savetheearth | (no subject)

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Who: Selene and anyone who's at the library.
What: Book-hunting and getting to know the town. Shh! Inside voices, children.
Where: The public library.
When: Late morning/early afternoon on Tuesday June 25.

Things becoming dangerous didn't keep parents from being parents. That's why Selene is out and about today, taking public transportation and walking her way down to the library.

She has a list of required reading for the summer in the pocket of her denim shorts along with her school ID. She hopes that will be enough to get her a library card here, because it's not like she has a driver's license (she's only fifteen after all) or even a learner's permit yet. She guesses that if she's not allowed to check the books out she can just come here every day and read them in the library. That seems like a hassle though.

Once she's in the library she pulls the list out from her pocket and reads it over. She should probably ask someone for help, but she wants to try finding it herself first. So she wanders into the maze of shelves with a slightly puzzled expression on her face and keeps looking at the list before looking at the spines of the books.

She's not getting anywhere though and finally, enough is enough. She looks up from the list and tries to catch the eye of the nearest person, whether they work at the library or not. "Excuse me..."

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Fred looks up from his book. "Yes?"

He doesn't actually mind the interruption - after all, there are plenty of more private places he could be reading, and it's not as if he's gotten to the really good part yet.

Selene bites her lip and holds up her list. "I was wondering if maybe you could help me find some of these..." She looks the list up and down before continuing. "Maybe Homer's Iliad, or Odyssey, or both? I'm trying to find some of the reading I have to do for school."

She's so used to bookstores. There, she'd just ask an employee to fetch it for her, and she'd pay and go home. Here, though, she has no idea where to start looking. The shelves are not marked quite as clearly as they are in stores.

"Sure, no problem." Fred sets down his book - To Every Thing, a mystery novel - and gets up. He starts toward the nonfiction area, making sure not to leave Selene behind.

"Both of those, I believe," because he doesn't actually have a photographic memory, even for the library catalog, "are over in nonfiction. Something about being classics, I guess - they've got Shakespeare there too, even the comedies."

She looks at the book as it's left on the table and then turns to follow after him. "Thank you," She says, "It's really nice of you to help me."

Selene stays quiet as she follows him and he explains about classics and nonfiction. She frowns and looks a little confused. "But they talk about gods and magic in those books, don't they? Even if they're very old, aren't they obviously fiction?"

Libraries were confusing. A bookstore would have had a section for classics. It was a good thing she'd asked because otherwise she could have been wandering here for hours.

"It's fine," he says. "Not like I was doing anything else productive." That's a bit rueful; his parents have been getting after him a bit.

He grins. "They sure do. Some of them more than others, but the people who decide where to put them don't seem to care. It's probably Dewey's fault. He's the one who set up the system."

And with that, they're there! Or almost; Fred's going by memory and context, rather than the books' entries in the catalog. But they've reached the 800s, the literature section. "Okay, they should be somewhere around here..." You may be on your own, Selene; he's probably going to get distracted by Ovid and Cervantes and the like.

She looks a little concerned at the way his voice turns rueful but before she can say anything about it he's grinning and telling her more about the books.

"Oh yes, the Dewey Decimal System... they talked about that in school." Truthfully she hadn't paid much attention. Libraries weren't her thing. "It seems very convoluted to me."

When they arrive in the 800s she starts to look at the spines of the books. "Oh! Here's the Iliad..." It's easy enough to find. The Odyssey, however, is not next to it, and she holds the book to her chest as she scans the shelves. After a minute or two she decides it must just be checked out.

She looks back to Fred and looks at him curiously. He seems distracted. "What are you looking at...? Are they interesting books?"

"Oh, it is." Convoluted, he means. "Especially when you get into things that can fit more than one category. Or biographies, which some libraries put near the beginning and others put near the end."

It takes him a moment to realize Selene's asked a question. "Sorry. Have you ever read Don Quixote?" he asks in turn, pulling it off the shelf a little. "It's fairly dry, but there's a lot more there than people think."

"Don Quixote? I can't say I have..." She almost says that she doesn't do a lot of reading unless it's for school but she feels like that wouldn't impress him much. And what sort of teenage girl would she be if she just let herself embarrass herself in front of a cute older boy?

