With Apologies to Scooby Doo

By admin

I’m a writing mentor with an organization called WriteGirl. I meet weekly with my 15-year-old mentee, C, at the Huntington Gardens and Library. We write together about this and that, and each year WriteGirl publishes an anthology of the work of all the girls and their mentors. (You should pick one up!) I’m tired of all this writing just sitting in my journal, so here is the story that will appear in the next anthology–available in January. C and I each used the rare book stacks at the Huntington as the setting for a scene.

Those Meddling Kids, With Apologies to Scooby Doo

“Did you hear that?”

“What?” “No.”

“Shh! I’m listening…” Claudia hissed, louder than she intended. They all froze. The air conditioning hummed. There was a faint buzz from the overhead lighting.

After a few minutes of squinty-eyed, purse-lipped concentration, Adam shrugged. “Nope. I must have imagined it.”

Claudia glared at him. Jane looked thoughtful. “What did it sound like? Or, well, what do you imagine it sounded like?”

“I don’t know… it was like a scrapey-thud. Or a jingle-smack. Or maybe a whiffle-whomp?”

“Dude,” said Mitchell. “I hear that all the time.”

The others turned to Mitchell, expectant. He smiled back and blinked at them blankly. Jane stared at him as if she might see the answer through his skull. When this proved unsuccessful, she prompted, “And…”

“Huh? Oh! It’s the sound my bike makes when I take a dive on the Boardwalk.” Mitchell spoke with absolute certainty.

“And did you fall off your bicycle a few minutes ago?” asked Claudia.

“Uh, no. I mean, I don’t have—”

“And do you think someone else might—”

Adam cut in. “Claud, stop it.”

“What? I’m just trying to establ—”

“Enough. Leave him alone.”

“It’s okay, man. She’s right. If there is someone riding a bike in here, they’re in loads more trouble than we are.”

“That’s not what I—”

“Shh! Did you hear that?”

“Oh, no. Not you, too, Jane.”

“I heard the whiffle-whump.” Jane’s voice rose to a barely audible squeak as she spoke. “Like Marley’s Ghost is walking around wrapped in chains, only… if Marley were made of books.”

“Yes! That’s it exactly.”

Whiffle-whump. The sound caught Claudia mid eye-roll. “No way…”

“Way.”

“Um, dudes? Ya know that mummy’s curse thing? The one I told you about? The one you all laughed at?”

“Mitchell, you saw that in a cartoon! It wasn’t even this library. That one was in Alexandria—in Egypt!”

“Yeah, but you said the Alexandria library was destroyed a while ago, and that sign back there said this one has lots of scrolls and stuff, just like in the cartoon.”

Whiffle-whump. It was getting closer. They looked wide-eyed at each other for a moment, before simultaneously screaming and taking off in search of the nearest exit, each in a different direction.