None But Eagles

I made a friend at the library today. A little girl, maybe four years old, said hi to me when I came into the corner where one picks up holds and browses DVDs, and told me that she was eating a banana, which was true. I put on the strange high voice I use for little kids and, as I often do when I’m not sure how to respond or what this child’s parents will think of me, simply said, “Yeah?” As I looked down at her she asked, “Where did your hair go?” Her tone was one of genuine curiosity. I laughed and she added, “Why is your hair short?” as though she had realized that her question was imprecise. I explained to her that it used to be really long but I cut it all off. This was a much longer conversation than I am used to holding with a strange child in a public place. No parent approached to take her away, so I tried to keep some kind of balance between being willing to talk with her if she wanted to but not being offended if she wandered off.

I had one book to pick up from the holds shelf, which I had found by the time I finished justifying my short hair, but I didn’t want to seem rude by leaving abruptly, so I turned to look at the movies. She asked me what I was doing, and I told her I was looking at DVDs. “DVDs?” She stated each letter on its own. “I’m looking for a movie,” I clarified. She pulled one off the shelf and held it up to me. “Do you want this movie?” I told her no, I didn’t want that one. Then she asked me if I was hungry, and I lied and told her I wasn’t. She said she had pizza in her tummy. She pointed at someone holding a lunch bag and asked if I wanted lunch. I said no, I already had lunch (another lie), and it was too late for lunch, anyway. It was almost dinnertime.

I kept browsing the shelf as she talked to me, keeping myself from investing too much in this charming but fleeting interaction. She was the kind of post-toddler pre-kindergartener comfortable talking casually with strangers, but not in the hyperactive, chatterbox style. She imitated me, tilting her head at an exaggerated angle to read the spines, and said she would find me a dinosaur movie. She picked up several DVDs and asked if I wanted them, and I said no each time and helped her put them back in the shelf in the right place, since one of her hands still held the banana. After she finished it, she wandered back to her dad, invisible behind another shelf, to hand him the empty peel. Later I turned a corner and found him there, and we smiled at each other. He told her to tell me goodbye when they left. I thought of borrowing a DVD or two for the long weekend, but in the end took home only one book.