A very Kate DiCamillo story…

A few years ago, Ellen Major, owner of the lovely Booktenders' Secret Garden Children's Bookstore in Doylestown PA, phoned me in a panic. It was late on a Friday afternoon. Kate DiCamillo was coming to her store that night. Ellen was worried. She was sure that only 3 or 6 people were going to show up for the event, and she really really didn't want her store to be empty for a big name author. She asked me to come. Unfortunately, I was extremely sick. But Ellen has been very kind to me, and I very much appreciate it. My wife and kids had other obligations that night so I took twice the recommended dose of three kinds of different cold and flu medications then drove myself to Doylestown.

When I arrived, there were about two hundred people, mostly kids, in a shop that comfortably holds 25. Ellen must have made a lot of phone calls that afternoon. It was a sleety, slushy, freezing winter night so everybody had on wet snow clothes. The temperature in the store shot up to a thousand degrees. I remember humidity dripping down the windows like we were inside a car wash. I think my fever must have spiked. Rob and Lisa Papp, who are friends and local author/illustrators (they're the ones who put me into Stratego and turned my kids into American Girl characters), propped me up in a corner where I tried to blow my nose into a mitten as quietly as possible while alternating between burning up and freezing to death.

I can barely remember the evening except, near the end, Ellen saw me against the back wall. She knows how much I love Kate DiCamillo's books. (I actually outline her sentences and paragraphs and chapters to see if I can figure out how they work. I think she has a magical way of weaving words and emotions together that makes her stories sing.) Ellen dragged me into this tiny closet-sized stockroom at the back of her store where Kate was sitting behind a folding card table with a bottle of water. She looked a little disheveled and a bit confused. She'd just signed a gazillion books, and I think this might have been her 47th visit on a hundred-stop cross-country tour. She probably didn't even know what time zone she was in. Ellen said something like: THIS IS PAUL. THERE ARE A HUNDRED PEOPLE IN LINE AT THE REGISTER. TALK AMONGST YOURSELVES. I'VE GOT TO GO! She rushed off and closed the closet door behind her.

I think Kate DiCamillo and I were in the closet together for about 15 minutes. Here is how I remember our conversation:

Me: Hi.

Her: Hi.

Me: I love your work.

Her: Thank you.

Me:…

Her: Are you okay?

Me (trying not to pass out): …

Her (looking like she's about to pass out): …

Me: Are you okay?

Her:…

Me:…

Her: Actually, I'm kind of missing home.

Me: Honestly, I'm not in a very good place right now.

Her (and she reached across the card table and patted me on the hand when she said this): You don't have to be in a good place.

Me:…

Her:…

Me: That was a very Kate DiCamilo thing to say.

Her: That's because I am Kate DiCamillo.

Me: Right.

Her…

Me: Okay. Bye.

And then I left her in the closet. I even closed the door behind me!!

This might all be a virus and medication-induced hallucination, but I'm pretty sure that it's at least 90% true because even when I'm healthy, I'm not a good visitor for celebrities. See for yourself: http://paulacampora.com/blog/2006/03/01/why-i-dont-write-much-fiction-about-the-pope/