A couple of Wednesdays ago, I went back to West Avenue Elementary School to start Reading Club again. I have two of the girls from last year, but the third girl is going to a different school (say the other two girls). The school people said that I could choose the book for us to read this year, and showed me, in their library, all the books that they have “classroom sets” of. (In other words, multiple copies of the same book, so that students in an entire class can have their own copy to read.) I selected several books for the girls to choose from.

I was waiting at the cafeteria door as classes were leaving and arriving. The two girls (remember, we’re thinking of them as “Meg” and “Jo,” as I’m not allowed to share their real names) seemed genuinely happy to see me, although it may just be that my visits mean that they get to sit at a table on the stage and chat and read with me, instead of sitting and eating (ostensibly quietly) at a crowded table with their class.

“Meg” had had a birthday; “Jo’s” is coming up soon. We talked about our summers, and then I pulled out the books and described each of them.

The girls made bookmarks, and then it was time for them to go. As they were leaving, they turned and said, “Can you come two days a week. Like last time?”

Gulp. In April last year, when we were so behind reading, and when I was about to leave town for almost three weeks, I said I would come twice a week. Clever little girls; they remembered. “I’ll check my calendar,” I said, knowing that there was no reason at all that I couldn’t come two days a week instead of just one.

I left school and went to the public library, to see if they had a copy of From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler so I could begin reading and try to anticipate words that would need to be defined and items from 1967 America that would be completely unknown to my 2014 girls, and would need explanations. (Like the mimeograph machine and rotary phones from Dear Mr. Henshaw. Ironically, the first page of Mixed-up Files refers to carbon paper, which the girls actually are familiar with, since I had brought some when we were talking about mimeograph machines and how people used to copy things before there were copiers and computers and printers.)

Of course the library had copies (it’s a Newberry Award Winner!), and I got one. And then, I remembered–OLLIE! MOLLIE! GOLLIE! I’M GOING TO NEW YORK CITY FOR THANKSGIVING!!!!! I phoned my sister and said, whatever else she had planned, we MUST go to the MET, where I could purchase REAL, HONEST-TO-GOODNESS SOUVENIRS. From the MET! To BRING BACK to the Reading Club girls!!! (Can you tell how excited I was about it? I am STILL that excited about it!!) And then, another really extraordinary thing happened.

I opened the book to begin reading and found this–

The copy I checked out of the Waco McLennan County Public Library is a signed copy.

I’m guessing that a library employee, or a strong library supporter, went to a book signing and got Ms. Konigsburg to inscribe a message for us to be amazed by, almost fifty years later. WOW. I’m impressed. The school librarian is impressed. And even Meg and Jo are impressed. I’m being extra careful with it.

At lunch Tuesday, while the girls ate, we talked about their recent Social Studies test. “What have you been learning about?” I asked. The Revolutionary War. The Declaration of Independence. And I eagerly told them about seeing an actual, original, hand-written by Thomas Jefferson himself, copy of the Declaration of Independence, at the New York Public Library, in an exhibit in 2002. Meg looked at me and sighed. “You take the best field trips.” Maybe the girls should get souvenirs from the library, also.