Friday 23 September 2011

OMG Cute moment

OK, I have to share this with you. It had us all in fits of giggles and was so sweet. It's quite long but I have to put it as it was to get full effect.

As you know I work in a library. This afternoon I was tidying the Fantasy/Sci Fi/ Horror section. This section is near the teen section and has a soft bench seat behind it.
I was sorting the shelves out - taking books off that hadn't issued in a long time and generally tidying.
I had started at the end and was working backwards, when I got to the 'H' part I noticed a little boy lying on his stomach on the bench seat and watching me.

After about 5 minutes he said 'hello!' in a really excited voice.
I turned and looked at him and said 'hi' back. he was quite small, I'm guessing somewhere between 5 and 7 years old. (read the rest of this post imagining a cute little voice, childhood innocence.)
He kept looking at me so I decided to talk to him, I wondered where his mum was and hoped she would appear if she heard him talking.
"are you alright?' I asked
'yep!' he chirped
'what are you doing then?'
'sitting.' ... 'watching'....
'oh, ok.

I turned back to the shelves and carried on. He sprang up off the seat and stood by the shelf. He raised a hand and pointed to a Charlaine Harris book. I can't remember which title it was but it had a girl on the front with blood dripping from her mouth.

"What's this about?" he asked
'Vampires, do you know anything about them?' I asked
he paused and looked confused for a second then looked straight at me and said..
"well i should know.'
"why's that?' i asked curious.
'well I am one!' he exclaimed proudly.
"really? how did that happen?' I asked pretending to be shocked.

he leant in close and whispered - 'don't tell mum, but I upset my sister and she bit me, she said that made me a vampire!' 
I was trying so hard not to laugh at this point. I managed to keep a straight face and continued the conversation.
'well that wasn't very nice of her, was it? what will you do now?' I asked
He patted my arm and said-
'it's ok, I'm a good vampire! you don't have to be scared of me. I don't drink blood or anything.... just ketchup!!!'
I did laugh a little bit then, it was so cute. he looked so pleased with himself.

We both went quiet for a minute and I carried on with my tidying.
I got further along the shelves and he noticed another book as I lifted it off the shelf. It had a picture of a green monster on the front.

"Do you want to hear a story about monsters?' he asked me excitedly.
'OK then, but I hope it's not too scary." i replied
"no, it's good, honest.' he said.

'Ok, I have to keep tidying but I am listening.' I assured him.
He nodded and sat up back on the bench.

'There's a monster, right, and it drinks blood. If you're awake after midnight, it will come into your room and drink your blood. But it doesn't come in through you doors or windows. It comes in through the chimney."

"How does it get up there?" I asked.

"it has giant claws coming out of it's fingers that it uses to climb up the chimney. When it gets up there, it shrinks itself so it's this small." he held up his hand making a circle about the size of a ten pence piece.

"as small as that?" I said in awe

he nodded vigorously and said 'That small!'

"when it gets in your house it's still small so you can't see it! but now it's covered in dirt from the chimneys. Coz chimneys are dirty aren't they." I nodded then he continued.
"To get rid of the dirt, he has to shave his fur off. he carries a special thing with him to get rid of his fur. Coz if he didn't he'd spread the dirt around your house and then you'd know he was there."
I was trying really hard not to laugh here, but just nodded and smiled at him.

"Once he's shaved his fur he creeps up to you, in his big size, and then drinks your blood. But you can't see him or feel it, the monsters too clever for that!"
"although bigger people have too much blood, so if the monster can't drink it all, he dribbles it back out into a box. A box with a lid. A lunchbox is what I mean. When he's dribbled the blood into the box he closes it and saves it for later."

"What happens then?" I asked. "It sounds really scary, will he ever come back?"

"Then he leaves, and he doesn't come back, he only eats you once. Don't be silly. Why would he come back?" he rolled his eyes and looked at me like I had asked a really silly question.

So I nodded and said 'that's good, once is bad enough. Do you think he'll come after me?"

He looked really thoughtful for a minute then a giant grin spread over his face.
"No it won't eat you, coz you now know. It doesn't like people what know too much."

"Oh OK, that's good, thank you for telling me then. I'm glad I won't be eaten."

"No silly, he doesn't eat you, he just drinks your blood. It's different you know!"

"Oh of course, sorry."

At this point his mother appeared and said 'i could hear you telling your story to the lady, say thank you to the lady for listening and come home now."
She turned to me and said 'sorry if he was bothering you.'

'no problem' I said, 'he's going to be a great author when he's older. He has a fantastic imagination.'

The boy looked at me one more time and said 'thanks lady, bye!' and walked away with his mother.

Where did he come up with all that? It was fabulous. My colleagues had heard most of the story and the excitement in his voice as he was telling it and they had been giggling throughout. When he left I just burst out. Such good humour and imagination in one so young - it was truly magical.

I hope you enjoyed that, if you managed to get through it all  - well done.
Maybe I should take his story and write a proper novel about it. I'll have to find out his name and give him a share of the profit. What do you think?

Are you laughing or staring in wonder at the screen? I hope you are

4 comments:

Aurora Smith said...

My 4 year old tells me storys and im like "I have to write that down, thats brilliant!"

that was cute!

barmybex said...

thanks! :D
I love the freedom of imagination in children. So many good ideas can come from them. :)

TG said...

Ha ha, I love that he thought he was a vampire! I'm going to tell little kids that they become vampires if someone - anyone - bites them, now!

barmybex said...

TG - lol, i wonder how many will believe you. :D