Chapter 5: Jeanette in Novelland
When Jeanette fell asleep, she found herself walking through a little town in the late evening as the lampposts shed their peaceful glow. It began to rain, but the brunette Chipette found shelter in the doorway of a large building whose entrance read "Private Library. Literature Lovers Welcome. Admittance Free of Charge."
When she put her hand on the doorknob, Jeanette jumped back as the door opened wide. She nervously stepped inside the library, and was relieved to see a warm light spread throughout the building as electric candles lit up. Jeanette walked to the spiral staircase and found that it could take her up as if it were an escalator in the mall. She happily rode it up to the top floor of the library, where she found several bean bag chairs in a private reading area that seemed to be waiting for her.
Jeanette sat in one of the bean bag chairs and said to herself, "I wonder, is Don Quixote available here?"
To her surprise, an ethereal, serene voice answered her question. "You can only discover that for yourself, oh, seeker of knowledge."
"Who's there?" inquired Jeanette.
"I'm the voice of the library, found where all that is to do with literature is kept. Simply ask, and you will be given anything from among these treasures."
This was enough to put Jeanette's mind at ease, and so she relaxed in her beanbag chair and asked for a number of books from Don Quixote to The Wind in the Willows. For what seemed like an hour, Jeanette read to herself all she liked and it was so wonderful to immerse herself in the world of books, she thought. She read through The Canterbury Tales, Romeo and Juliet, Ben and Me, Mr. Revere and I, books of Greek, Egyptian, and Norse mythology, and more. After reading through these stories, she went walking through the library in search of more literature to enjoy.
As Jeanette walked through the library, she happened to trip over a book that had fallen from a shelf. But to her surprise, she never hit the floor, for someone had caught her arm and helped her up. Jeanette looked up and saw Betsy Ross of the American Revolution standing beside her.
"Are you all right, my dear?" asked Ms. Ross.
Jeanette nodded with wide eyes, and after a moment, she found her voice. The brunette Chipette said, "Well, yes. I… I guess I am. But… you're Betsy Ross, the sewer of the first American flag. How did you get here?"
Betsy Ross replied, "I am a figure of history, child. Anything marked in literature can be as real as you wish, right here in your head. See?"
Jeanette looked around and saw a marvelous sight. Characters, historical figures, and creatures seemed to be coming to life from the pages of every book in the library. Jeanette began to make friends with these figures and characters right away, and they liked her at once.
For the next few hours, Jeanette shared time with everyone she could recognize in the library. She had tea with Alice and the Mad Hatter, she conversed with George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Queen Victoria, helped Thomas Edison and Louis Pasteur and Marie Curie with their various experiments, swapped stories with Robinson Crusoe and Jim Hawkins, and studied for a while with Ichabod Crane.
Jeanette loved this magical library. To her, it was a place where she could have refuge from the modern world and meet every historical figure and novel character she had ever wanted to see. Some other kids at school would probably think her strange for dreaming about all the stories she could read, but Jeanette didn't mind. It was worth it if she could be as happy in her dreams as in the real world.