The library

June 4th 2003

My leg bounced up and down under my desk as I try to answer the seemingly endless sheet of maths equations. I couldn't concentrate. It was all because of the noise.

The two storey maths department overlooks the small music building and more often than not, the noise of various different instruments rises up to the maths classrooms. However, now that the weather was boiling, all windows were open as far as they could go which seemingly made the noise a thousand times worse.

Furthermore, this time it wasn't just instruments. There was someone shouting the lyrics to The Strokes' song "Last Nite"  in a terrible American accent. Although the voice was muffled, you could make out some words and the instrumental was enough to give away what song was being covered awfully.

The bell snapped me out of my thoughts and I groaned to myself as I realised I had missed an entire sheet of questions due to my thoughts. I stood up quickly, picked up my bag, handed my questions to the teacher and ran out the classroom; I wasn't friends with anyone in that class anyway.

Storming down the stairs, I reached the doors of the maths building and pushed them open, marching towards the music building. I entered the small, one storey cabin and the noise was still as loud as ever but the song had changed now. I creeped quietly to the closed door the noise was coming from and leaned against the wall as I listened.

"She's been thinking, well fuck it all I'm not going home today."

I raised my eyebrows and grinned as I listened to the lyrics being delivered at fast pace in a horrible American accent.

"And she's been eating too much magic beans to walk home anyway"

I kept smiling at the lyrics but eventually couldn't prevent a loud giggle escape me as the singer mumbled the next lyrics as if he had forgotten them. What I didn't take into account was that the music had stopped as I continued to laugh into my hand behind the door.

"What ya laughing at?"

The voice quickly brought me back to reality and my head snapped to the a familiar face. It was the boy from the library who sat in the chair. Although he looked down at me slightly, I still realised that he wasn't anywhere near tall. He clearly had a high pitched voice for a boy his age but he had purposefully made it deeper as he spoke to me.

"The singing." I grinned at him and folded my arms. I was trying my best to act confident but I could feel my cheeks beginning to redden.

"What was bad about it?" He was frowning but his voice was lighter than before.

"They just missed out that last line completely." I said and smiled innocently, holding my hands behind my back.

"By they, you mean me...library girl. I'm the singer." He smirked slightly and folded his arms.

By now I felt my entire face beginning to heat up as I averted my gaze to his feet. I thought for a second before looking back up to him and speaking. "It's actually Charlotte." He looked at me confused. "My name. My name's actually Charlotte, not library girl." I said quietly.

He seemed to think about what I had just said for a few seconds before thrusting a hand forward and smiling. "I'm Alex. Alex Turner."

I smiled and shook his hand. "Charlotte Baker."

"Good to make your acquaintance Charlotte. Sorry about the whole...y'know...library incident with Matt yesterday." He said slightly sheepishly as he withdraw his hand and itched the back of his neck. So that's the name of desk boy. Matt...

"No, it's all fine," I lied, "I found a quieter place after that anyway." I said with a small smile. He nodded awkwardly and looked down at the ground. "You got a band?" I asked. At this his face instantly lit up and he nodded enthusiastically.

"Yeah that's what's going on right now. We're doing rehearsals and all that. We're called Arctic Monkeys... I-I know it's a stupid name but my mate came up with it and we're gonna change it." Words tumbled out of his mouth.

I smiled slightly. Alex was cute. "I like it."

"What?"

"The name. The Arctic Monkeys. I like it."

"No, there's no the it's just Arctic Monkeys. But thank you... I guess."

I nodded awkwardly and looked down. "I'm gonna go then...oh yeah can you please keep it down? People in maths can't concentrate." I smiled pleadingly.

Alex grinned and nodded. "Yeah we can turn it down a bit."

I smiled and nodded before slowly turning around and walking out the music building.