Nova gingerly picked up the bow tie off the ground. It was blood-red and smelled of dust and old paper, as if it had been pressed in between the pages of that book for a very long time. The fabric was worn but clean, as though the owner had worn it often but cared about it enough to regularly wash it.
Nova was carefully trying to untie the bow tie when Mr Harbringer called once again from three floors below.
"Nova! What is taking you so long? We're about to open and I hope you've finished stocking those books."
"I'm done shelving them, thank you very much. I'll be down in a minute, just you wait," Nova yelled down the square opening that allowed one to see the ground floor in the centre of the many flights of stairs. She pocketed the bow tie and tried to stuff the A. Williams book in too, but her pocket was too small.
"Damn these girl pockets," Nova muttered as she reached under her jacket and stuck the small book under her arm, hoping that the manager would not notice. She ran quickly down the steps, passing rainbows of paperbacks and hardcovers of Dickens and Shakespeare and Rowling and Tolkien.
Just as Nova stumbled gracefully off the stairs and onto the ground floor, the bell on the door jingled and the first customer stepped inside.
YOU ARE READING
The Lone Bow Tie
FanfictionNova is an ordinary girl working in a bookshop. She knows that she deserves better, and that's what she gets when she finds a bow tie in the pages of a book. This story is set between the Doctor Who episodes The Angels Take Manhattan and The Snowmen...
