At exactly 8:00 a.m., Libby opened the door and stepped into this bright, sunny Saturday morning. She crossed the street called Second from her home on the corner of it and School Lane to her place of employment, Candlelight Elementary School. She normally stayed away from work on the weekend, but she needed something to do to occupy a bit of time before she walked to the Mini-Mart, so she decided to tidy up her office. She reminded herself that it wasn’t really much of an office as a reception room. She put her key in the door, entered the building and turned right into the front hallway. Her footsteps echoed through the empty, quiet, corridor. She walked in through the open door of the office where one steps up to a counter. It begins at the wall on the left and ends not quite to the wall on the opposite side to a door to Stephen Brown’s office, the principal. The countertop lifts up there. Libby lifted it and entered her office space beyond it.
She shrugged her backpack off of her shoulders and placed it on her desk which is in the center facing the counter. Behind her seat at the desk, is a large window that opens to the school parking lot across the street where two school busses stand guard, alone. The window ledge is lined with potted plants, various varieties of green, some with mini-flowers and there is one uncontrollable cactus. She walked to them and felt the dirt within each pot to make sure that, even though she watered them just last night before she left for the day, they didn’t need water. She turned and sat in her chair at her desk. She folded her hands slowly in front of her and surveyed her domain. A clock hung above the entrance to the room. To her right, a series of cubby holes filled the wall space with a long table with two chairs set up below them. The cubby holes served as the mailbox for faculty and staff and the table was a workspace. On top of the table was a paper cutter, stapler and a cup filled with pens and pencils next to stacks of multi-colored copier paper. Next to the table, in the corner by the window is the copier that gets used often so Libby gets lots of visitors throughout the day. Along the wall behind her, the wall that separates her from the principal, is the intercom system used to communicate with the school. The system isn’t complex as the face of it holds a number of small levers that represent each room in the building. One was tipped in red and it is the one used more often, the all button. It is used to communicate to the entire school at once. A microphone on a stand rests on the table. It is Libby’s favorite piece of equipment because it is portable and could be moved to any place in the room.
Libby sighed, then unfolded her hands, and clapped the table twice to remind herself that she had things to do. She reached to her left and opened the larger bottom drawer. She removed some items and placed them in front of her. Six faded, blue denim, extra-large, carefully folded, shirts lay before her. She had folded them so that the chest portion of the shirt is the first thing to see and on over the left breast pocket is a patch she embroidered that says The Milkshake Straw. She smiles and removes the top one and returns it to the drawer. She reaches for her backpack, opens it and places the remining five inside. She reaches down again and opens the smaller drawer above the one she just closed. Inside it, she keeps her stationary supplies, pencils, pens, paper, a stack of bright green sticky notes, a stapler and treasure troves of paper clips and thumbtacks. On top of all of that five postcards had been placed. She removed them and placed them with the shirts and zipped the backpack closed. She then turned to her school assigned laptop, opened it and began to access it to review the letter she was editing for Principal Brown.
An hour later, Libby closes the laptop, stands and grabs the backpack and walk through her office into the hallway. She retraces her steps to the front door of the school and reenters the day outside the building. It was warmer and the sun seemed brighter causing her to squint as she pushed the key, turned it and locked the door to the school. She placed her arms through the arms of her backpack and hefted it up on her back. She walked through the bus lane to the sidewalk of School Lane and instead of returning home to the right toward home, she started to her left. When she came to the next building, Candlelight High School, she crossed the street and continued to next intersection. She turns right on First, a parking lot is across the street from the high school’s football field and track. A few joggers were side-by-side running laps as two women in pink track suits walked the track. Passing the track and field, she looked at the back door of Barber’s Bakery and the same time began to smell the sweet scents coming from it. She smiled as she decided right then to stop there to pick up something, everything was great, to take home. At the corner of the bakery, a stoplight stood at the corner of First and Main where turning left to took you to Columbia and right would take you into the Main Street of Candlelight.
Libby crossed the street when the light allowed her and turning slightly right she walked through the parking lot of Kerls Gas Station and Mini-Mart. On the far corner of the lot, near an entry lane, stood a tall, completely decorated Christmas tree. When she reached the front door, she turned and looked at it from top to bottom and smiled. She opened the door and walked inside. A series of aisles of shelves lined with all kinds of food items were to her right. A counter with a smiling young man sitting on a stool on the other side of it is on her left and straight ahead was another counter that held coffee brewers and fountain drinks next to a microwave. She knew that on the other side of the food items was another large room was the Candlelight Ministry full of second-hand items for sale, cheap.
“Hi, Libby,” the man called her from his stool. “Cup of coffee on the house?”
“Thanks, Mike,” Libby smiled back as she shrugged off her backpack and placed it on the counter. “I need to talk to you. I will be right back.”
She walked to the coffee counter and filled Styrofoam cup and returned with her coffee to find Mike waiting for her with her backpack in his hand.
“Let’s go into the office,” he said as he led her back the way she came.
They walked past the fountain drinks and through an office door. The room was bigger than one expected as it held not only his desk but a round table where two chairs waited for them. On the wall behind the table opposite the desk, four monitors were mounted reveling four different scenes of the store; the counter, the gas pumps, the side entry to Candlelight Ministry and the last one was inside the store itself.
“Wow, so many cameras,” Libby commented as she sat next to Mike at the table.
“I need to see if I get a customer if I am in here alone.”
“Well then, I will make this quick.”
“You take as long as you need,” Mike reassured her. “How can I help you?”
“Well, I am hoping to have five old school friends visit soon and I kind of led them to your store.”
“What?”
“Yes, I didn’t want them to know it was me inviting them,” Libby explained. “So I am sending them on a sort of scavenger hunt back home and the first stop is here.”
“Wow,” Mike said. “Why here?”
“We used to come here when we were kids. Your Mom and dad ran the store then and I think you were in elementary school when we were in high school.”
“I might have known them, huh?”
“Maybe, maybe,” Libby shook her head. “Anyway, I sent them a postcard like this one.”
She slowly slid the brown card toward him. He picked it up and looked at
It and smiled.
“It’s the Mini-Mart,” Mike smiled and turned it over. He read the inscription and looked at Libby. “They will be here soon.”
“I am hoping you will help me get them to their next destination,” she reached into her backpack and pulled out the remaining items.
My First Stories 