Book Girl and Chestnut Boy

Chapter Four

"Hey, sis?" Mark asked as they walked home.

May hardly stopped reading as she addressed him, "Hm?"

"Can we stop by the corner shop?"

She lowered the book. Both her brothers looked defiant, in the way that little kids did when they thought they had everything figured out and had come to the conclusion that the world hated them...oh wait, that was the stereotypical teen. Meh, they weren't too far off. What was another four and six years?

"You little brats," she said, clicking her tongue, "you know the situation we're in. No unnecessary spending! We've got packs of sweets at home!"

"You say that but where do you get all these books from?" Martin, the middle child, said, thrusting his chin at her book.

She scoffed and held up her battered copy of A Wizard of Earthsea. "This? I've had this since I was like seven, way before..." She trailed off. They frowned. She didn't want to finish the sentence. Before Dad disappeared. When things were still good. They wouldn't remember him – Martin had only been four then. "Anyway," she said hurriedly, in an attempt to override the awkward pause, "it's not like I have loads. I just keep reading the same ones over and over again. Stuff I haven't read before, I get that from the library."

"Oh! The library! Can we go?" Mark said, his little face lighting up.

She pulled back the sleeve of her cardigan to check her watch. "...I don't know, guys. I need to make dinner and then do homework too..."

"Oh, come on, May! You never do anything with us!"

"I look after you, don't I?" she demanded. The nerve of these children! As if giving up all her free time during high school hadn't been enough!

"Yeah, because locking the door and then sticking your nose in a book is so hard." Martin rolled his eyes. The teenage was strong with this one. What a worrisome thought!

"All right," she relented. "I guess we can stop by for a bit."

"Yeah!"

And so it was back towards college, since the library lay a block and a half down. She grumbled to herself as she trudged after the excited boys. She didn't know what they were so happy about – they weren't normally the reading sort. But she supposed the week back to school had reintroduced the old tedium of home-school-home-school so even something simple like a trip to the library was enough for a pair of non-book-loving boys to get excited. She felt bad for them.

When they got to the library, they ran off to the kids' section while she tarried behind, scanning every bookshelf that she passed by. They said not to judge a book by its cover but she was always on the lookout for just that. She took her time following them, until someone behind her said, "May?"

She turned and saw Justin, a guy from her Lit class. "Oh, hey, Justin."

He smiled, chubby cheeks becoming even rounder. He had a familiar-looking jacket slung over his arm, along with a stack of books. "I thought it was you! Actually, I was wondering if you could do me a favour."

She frowned. "Um...I'm here with my little brothers right now..." she began.

"It-It's nothing big, I promise!" he said, waving a hand as if warding off any further protest. "I just...In fact, I...You're friends with Layton, aren't you?"

Maybe "friends" was too strong a term, and she certainly didn't sit with the guy in Lit because she wanted to, but she supposed when everybody kept their distance and she didn't, it would look like they were. "I...I guess? Why?"