The Forest Library

He grabbed the books up and stood on his hind feet. He turned his gaze to the shelves. Trudging through his thoughts, he looked at the title of the book and back to the shelves to find the place the book usually stayed. He knew it well, it was half way down the next shelf. Scurrying over, he stood on his toes and slipped the book into it’s place. As he settled back down onto his feet, he was swept off his feet, and draped on top of a body.

“Jill. Stop that!”

“Oh, I’m sorry. It always happens to me. Clumsy me. Sorry Ros.”

He pulled himself off her and dusted himself off, and licked off his paws. He held out his paw and pulled her up. He picked up the books again and blew them off, one by one. He turned back to the shelves and murmured to himself. He glanced back to the book and murmured the title of the top book, ‘How to find a secret’.

“Oh, Ros. You make me think you didn’t you don’t even care for me at all.”

“ And do I?” He turned back to her and smiled, showing his teeth and twirling his whiskers. Turning back to the shelves he got back onto his hind feet and put another book back in it’s place. Jill turned, sighed, and walked past him. As she flew out of sight, he heard a squeal and then a clatter of metal on the tile floor. She had again collided with the lamp. She was forever thoughtless whenever she got anywhere near Ros. A feeling he surely didn’t show. He put the books away one at a time and then scurried to the luncheon room. We were not all the same, some cats, some birds, but the strangest of us was Dosle. She is a chick! Who would think of it! She is a clever squirrel the only one in our library. She can’t even understand our language, she speaks Spanish or some flowery language like that.

I could always see from the time that she came that she was lonely, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was she was missing. Our iguana, Ronald, seemed to understand it though. He said that she was ‘lonely for another of her kind, a kind of lone’ness a little thing like that can’t easily be got over.’ He said she had ‘lost her’s truly in an automobile accident’ and that is why she had come to us, to forget what had happened. Ron was a wise old one and had lost his truly long back when she had been sold to and exotic American bumble. Back before my time the American had raided the library and taken many of the bookkeepers and other staff and had called for a ransom. Ron had tried to follow that terrible American but after being caught and put into a zoo he had had to give it up. He somehow knew that she was still out there somewhere, cramped in a cage much too small for any Iguana. Rosie had said as she was being taken away that they would see each other before the final judgment but he could hardly hope that now. She was probably sitting in some dark corner in some mansion half across the world only being fed and watered for sheer necessity.

Enough about our woes, I am Poppy The Pony, at least that is what my last owner called me. She was a nice owner, unlike most. She was gentle and kind but when she grew a tumor in her brain they sold me off and I had to escape from a horrible horse house where I could taste the manure and feel the hate that the other horses had for me. I had been some kind of exotic to my owner since I had blue eyes, not many black horses had blue eyes. I had learned my love of books from Hozzy The White also a horse, and the only other one in the library. He had been caught by some treacherous house thieves and painted brown to hide his identity, sold as a moddley for a milk carrier! He had been a professional horse racer with a kind owner. When he had been pawned off to the milkman he ran away, taking a day’s worth of milk with him into the forest. There he found a kind lady who when she washed him found that he was the same white horse that had disappeared two years before, just before a great race. Not wanting to fuddle things up she told Hozzy that his master was dead (and he was, he had died a year after Hozzy had disappeared from unknown causes) and taught Hozzy to read. Six months after she found him, she had finished teaching him and sent him to the library. Where I met him when the same girl brought me there also. She had found me two months after Hozzy, I was tied to a tree not a mile from her estate and had been left to fend for myself.

She is the owner of the library and has found quite a collection of list things including all the books in her library. She was once an owner of a large estate in Canada but had been run from the country because they didn’t like how she was keeping her estate. She had come to Australia and had just met a handsome young man to find that a day after her first date, he had been taken upside of a tall building, shot, and thrown off the top. When he reached the ground he knew he was done for and called Maya to tell her his last words or so he thought.

Am I getting tiring? Well, this is the history so I guess I’ll have to finish it anyway.

After that She called 911 and got him to a hospital. He had been shot in the thigh and if that hadn't been enough he had broken his back when he hit the hard sidewalk after his fall and had hurt himself more when he had called Maya. Apparently, he was the owner of a large estate himself in Australia and had willed it to her the night of their first date, knowing that he would have no chance to marry her. Although he did not die, he was paralyzed in his back and legs and all he could move were his arms and his head. When it was clear that nothing could be done to help him, she had him transferred to his mansion on his estate and cared for him there. It was not two months before the first of us came. Hozzy was the first and Ros not far behind him. The others trickled in and have still been coming once in awhile it has been a month since the last one came and that was Dosle and she is still learning her trade. We have all seen James except Dosle and I feel that when She goes to see him she will feel much more comfortable here.

Ok, okay. You must be bored out of your minds now and ready for me to shut my big mouth. But I can’t I must tell you one more thing, about Prant The Goat, I’ll wait till later to tell you about Lucy the Canada goose. But about Prant now.

He came as all the rest, abused or left alone. A stupid city man bought him, thinking he could get milk out of him! Ha ha. Well, he escaped through the house of that man and found our library by chance. Prancing as he always does, he stumbled on the front door and pushed the bell. Frightening half the household out of their wits. Well anyway. He has come to take his place with us as the best cook our house had ever known. Until later, Whenever that is. I have to go now. The record will have to wait until then.
Yours, Poppy The Pony.