"Mommy, I'm gonna shoot you, and then I'm gonna shoot the baby."

I've always had a difficult time calling CPS on people, but one day I did, and it helped saved a life.<br><br>I volunteer some time on the weekends at a local library. It's not for class credit, just something to give back to the community since I've always valued the library as an integral part of society, especially in today's digital age. It's a fun way to get out of the house and do something productive, and I get to read all the books that I don't have time for during the school year. <br><br>I usually have to pick up books that are strewn across the area, kind of like picking up after a toddler. The books at this library are all over the place, whether it be people putting them in the wrong section, having the spines backwards, or throwing them on the floor. I like to wander because it allows me to take a breather from the mind-numbing dusting that I do for 8 hours a day. One day, as I was walking down the fiction section of the children's library, I came across a little boy at a desk looking at a book.<br><br>My curiosity got the better of me. When I started reading, I was horrified, and I knew that I needed to call CPS immediately. <br>The book was called, "Mommy, I'm the greatest," and I'm sure, as you could've guessed, that it was about a kid who bragged about how smart he was, making sure that he acknowledged that his mother was the greatest of all.<br><br>The book was a seriously disturbing read. The normal words were crossed out, and in the margins, there were handwritten, seriously disturbing phrases. <br><br>The first, crossed out sentence was, "I'm the greatest," had been crossed out and replaced with, "I'm gonna kill you." The next, crossed out sentence was, "I'm the greatest, and you are too," had been crossed out and replaced with, "I'm gonna shoot you, and then I'm gonna shoot the baby." These two sentences were recurring throughout the book, one on every other page, making sure that the mother knew that not only was she to be killed, but that her baby would suffer, as well. I knew that the kid had to be taken away from his mother. Other than the notation in the book, I had no information on the kid, and I didn't want to approach him out of fear that I would spook him and be unable to call CPS.<br><br>I went to the front desk and told one of the attendants that I needed to call CPS, but that I didn't want the kid to know. The lady smiled at me and said that she had a phone in the back that I could use to call them. I called them, and they sent an employee out to pick up the kid. A week later, the employee, someone that I had never met, came to the library. <br><br>The lady had a curious look in her eye, and she came up to me to strike up a conversation. It wasn't until after I had told her that I was the one who called CPS on the kid that she started explaining what happened when she picked up the boy. The kid was removed from the house, as expected, but what happened next was something that I had never expected in a million years. <br><br>When they were searching the house, under the kid's bed, they found a toy gun that was loaded with real bullets. The gun was an exact replica of a real gun, but the orange tip had been painted black. No one knows how the kid got the gun, whether it was meant as a joke by an idiot friend of his mother's, or if the mother had purchased it, but it's safe to say that the mother is no longer in control of her child.<br><br>The kid is currently in a foster home, and the mother is in a psychiatric hospital. There is an investigation underway to determine how the kid got the gun, but it's safe to say that no matter the outcome, whether it falls on the mother or someone else, the mother will not have custody of her son for quite a while. <br><br>At the end of our conversation, the lady simply stated, "You saved a life that day," and then walked away. I still think about the situation to this day, and It's a sad realization that I had to call CPS on a kid.<br><br>The kid was only 7, and he was already considered a threat to his mother. He will probably be in the system for the rest of his life. I can only hope that he'll find an adoptive family, but the sad reality is that the kid will probably be in the system until he's 18. The foster care system is over capacity at this point, and a kid with a history of violent behavior and the ramblings of a seriously disturbed mind will be hard to adopt out.