelves, to the books. To anywhere they would stick to. Until the Library became a forest once again.