Banned

"C'mon! Wimp." Sam grinned at me with his gleaming teeth and tousled mousy hair. I was reluctant to go, but I didn't want to disappoint him.

"I'm not a wimp!" I shout-whispered. In an attempt to look brave, which I wasn't, I ran forward, up the worn steps, and barged past him.

I fell into a ghostly room.

"So... What is this place?" I asked. A little too loud. Sam scowled at me and put a slender finger to his lips.

"Look up," he whispered.

I looked up, and saw a billboard. Like the ones in city centre, but they weren't screens. Just pieces of paper stick to it.

Paper?

I scrambled to my feet and grabbed a piece. It was covered in plastic and it said 'welcome to the library'.

"What's this plastic stuff? Heck, what's a library?"

Sam chuckled.

"I've come here before: the plastic is laminated, I think. Isn't it cool, though- real paper?! Not a screen. It's inanimate. I'd never seen paper used before I came here." Sam smiled and took the sheet off of me, pinning it back up proudly as if it was a trophy.

"A library is a house. Like this one. But it's full of books, that you could come and take, then give back,"

"A book? But.. You can only get them on the tablet. How can you borrow a book?"

"Ah, Charlotte. This is the old days. You've just stepped into the past. Welcome to the land of paper books." Sam grabbed my hand and I flushed a fluorescent shade of red. He dragged me through a doorway I hadn't noticed before.

Paper was everywhere. Sheets and sheets of it stacked up on old oak tables as if it wasn't valuable. And wooden shelves crammed with... Were these books?

I untangled my fingers from Sam's and tiptoed over to the nearest shelf. There was another piece of paper, stuck to the top.

'HAVE YOU JOINED THE TEENAGE READING GROUP YET? COME ALONG FOR BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS!'

Teenagers used to have clubs? For reading?

On the tablet, we were instructed to read for thirty minutes per day, and on one chapter of a given book. Every teenager in the Republic read the same part of the same thing at the same time. Mainly it was the history of the Republic. But... These... Books had strange titles printed in ink (ink!) on the sides.

FRANKENSTEIN.

GREA EXPECTATIONS.

SHERLOCK HOLMES.

"What are these?" I absent-mindedly pulled 'Pride and Prejudice,' and a lot of dust, from the shelf.

"That's a book. People used to be able to read whatever they wanted to. Imagine that, Lottie! No history of our Republic. Oh, no. You could read about anything. Worlds that people made up and wrote down. People wrote about fictional rebellions, and-"

Sam sighed and collapsed in a chair, that groaned in protest.

"But the Republic banned it all. Just before paper shortages mean you couldn't buy any books, full stop. They... They burned libraries, Lottie. So many people were inspired; lived on these books. And the Government burned the buildings down."

Tears glinted in Sam's eyes. "I wish they hadn't. I wish there were still books and libraries. They look beautiful. They are beautiful."

"Why would they burn the libraries down?" I already knew the answer to my own question. I turned the book over and over in my hands, then placed it back on the shelf as gently as I could.

"Too many people read about rebellions. Apparently, authors wrote about people who went up against their Governments. The last time I came here, I read about a girl, who was fed up of the way her country was run. She was put into this horrible game by them, but she rebelled, and she built this army..." Sam broke off, and walked over to the shelf behind me. His fingers slid across the books lined up, and landed on one that was black. He pulled it out.

"'The Hunger Games.' That's the book?" I reached out for it and he placed it in my opened palm.

"Only one of the books about rebellion. There were so many, and people were getting ideas. So the Government took action. They burned them all. Libraries with them."

"That's horrible." But understandable... I finished in my head. If people were so influenced by these books, wouldn't you try to stop them?

" I know. This library was forgotten about, though- I've been coming her for weeks now. Whenever I can get out of my job."

"How come you never told me about this?"

"Would you have believed me?" Sam raised a questioning eyebrow. "And- I wasn't sure if I could trust anyone. The Government hears, I'd get executed."

He had a point. Public executions were getting more and more common. It sickened my soul to even think it- but I had gotten used to walking around the city centre Square, whilst somebody in the corner of my vision was hung from the balcony of a building. It could happen to Sam any day if anyone saw him-us- doing this.

"You can trust me. I promise." I laid a comforting hand on his, which was resting on the edge of a table. I squeezed it tentatively. "I want to read, too."

Sam's shoulders relaxed and he looked much more confident all of a sudden. He began rushing from shelf to shelf.

"What would you like to read about?" He'd call over his shoulder in a loud whisper every minute. "Fantasy, or Sci-Fi?"

"I don't know what either of those things are! Surprise me."

Sam appeared behind me, and stifled my scream as he wrapped his scarf over my eyes. He stood me up, and then he placed my hand on a book on the shelf.

"Okay, move your hand. Find a book. Heh, blind date, with a book!"

I giggled and let my fingers glide over the book's sides- spines! They were called spines, according to Sam-and my hand stopped like it had hit a wall after a few seconds. Sam took the scarf off.

"Romeo and Juliet. By William Shakespe-"

The writing on the spine had been damaged.

"Shakespeare, I think, Lottie. I read that he was a famous writer, from hundreds of years ago."

"Can I read it now?"

"Of course you can! Hey, they're not my books."

Three things happened at the same time, and blended together and I couldn't even register them at first.

Sam opened Romeo and Juliet.

The window smashed, and through it jumped an Official clad in armour, clutching a gun.

I screamed.