The Good Child

The sign said “Forbidden” she had seen the word before. It meant she couldn’t go in. She would never disobey the sign. She listened to her parents. She ate all her peas at dinner. She turned around and went home. She was a good child

She woke up scared. The dream again. This was the third night. She put her head into her pillow and cried herself to sleep. She was eight on her birthday. The next day she helped her mother around the house. She did her chores. Helped with dinner. She was a good child.

She returned to the building. The sign was still there. She wondered why someone had put the sign up? The doors had locks on them. She used to come here every Thursday night. Her parents told her that it was the only time it was open, when they didn’t have to work. She would wait patiently for Thursday. She never complained. She was a good child.

While she helped her father in the garden she thought about the building. It had been closed for a month now. Would it ever be open again? That night she had the nightmare again. She reached under her bed and found a book. It was about dogs. She had read it the first time when she was three. But she read it again. She went back to sleep. She was a good child.

When she went to the building again an old man was waiting at the steps. The sign was still there. She asked the man why the building was closed. You were here when they closed it. Remember the men in the uniforms? The men who burned all the books. She had thought it was a nightmare. It was real. She remembered the old man now. He was the librarian. He looked sad. He smiled and handed her a book. A new book. She looked at it and handed it back to him, crying. She was a good child.