When my dad went to South Africa to give a special talk, we all got to go with him! South Africa is a really cool country to visit. It’s on the very bottom tip of Africa. It was a VERY long flight to get there. The dad’s talk was happening at the Johannesburg Public Library. It’s a very big building, so it must have lots of books. Little kids weren’t allowed in the talk, but my mom said it would be okay to explore the library a little bit on my own if I wanted to. It was closed for renovations, so it was mostly empty.
I wandered around for a while and then found a place where there were huge rooms, like warehouses, with shelves that went from the floor all the way to the ceiling and they just FULL of books. I’ve never seen so many books in all my life! I couldn’t help but say out loud, “Gosh, I wonder how many books there are in here?”
And then a quiet voice nearby said very matter-of-factly, “One million, five hundred thousand.” I whirled around and there was a little African boy with glasses sitting at a small table in the corner surrounded by stacks of books.
“Wow,” I said, “That’s a whole lot of books.”
“And I’m going to read all of them,” he said.
“Really? How many have you read so far?” I asked.
“Seven hundred and thirty-eight,” he answered quietly.
“I can’t believe you’ve read that many books. You must be really smart!” Cemion just shrugged his shoulders as if it wasn’t any big deal. “Hey!” I said, “You were glasses just like me! My name’s Jeb Giraffe. What’s yours?”
“Cemion Circle,” he said. “The library people know how important it is for me to keep reading, so they let me come to the library even when it’s closed. It was built in 1935 and has more than 250,000 members. I especially like the high Gothic windows. They give the whole place a Medieval feel.”
“Yeah,” I said. “It kinda does, doesn’t it? I do like stories about knights in shining armor fighting dragons! Do you?”
“Oh, sure, I guess so,” he said. “I stopped reading stories like that years ago. Now I mostly focus on science and history.”
Just then my older sister Jeanna showed up, saying “Jeb, where the heck have you been? The talk is over and we’ve been looking all over for you! Hey, who’s your cutie-pie little friend?”
Even though Cemion’s skin is very dark, I could tell his face was burning bright red. “His name is Cemion and he’s going to read every single book in this library!” I said.
“Yikes! Good luck with that, smarty-pants,” Jeanna said. Cemion just looked down at his books with his very red face and didn’t say anything. “C’mon, Jeb, we gotta go.” And off went Jeanna to join the rest of the family.
When she was gone, Cemion breathed a sigh of relief. “I never know what to say around girls.”
“Oh, that’s just my sister, Jeanna. Well, I guess I have to go now, but if I come back here tomorrow, will you be here?” I asked.
Cemion replied, “Yes, I’m here almost every day. We could read together!”
“Okay!” I said. “That’ll be great! I’m glad I met you, Cemion.”
“I’m glad I met you too, Jeb. If you come in the morning, I’ll be right here!”
“Sounds like a plan! See you then!” I said, running off to find my family. Wow! A special friend in South Africa! I’m so happy!