Bookish (solo)

There was no way for the librarian to know that it had been Verdy all that time ago gallivanting around atop the library shelves, unless he was a mind-reader, or some form of makes-you-tell-the-truth-er, still she felt a twinge of fear as she entered, as if alarms might go off identifying her as some form of library miscreant.

The relative silence of the entry, hushed ‘beep’s from the borrowing machine, the hum of communal computers and the occasional thuck-zzzzzzt of the printer-copiers, made her feel instantly better. Surely if there had been some form of identifying feature about her the repercussions would have been instant, some form of zappy machine that shocked her right back out the door. Yeah, she needed to stop thinking about it and calm down before she approached a helper for help.

There seemed to be a horde of students a few rows in, ranting about some biology project due the next day, and it took a few moments for someone to respond to her gentle ‘ding’ on the bell that clearly shouted ‘press me!’, a gentle looking woman with buggy eyes emerged from the shelves and skittered over. After explaining what she was looking for (while politely gazing at the woman’s left cheek as she couldn’t tell which of the multiple hexagon irises she might be looking through) she followed the woman as she scuttled away through the maze of shelves. Finally, tucked somewhere in the hazy realm between warcraft and hobbies was the section she was after; swords.

The woman left to deal with what sounded like a less-than-positive crash an aisle or two away and Verdy was left to flick through the books on the subject. If she was going to be selling the sharp, pointy objects it would be better if she had at least a conversational knowledge, enough to be able to tell the difference between a katana and a shuriken at least.

Finally with three books on swords she figured she had enough light reading to get her through her first shift at least, and moved towards the borrowing counter. Alas the biology students had decided mere seconds before that there was only so much studying to be done in the library and were headed to the common room. They had barely beat her to the counter, but one was now in hot debate with the librarian about an overdue book. Apparently ‘gooifying’ said text wasn’t an excuse for its lateness, and either a fee was to be paid, or the book returned. As they argued the subject Verdy perused the books on the returns trolley, an older book on leather craft caught her eye and she picked it up and flicked through, looking at the pictures until it was her turn at the desk.

Books tucked safely under her arm she returned to her room to flick through them and decide what to wear to the shop tomorrow.