Counting Sheep

1: Epicallia villica

[if you enjoy this story, please come back and vote on chapter after June 14th! That's when the contest starts! :) editing will take place tomorrow ]

When I got there, there were about fifteen people ahead of me. Twenty minutes later, I was finally standing at the edge of the rope, folding and unfolding my class syllabus. While my peers buried themselves in cell phones and ipod screens I'd been leaning forward across the red velvet, trying to hear what the other people were asking so I'd know how conduct myself.

Great students used our library's resources to its fullest extent. Good students went there when their printer ran out of ink and their professor was a stickler for having tangible copies. And then there was me, the freshman ecology major who had never in my life checked out a book. In elementary school we had a 'library' (a classroom with a some book shelves and the cleanest carpet around).We'd sign our name on little white cards taped to the inside cover and go on our merry way.  I thought I'd see a real library in high school. I heard we had one.

As a proud Bulldog alumni, the most I could do was probably point you in the right direction.

It wasn't that I was a bad student, I just never needed it. There wasn't anything in there that I couldn't find on the internet. And since I lived and breathed softball outside of the classroom, I rarely had time to go.

"Next," wheezed an older woman at the help counter. I glanced at her- a grey-haired with a hunched back and a plaid outfit from a seventies' wardrobe. She needed a step stool to see over the counter (I knew because I'd been here for twenty minutes, watching her sloth her way off and on the thing). Her hair was short and curly. A birthmark shaped like my home state of Louisiana darkened the wrinkles around her frown. A brass name tag pinned to her saggy suit coat read 'Marge.'

I'd been hoping to land the cute guy working at the computer over, but such was my luck.

"Next," she repeated, flat green eyes staring me down.

Taking a deep breath, I strolled up to the polished marble and laid my elbow on the smooth edge casually. "Hi. I'm kind of new to this whole thing and-"

"You're new or you're old," she snapped. "What can I help you with?"

I glanced longingly towards Marge's cute co-worker. He flashed a bright smile and chatted with the lucky girl behind me. "I was looking to check out a copy of this book. I'm not sure how all this works so I thought I'd mosey on over to the help desk." I slid the syllabus across to her. On the back I'd scrawled the name of a title my English professor had suggested to me during office hours. It'd help with my paper, he'd promised. 

She slid the document right back. "Can't read chicken scratch. What's it say?"

"Disciplina Clericalis," I mumbled. Latin wasn't exactly my strong suit.

"Talk louder, girl." More than one head turned at her booming voice. The first two floors and computer room allowed for mellow conversation and tutoring, but I still cringed a little.

"How about I spell it?" I asked. "Or give you the author's name? Petrus Alphonsi?"

She shrugged, fingers hovering across a keyboard. A few minutes of slow and careful spelling later had her leaning back. "Ah, yes. We have an English translation of that text. Very old. Can't be taken out of the library."

"Do you have a digital copy on file? I've got a game tonight in Scranton so I was hoping to take something with me on the bus."

"We do, but there's been a problem with retrieval since this morning. I can put in a request for a copy from Cornell."