She hasn't even heard of the book either but she definitely isn't going to admit that. Instead she looks curiously at the book he's pulled from the shelf. "I guess you've read it then?"

No, it probably wouldn't. Books are a big favorite of his, and even though he knows not everyone's the same way, it'd still hurt.

"Yeah, a few years ago. I'm probably due for a reread..." He thinks about it, although senseless attempts at heroics aren't really what he's in the mood for.

He also considers offering it to Selene, but it's probably not on her list, and he has no idea whether she'd enjoy that kind of thing. Though he may be able to find out... "So what do you like to read, when it's not for school?" Speaking of which, there are probably other things on her list, though he doesn't bring it up just now.

If they knew each other a little better she'd suggest that they read the book together, but they don't and it sort of surprises her how tempted she is to suggest it anyway.

It's too bold. Selene isn't a wimp but she's just met him and he's - what, a senior in high school? Or maybe he's in college. She doesn't know exactly how old he is. She just knows that he's older.

The urge makes her blush and she eagerly latches onto the slight change of subject as she crouches down to look at the spines of some books on the bottom of the shelf so that it's not easy to see that she's blushing. "Nonfiction and classical mythology mostly, I unfortunately don't have time to read many novels unless it's for class," she says quietly. "But I like to pick up books about things I want to learn that they don't teach much of in school. I read a lot about ancient Egypt... their mythology is very interesting. I had a book about hieroglyphs to read while my family was moving here, too, but I'm not as good as them as I'd like..."

Edited 2013-06-29 18:51 (UTC)

That would be a bit of a shock, yes. Not that he'd necessarily be averse to reading together, but he would be surprised if she suggested it.

"Oh, neat! I was into that for a bit, a while ago, but I don't remember a lot of the details." He slips Don Quixote back onto the shelf; it doesn't look like either of them'll be wanting it just yet. "Mostly I remember... whatshisname, that guy who got killed and cut up and his wife had to put him together to bring him back to life, except she couldn't find -" whoops, error "- uh, all the pieces."

She's not a child, no, or at least not going to think of herself as one, but... the way Fred's mind works, there are Things You Don't Talk About, especially with girls younger than yourself.

"Osiris and Isis," Selene supplies with a hint of a smile. She knows the story that Fred is talking about but since he doesn't want to talk about the details she isn't going to make him. It wouldn't be polite.

Her cheeks are no longer warm so she feels it's safe to stand back up and look at the books on higher shelves.

"Hmm... maybe I should read more novels." She has her reading list for school but she's not sure if she'll like all the books on it. "What would be some good books to start with?"

"Right, them!" Fred may be the one blushing now. Just a bit, though. And if he doesn't try to hide that'll stop sooner, right?

Anyway. Books. Recommendations. Um. "Well, that depends on what you'd like to read. I mean, I could tell you about the Starheart Cycle or the Bible Belt Breakings, but if you don't like fantasy or mystery they might not be good fits for you." He shrugs, then adds, "You mentioned Egypt, but people've set a lot of different stuff there."

"I've never heard of those before..." Selene thinks about it for a few seconds. Fantasy and mystery novels didn't sound like they would be boring. She smiles. "But they sound fun. Mystery books were always the ones I liked to read best for school."

She likes to try and solve the mystery before they manage to solve it in the book. It's always a little disappointing when she's wrong though.

"If you know of any mystery books set in Egypt, that would be even better!"

Having fun with reading! That's what Fred likes to hear!

He thinks for a moment. "Well, there's Death on the Nile. You could do worse than Agatha Christie, even after... I think it's something like seventy or eighty years now. I'm not getting any others on first thought, though I wouldn't be surprised if Bonnie Pryce has written some - she mostly seems to prefer India, but I know she's got at least one further south in Africa. Nigeria, I think?" He continues pondering, starting to head for the mystery shelves.

"Death on the Nile...?" Selene sounds interested at least, rather than dismissing the title of the book. "I think I'd like to read that." Perhaps her parents would think the title was unsuitable for a fourteen-year-old girl but they didn't have to know about it, especially if they weren't buying it for her.

She follows Fred to the mystery shelves. "What books has Bonnie Pryce written already? Maybe I've heard of them..."

Fred nods approvingly. As he said, one could definitely do worse than Agatha Christie. "That one should be over here," he says, leading the way toward the C's. He's assuming it's not checked out, but even if it is, there should be some of her others.

