Oh come on! Do you really think I would be so mean that I’d just up and drop Jake off with authorities without a clue what would happen to him, and never think of him again? Oh—you do. Man, you must think I’m a bigger jerk than—well a bigger jerk than everyone.

I’m really not that bad. I’ll prove it. You know what I really did with Jake? I let him stay quite a bit longer than one night. Bet you didn’t see that coming—neither did I to be quite honest. The thing is, as mean as I am, my heart is pretty darn soft. As much as my mind said just leave him, my heart would not let me. He’d kind of grown on me, and I didn’t think he was quite the dweeb I once did—he just needed a friend, and on that note, so did I.

But wait, there’s more.

It wasn’t supposed to be permanent. Just a temporary fix until Jake’s real family came and got him. Honestly, I wasn’t at first happy with the arrangement, but at least it was mutual—Jake hated the idea too. But a funny thing happened as we searched for any long lost relatives. We grew on each other. By the time we discovered that there was not a single one of Jake’s relatives alive, it was a natural feeling for me to ask Jake if he would let me adopt him. And so that’s what I did.

It was his idea for me to write this book. He even gave me permission to refer to him as a nerd, because he thought it would give more sympathy to his character. He didn’t feel right telling the story, because he promised Gatsby that he wouldn’t (plus he was to young to write a book), and so he convinced me to do it for him. I wasn’t going to do it—no matter how much money they offered me. But Jake said to me, “they have a right for their story to be told.” And they did. They sat up there with their simple little lives, and nobody knew anything about them. People took books for granted without ever really appreciating where the books came from. They were people who gave up everything, and whose only joy in life came from eating peanut putter and telling stories. They had told enough stories in life…it was time for their story to be told. So I wrote it. The money part was nice though.

Not long before finishing their story I went up to the distribution center to talk with Gatsby one final time before turning things over the story to my editor. I asked him why they did do—why they didn’t buy televisions or cars or something with all that money they got. He told me there is only to things he needed to be happy: a book and peanut butter. He had both things, so he said that there was no need to go out and get more, because, as he put it, “the more you have the more you have to take care. The more you have to take care of the more stressed you’ll become. The more stressed you become the more unhappy you’ll be.” So if you want a moral lesson than I guess that’s it in a nutshell.

So I guess that’s it. That’s the story of the library tree. I know the story actually turned out to be about more than a tree, but that’s the way these things happen. Honestly, where would the story have been if it was just about a tree? How exciting is that? There was to be drama—suspense—and of course a little bit of action.

It’s been really fun telling you the tale…okay it’s actually been dreadful, but at least you were polite, so thank you for that. Perhaps we’ll meet again some day—although I hope it’s in the long, long future.

What’s that? You want to here what’s happened with Jake since he first saw the tree? And how about Ralph? What’s he been up to? That doesn’t really pertain to this story (at least the story as I want to tell it), but if you must know than read the “Further Explanations and Exaggerations” at the end of the story.

Now if you’d like to hear about me that’s a whole other story. To tell you the truth, I’m a bit disappointed if you want to know what happened to me: I wrote this book! What do you think happened? Oh—you mean besides that? Not a whole lot I’m afraid. I still am a librarian, although all the other librarians hate me. I know what you’re thinking, why don’t I quit with all that money I made? Simple, because of my library fine. I have a $154,000,000 library card fine that I simply can’t pay off with the money I made from this book. As long as I keep working as a librarian I don’t have to pay it off.

So there you have. Does that about some it up? Good. Off you go, then. I’m sure you have something better to read than this. Go on, I said—stop reading. This is ridiculous—you’re still here—still reading. Go!

I hate people who read the last paragraph of the last chapter of a book before starting it, so they know how it ends. If you’re one of these people, then this is for you: everybody dies.