How I Got to be a 10 Year Old's Hero for the Day

I really love my job. Just a few weeks ago I was at one of my busiest afternoon home daycare stops. I was in the middle of story time in a basement on the floor with about 20 kids in attendance and a couple of the boys were horsing around a bit in the back. Suddenly one of the boys yelled, “Oh, no! My library card!” When I asked what was the matter, I found out that another boy had slid the library card between the floor molding and sheet rock. I made the mistake of laughing about it, at which time the owner of the library card burst into tears. He couldn’t see any way we could retrieve the lost card, and, honestly, I wasn’t sure what to do about it either. I reassured him as best I could - assuming the day care provider might not object too badly to us pulling her molding up so long as we re-secured it again – and told him I would get it out for him once I finished story time.

Well, as you can imagine, the pressure was on. I don’t usually make promises I can’t keep and these kids know that. They fully expected me to come up with the card at the close of story time. I had no idea how I was going to do that, but my back-up plan was that I could always call an excellent mechanic I know and beg him to come help me out.

Story time ended and I went over to the wall to examine the problem. There was enough of a gap for a card to slide down between there, but nothing any wider. Just then, out of the press of eager onlookers, I saw another boy with his library card in his hand. Eureka, I had figured it out! I asked the library card wielder to loan me his card for a moment, which he very reluctantly did after I promised him his card would not meet with the same fate as the previous one. I then used the one card to slide the other up against the nails that were holding the trim in place and levered the first card up and out of its prison.

You may be aware that 10-year-old boys are not usually very demonstrative, but when I handed that one his rescued library card, he flung his arms around me and gave me a mighty hug that made my eyes smart. He was so relieved and choked up he couldn’t say a word, but that hug told me everything I needed to know.