Agnes Frain

Step to Adulthood

I celebrated my fourteenth birthday in a very special way. I recall dashing home from school with a big smile plastered over my face. No, no, I didn’t have a birthday party,  just a tea, surrounded as usual by my family.

It was the following event!  The one I had waited impatiently for a few years to happen. At times I had nearly succeeded in my quest before being ordered to return my prizes. Now the prizes would be mine. I could not be denied. I marched into our local library and returned for the last time well worn and reread children’s books.

Goodbye Enid Blyton, Cheerio, Coral Island, Long John Silver can hop off now, Heidi and her Grandfather will still be wandering over the hills, but I would not  be their companion.

My shoes squeaked on the wooden floor as I casually walked, controlling the urge to run to the adult section, to shelves full of wonder.  I stretched high to reach the beauties that had taunted and teased my imagination for years, mine all mine. To walk between these walls packed with magic, where new characters waited patiently to come alive, that was my best birthday present.

Many years have gone, many changes, no longer are the libraries ruled by stern ladies who frowned if you whispered. Now people knit and natter, children browse and laugh, and always the smiling faces of the librarians welcome you into the still, magical world.

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