"I think her most famous is The Rajah's Son. I think it won some kind of award, but I don't remember the details. My favorite of hers is probably An Elephant for Haruman. That one's got a butler that's just hilarious."

[OOC: Headdesk forever - I came up with that title and then, minutes later, remembered Amiti's Japanese name. Keeping it anyway.]

When they reach the section for the C's Selene starts scanning the spines of the books for Death on the Nile but even as she does so she is listening to him, hanging on to his every word.

"What's so hilarious about the butler?" She asks as she pulls a book out to look at the cover. "Does he tell a lot of jokes?" She looks up from the book to meet Fred's eyes as she tilts her head to the side curiously.

[OOC: That makes it even funnier!]

Edited 2013-07-02 06:01 (UTC)

[OOC: Just less than I am with SF/F ones.]

Fred shakes his head. "He doesn't really tell jokes, so much as see the world as a joke. Like, in one of the early scenes he's out shopping and someone tries to mug him, and he starts poking fun at the mugger, which gets him so confused and distracted that he just lets the butler go." He stops, frowning. "I'm really not doing it justice."

Selene giggles as he explains about the butler and the mugging. "No, no! You're doing fine. It sounds very funny... I'll definitely have to read it." It would mean a trip over to the section for the P's but Selene was okay with that.

She smiles warmly at him and opens the book she'd pulled from the shelf to take a look at the first few pages. "Thanks again... for helping me. It's very nice of you, um... oh, I forgot to ask your name. Mine is Selene... what's yours?"

Fred's chuckling a little, too, at the memory of the scene. It's a particularly good one, even if he doesn't feel like he's good at relating it.

"Oh, sorry. I'm Fred. Nice to meet you, Selene." He considers offering a hand to shake, but decides that should probably wait until she's not holding and looking through a book. "And it's no trouble at all. Was there anything else you wanted help finding?"

"It's nice to meet you too..." Her voice trails off and she shuts the book and slides it into the crook of one arm so she can hold out her hand for a shake. She'd seen enough of the book to decide whether or not she wanted to check it out.

"Um, well... not really. I guess there's the rest of the list, but I know I won't be able to finish them before they're due if I check them all out at once. ...is it hard to get a library card here?"

Fred's handshake is firm but not vigorous.

He nods. That seems fair enough. "No, not at all. For this library, you don't even need proof of address unless you want to use their computers." He gestures briefly to the side rooms where such computers are. "You just need to fill out the form at the information desk," he concludes, pointing in the direction of said desk.

In this case, Selene was unlucky enough to catch the attention of a man carrying a large stack of books on aquariums, marine life, and the oceans. "Yes, what is it?" He spoke a little too loudly for the library, but at least his tone was a friendly one.

"Oh, um..." The man sounds friendly enough so Selene smiles and holds up her list. "I'm looking for some books that I need for my summer reading for school, only I'm not sure where to start looking. Could you help me?"

"Ah! Of COURSE I can help you! Anything to make sure you get a good education! That's really important, you know, going to school and reading and things! Expanding the mind! Experiencing the world!" Arthur shifted his grip on his own stack of books so he could peer at the list. "Alright! So what are we looking for?"

She scans the list and lingers on a few of the more interesting-sounding titles. It was a pretty standard list: The Iliad, the Odyssey, The Crucible, Of Mice and Men... She taps two titles with a slender finger.

"These here to start with," Selene says, quiet where Arthur is loud. "Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird."

Neither one is a book she would normally pick up off a shelf to bring home but there's a first time for everything, and isn't that what school is for?

Not Pride and Prejudice! ANYTHING but Pride and Prejudice! That did nothing but remind Arthur of two weeks of abject boredom in his own high school English classes, as well as a legendary bomb of a term paper that, legend said, still circulated among the teacher's lounge at said high school, so amazing was its awfulness. Arthur seemed as though he wanted to ignore the existence of that book entirely.

"TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, THEN! Let's start with that one!"

Selene shrinks back a little at Arthur's outburst and she can't help but cast a glance around the library to make sure there aren't any little old ladies shaking their heads at them disapprovingly. Since there aren't, she relaxes a little and takes a step to follow him.

