Teen Time

And Then the Lights Went Out

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And Then the Lights Went Out

9 PM! My parents would be furious that I’d stayed so late, but I'd had no choice. I'd been working on different reports all week, but I'd needed to finish this one since it was due the next day. Surely my folks would be pleased that I'd succeeded.

Exhausted by my long hours bent over a thick, musty research book, I yawned and asked Mrs. O’Connor, the senior librarian, if she’d like me to leave Peabody’s Boring Facts That No One Will Ever Be Interested In on the counter or return it to the inner office. (For some strange reason, that particular book spent most of its hours inside the office’s locked cabinet. Of course, no one would tell me why. I was only a teenager. Adults never tell us kids the important stuff.)

When Mrs. O’Connor waved me on, I was quite surprised. Usually the librarians never let me go inside their dark corner of an office without accompanying me. I didn’t let on, though, that it was anything new. I just walked towards the door quite nonchalantly, pulled at the handle, and entered. The cabinet was already open for the book’s return. I filed the almanac into the proper position and then shut the door. The lock clicked. Once more the book was a prisoner.

Then I turned and made my way toward the office exit. I reached out and grabbed the door’s handle. It was at that moment, the lights went out.

I screamed. I’m not usually such a coward, but the sudden darkness frightened me, and as I said before, I was super tired.

Immediately, I called out to the librarian, “Are you ok, Mrs. O’Connor?”

She didn’t answer me. Neither did anyone else as I continued to call out again and again. I was still holding my report. I placed it down on the counter and searched with my hands for the elderly librarian. She hadn’t fallen down onto the carpet as I’d at first suspected. There was no one there.

The library, without its usual fluorescent overheads, was dark in the area I was in -- dark as the inside of a coffin. I shivered, but I walked toward the one library light that was still on. It was a back-up emergency light, and for some reason, I had it in my mind that I'd find Mrs. O'Connor there.

I half-tripped over a misplaced chair, and then once again I stumbled when I came to a fallen book, but I reached the light -- just at the moment it, also, went out.

“Mrs. O’Connor," I called out, but there was still no answer.

Shivers played hockey on my back. Goosebumps hit goals right and left. Using my hands like an old-fashioned horror movie’s mummy, I floundered back toward the office and the library telephone.

I dialed, hung up, and dialed again, each time, listening for the sound of my home phone number’s sequence. But before I could get it right, the phone went dead. Darn! I should have called the operator, I decided a moment too late.

I sat down on the librarian’s stool, and dropped my face into shaking hands. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream, but I did neither. I tried to think. How was I going to get out?

Duh! I hadn’t even tried the door. Maybe it was a one-way lock. Maybe I could push it open. And then what? I had no ride home. I was supposed to call my folks so they'd come get me. They were probably pacing the living room right now, getting madder and madder because I hadn’t called home.

I had to try that front door. It would be stupid not to. If it was unlocked, at least I could get outside. Then I could walk to the nearest house or flag a policeman if I saw one driving by to check up on the library.

Meanwhile, the darkness was so complete, I couldn’t even see the hand I held in front of me. I was shivering, too, this time from more than fear. The heater must be on a timer and had cut-off when the library hours ended. Nine to nine, the Currentville Town Library always boasted in its freebie ad on the back page of the daily town paper. Of course, there'd be no reason to heat the building for after hours. Books don’t care if they’re slightly chilled.

Anxiously, I made my way toward the big, glass and wood front door. Getting there was fairly easy. No obstacles attempted to trip me, but there was also no way out. Although I stood –- no jumped up and down -- on the electronic door pad, nothing happened. Apparently, the door, like everything else in the library, was on a timer.

I was just about to make my way back to the librarian’s stool when I saw an auto’s headlights. They looked familiar! Yeah! Mom and Dad had come for me!

With incredible relief, I watched as my parents got out of the car and came toward the door. I pounded at the glass and cheered. They couldn’t hear me, but they saw me standing there. The headlight framed their bodies perfectly. To me, they looked like angels. I collapsed into a blubbering lump on the pale blue library carpet.

Dad used his cell phone and called the police. They called Mrs. O’Connor who admitted that she’d forgotten all about me and had left.

I didn’t get home that night until well after midnight. I first had to visit the police station and answer lots of questions. Mrs. O’Connor had to go there, too. Poor lady. She’d been so rattled, she’d left her false teeth at home, and she kept covering her mouth so no one could see, but that meant the police had to keep asking her to repeat everything she said.

The police gave me doughnuts and cocoa, and no one was mad at me, at least not then . . . not until I told them I had to go back to the library immediately because I’d left my school report on the book check-out counter. The police at first refused, but I kept insisting because the report was due first class in the morning.

I don't know why everyone glared at me then. It was such a little mistake and not nearly as bad as locking someone in the library!

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