Something New

by Michelle Kang

It’s not too cold, but it’s not too hot, either. In fact, it’s perfect. She turns the page of the thick book she holds in her hands. It’s tilted slightly downwards, but you can still read the cover. It reads The Princess Bride, one of her favorite books. She loves to read; she’s read the same book four times in a row. This is her fifth time.

“Oof! Ouch!”

“Oh God, excuse me. I’m so sorry.”

“No, that’s fine. It was my fault, anyway.”

Fake smiles all around, each person pretending that it’s no big deal that you just stepped on my foot and nearly crushed it. Each person walks away in different directions, each person secretly, quietly cursing the other one under their breaths. “The nerve of those young people today…”

She shakes her head and smiles, returning to the black letters on the page, scanning each string of words and savoring each one. Her eyes flick back and forth across the page, as if she is watching a heated tennis match that has been going on for a hundred pages now. Her interest stays there until they are jerked away by the loud, obnoxious beeping of the book-stealer detectors, flashing a frightening bright red, by the library exit.

“Excuse me, but could you come back here?” The lady librarian’s voice calls out in a stern but friendly voice. She nods and smiles primly at the boy who’s apparently tried, unsuccessfully, to smuggle out a book. A few more minutes of watching tells her the book was a copy of Freakonomics. She has to commend his choice of book, if not his way of taking it to read.

She turns back, yet again, to the pages of her book. Inigo Montoya is swearing, on the soul of Domingo Montoya, that the man in black will reach the top of the cliff alive if he accepts his help. The man in black replies that the fact that Inigo is only waiting on the top of the cliff to kill him does put a damper on their relationship. How fascinating, she thinks. Would you cheat on a test if you knew you could keep the score, but inevitably get caught?

She smiles and reads on, until a trio of middle-school girls, about her age, bursts into a fit of hysteria because the title of a book they see includes an inappropriate word. She rolls her eyes, but silently laughs when the same lady librarian that caught the book-smuggler tells them to shush, please!

The library never ceases to supply me with interesting events, she thinks vaguely. She reads for a few more minutes, but is distracted again when a girl clad from head to toe in Abercrombie and Fitch plops directly into the plush one-person sofa chair next to her. She can see her stealthily attempting to see the cover of the book she is reading. She decides to save her the trouble.

“Have you read this? It’s about true love and high adventure.” She says, holding up the cover for the girl to see. The girl seems fascinated.

“Have you read this?” The girl says in turn, holding her own book up. “It’s about…well, why don’t you read it?”

She blinks and considers for a bit, puts The Princess Bride down, takes the book from the other girl’s hands. They smile at each other. She opens the book and begins to read.

Something new every day at the Guilderland Public Library, she thinks.