The Storytorium

As the Storytorium opens promptly at 9 am on this cloudy and drizzly Saturday morning, 12-year-old Sarah Beasley walks in the front door with her Indian Head Penny hidden in the secret compartment of her favorite backpack. Waving at her daddy as she walks into the library she hears him shout “See you in an hour and a half, squishball! Call me if you need more time!” Sarah's been patiently waiting an entire week to read another story about Mungie. She is chomping at the bit to find out what that sassy and precocious little boy does in his next episode.

Sitting behind the sturdy-looking oak-style desk, about ten feet from the out swinging, heavy doors of the Storytorium, sits a rough-looking man with a pockmarked complexion that xxxxxxx him having had a tough life. That said, his crustiness seems to melt away into peaceful and calm when he recognizes his favorite regular customer. “Happy Saturday morning Sarah. What can I do for you today?” Sarah doesn't know the name of the librarian. She just knows him from sight and made up her own name for him. He chuckles as she calls out to him. “Hi, Bob. I've been waiting all week, and look, I found another entry penny.” Sarah leans in so close she can smell his aftershave. It's the one with the little bottle and the ship on the label. Sarah recognizes the wonderful smell that she is so accustomed to because her real father used to smell like that when she leaned into him as he came to wake her on Saturday mornings. "I remember the rules, Bob. I need to be little-mouse quiet. No one can know there's a room with unwashed stories.” As he does every Saturday, Bob takes a buttery smooth glance around the lobby of the ancient library and casts a little side-eye look at Sarah. “You know the drill my sweet little monkey. Hey, where's the entry fee?”

She leans in towards Bob's face, as if ready to tell him a secret. She can feel him smile when the clink happens as she drops the Indian Head penny in the railroad train bank on his desk. Bob reaches under the desk lid and pushes the carefully concealed button. Somewhere on the second floor, Sarah hears the familiar and velvety click of the latch for room nine. Taking each step two at a time, she sprints upstairs to get there before someone else finds it unlocked. Sarah slyly pushes open the heavy and soundless secret door and instantly recognizes the familiar smells of real life as they seem to hang in the air with no intention of escaping the boundaries of the doorway. As she walks to the second section of bookcases and nervously looks to the right and left, the velvety hand of excitement touches her mind as if fingers of warm oil change what is an ordinary reading room into a soft hammock swinging slowly in a gentle breeze. Pretending that she's looking just for anything at all, she has only one thing in mind.... the book called Mungie. It's a magic book. It only has one chapter every week. You can't go back and reread an old story looking for clues to the new, unread, story. Every week's chapter is about a boy who has no tight-buddy friends, no real parental guidance or supervision and has no idea he's a constant target of an enemy that wants him dead. In his childlike innocence, he doesn't realize the nefarious intent of the one who creates the circumstances for disaster, and how he survives them. Sarah gently grabs the book, caresses the red spine, and quietly steals away to her favorite corner, the one she always sits in so no one can read over her shoulder, and excitedly opens the chapter for this week.

Wally Moon and the Grey Car Attack

“What a great day.” Mungie smiles as he leaves Mike's house with the baseball card he has been looking for so very long. He is glassy-eyed mesmerized and as distracted as he's ever been in his life while he walks out the front door of Mike's house and across the lawn to Leonard's house. “Tommy Davis's rookie card. I now have Tommy Davis' rookie card......YESSS. Leonard is just gonna be sick that I own the entire 1960 Dodgers baseball card set”. Mungie only needed the final two baseball cards of the Dodgers outfield and yesterday he traded for Willie Davis. Walking across the street, his shoebox is full of precious cargo. Baseball cards from all his favorite players. Baseball cards from Dodgers players, his favorite is Wally Moon. The home field for the new Los Angeles Dodgers is the L.A. Memorial Coliseum, with its strange layout feature that makes MLB fans laugh, a the short porch in left field. It's only 251 feet away but it features something crazy.... a 40 foot high net. Wally Moon played in left field and had perfected a trick to play balls hit into the net. When the ball was hit by the visiting team's player, he knew just how to grab the net at the bottom and snap it, which would send a ripple up into the top that allowed the ball to be kicked out, without having to complete the long roll to the net bottom, and he had a better chance to throw the runner out at second base. Wally was magical.

As Mungie stands on the curb, getting ready to cross the street and go home, he thumbs through his cards sorting and putting them in order as he walks. Almost as if someone tripped him on purpose, he stumbled and face-planted on the asphalt, causing all his cards to go flying into the air and also crash onto the street. Oblivious to any kind of danger, Mungie rolled onto his fanny, sat down in the middle of the street, started gathering up his cards, and methodically put them back into his shoe box. Just then a young man in a grey Chevy came speeding around the corner from the East end of the street. The young man had been drinking beer with his buddies after school and didn't notice Mungie sitting in the middle of the street sorting through his cards. By the time Mungie stood up and realized the danger It was too late. The young man hit Mungie with his car sending, once again, all the cards flying through the air. Mungie flying and he landed on his feet and his neighbor said that he shouted out at the top of his lungs. I'm invincible but as the words came out of his mouth the young man had jumped out of the car, realizing what terrible trouble he was in, and started to run away. The car kept moving and it hit monkey again. When we this time, it wrapped him around the fire hydrant breaking his pelvis and breaking his right arm wasn't quite so invincible.