"Is it a very good book? I've never read it," She says, "I probably wouldn't be reading it if I didn't have to for school."

"It's an EXCELLENT book! One everyone should read while they're in school--your teacher's doing right by you!" Nope, Arthur still wasn't modulating his volume well for indoors, especially indoors in a library.

And it wasn't Pride and Prejudice. That was important, too.

At this rate they're both going to be kicked out! That's what Selene is worried about, but because no one's come over to say anything about it, she doesn't tell Arthur to be quiet because it would be really rude to do something like that when she's just asked for his help.

"What is it about?"

"It's about not killing mockingbirds!" Okay, so Arthur had never really paid attention in English class. "And then there was some stuff in a courtroom...but the important thing is to read it for class!" Do as he says, not as he does.

And by now, he's found the fiction section he was looking for. "AHA! HERE WE ARE! FICTION!"

Yeah, at this point, there are more than a few dirty looks from the other patrons of the library.

"That seems like an odd topic for a book," Selene murmurs. Maybe she just doesn't understand it. There is probably a reason that other people are the teachers and she isn't. "Did someone go to court for killing a mockingbird?"

The girl flinches at his announcement that they had found the fiction section. That was loud and she can see that people are looking at them strangely so she brings a finger up to her lips to shush him.

"Thank you, but shhh! This is a library... We're going to get kicked out at this rate..."

Oh, Selene, you're not the one who doesn't understand..."Someone went to court for killing SOMEONE, I think...don't think it was a mockingbird..." Arthur frowned, trying to remember the book, or at least the movie.

"Eh, this place just needs a little livening up. If the hold line dancing classes here every so often, why would they mind people just talking?" This was, of course, discounting the fact that he wasn't just talking, he was using a tone that would have been borderline yelling for anyone else.

"Hm... I guess I'll have to find out for myself when I read it." She hopes there aren't any instances of mockibgbirds actually being killed. That would be very sad.

She bites her lip. "Um, they might mind because the classes happen when people aren't here and trying to read, but right now people are trying to read and... they might be upset that we're sort of loud."

By 'we're' Selene means 'you're' but she's too polite to come out and say so.

"It'll be fine, fine! Don't worry so much!" Arthur waved the thought away as he turned down an aisle and started looking through the shelves. "Let's see..." When he'd acquired his stack of books on the ocean, they had all been grouped by subject in nonfiction. He at least knew to look in fiction, but he was looking under M for mockingbirds...

"This is the right section--it should be here somewhere!"

She purses her lips and looks at some of the books. These seem to be books by authors whose names end with M rather than books that have words that start with M in the title. Maybe she should have asked someone else even though Arthur has been very nice to her.

"I can't find it... maybe I'm just not good at finding things. Do you think it might be someone else? ...maybe someone put it with the L's by mistake?"

Asking anyone but Arthur for help in a library situation probably would have been for the best, but he does so love helping people when he can..."'L?'" He sounds puzzled by that. "I...guess it couldn't hurt?" Because there's certainly no sign of it there. He's thinking a bit more.

"Maybe it would be under 'T' for 'To?'"

"I just thought L because if they were trying to put it under 'M' for 'Mockingbird,' it's nearby and they could have just gotten the wrong shelf..." She shrugs. "We can look under T, too. That might be it."

Inwardly, Selene is wondering how someone Arthur's age can be having so much trouble with a library.

This is what happens when you don't pay much attention in school and haven't been in a library in years, Selene. Don't be like Arthur. Pay attention in school. "Hey, that works!" And he'll start scanning those shelves.

Selene joins him in scanning the shelves and it isn't long before they find the book. "Look, here it is!" Her voice wasn't nearly as softspoken as it had been before. Spending time around someone who spoke so exuberantly had that affect on people. She slides the book out of the shelf and holds it up proudly.

"OUTRAGEOUS! Good job!" This is accompanied by a single loud clap. "We'll find the others in no time!"

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Now to hope we don't get a Poirot...

Haha that would be funny if we did!

Aah, first you pick the genre I'm less familiar with and then I have to make up titles in it?

I'm very sorry!

You're fine! I could've had him say other things, and I am tolerably familiar with mystery tropes.

Oh, okay! :)

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wait, what are inside voices?

Haha!

Nothing will go wrong.

Nothing at all.

Just a normal day at the library~

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