리틀팍스

The Blue Gate and the Library of Hearts: Prologue & Episode 1

Prologue

My name is Linda Marten. I am 12 years old. My life is very boring and tiring because of school and many academies. My backpack is always heavy and I feel like I am in a race with other students. One day, I was walking home after a long day. I was so tired that I took a shortcut through a dark and quiet alley.

Suddenly, I saw a blue gate. I lived here for a long time, but I never saw it before. On the gate, there was a small sign. It said, "Leave your heavy today, take someone's heart." I din't know what that meant, but I just opened the door.

Inside, the room was very strange. There were no books, only hundreds of glass bottles on the shelves. Then, a black cat with a small tie spoke to me. "Welcome, Linda." I was so surprised! A talking cat? I thought I was dreaming. The cat said this is the Library of Hearts. He said I can leave my sad or hard memories here.

I looked at my bag. I had many worries about my grades. The cat gave me an empty bottle. I whispered my stress into it, and the bottle turned gray. Suddenly, my heart felt very light.

Episode 1

The cat told me that I must borrow a bottle from the shelf if I want to go out. I looked around and picked a dusty green bottle. When I opened it, a warm light came out and I saw a vision. It was a young boy. He was sitting on a bench and crying. He was holding a test paper and the score was only 40.

I looked at the name on the paper. It said "Kim Marten." I was shocked. That is my father's name! My dad is always very strict and he says I must always get 100. I never knew my dad failed a test before.

In the memory, my young dad wrote in his diary: "I am so scared of my dad. I want to be a kind father in the future. I want to be a friend to my child." I felt very strange. My dad was just a boy like me, and he was scared too.

The next day at school, I had a big math test. I tried my best, but the questions were too hard. When I got my paper, the score was 45. Before, I would be very scared and cry. But this time, I thought about the green bottle.

On the way home, I saw my friend Veronica.
"Hey, Linda! Did you heard that?" Veronica asked.
"Hear what? I didn't hear anything," I said. I didn't care about her gossip. I only thought about my dad.

I went home and showed the 45-point paper to my father. He looked very surprised. I said, "Dad, it is okay to fail sometimes. You said that 30 years ago."

My dad stayed silent for a long time. Then, he hugged me. It was the first time he hugged me like that. I think the blue gate changed my world.