Paper Walker

Chapter 3

The day seems to be dragging. Isla hounds me with questions about the booklet, which I all politely brush off. After all, I have to be trustworthy when I'll claim I've lost it in three weeks. It's also the reason I didn't bring it with me to school. That, and to keep me from reading it before eight o'clock this evening. What does happen, is that I get terribly distracted by all the questions I plan to ask Sorley when I'm back there.

During my English class I google mansions in Ireland, during Math I calculate he's about one hundred and forty-eight years old. Bummer. Isla distracts me at Dutch by chatting about her book, which she finished already. I'm not really paying attention, but it occurs to me that I can experience the stories she reads in a very different way. She would be insanely jealous if she knew. Would I be able to bring her with me into the story? That would be weird. And dangerous. Not something for a random test. Suppose I lost her and she gets stuck in there. However if it were possible, you would also be able to bring people out of the book. That is something I have to look into. I think I read something about it in the blue booklet. I just can't remember what it was.

"Are you coming to the café, later?"

I blink a few times to clear my head. In the meantime Isla continues: "The others are coming too."

The 'others' are three girls and two boys, one being Isla's boyfriend. They're more Isla's friends than mine. Most of the time I just hang around. Sometimes I make up an excuse to stay away, but today I can use the distraction. All four girls are bookworms and I think they find me rather curious for never reading a book. Oh well, that's about to change.

I nod and receive a radiant smile.

---

Less than an hour later I'm in almost the same spot as the day before. Only the situation is now completely different. The sun is shining, for one, but I also feel different. Relieved, if that's the right word for it. Relieved I don't have to behave so spastic any more whenever someone comes up with a book. That I don't have to stress out during English or Dutch and that I won't be so ridiculous in the eyes of the three girls who are now laughing about Isla's report on my adventure yesterday. My grin is a bit phony, but I'm glad they can joke about it.

"Had to be a real interesting book", Britt wiggles her eyebrows.

Ay, how am I suppose to respond to that? "Well, no, not so much."

"Really, you were completely off the grid for the remainder of the day. Glued with your nose to the pages, I swear." Isla pokes my arm with a finger.

"It's more a description than a story, actually. About a manor house in Ireland. I've been there once, so it was all very familiar." I'm not lying, not really. I have been there, haven't I.

Okay, I'm not completely rid of my curious-label yet. However the fact that I do read, is a vast improvement. They are actually surprised I can discuss some of the same books. But when I mention my e-reader, I get a bunch of pursed lips. Oh, right, this is the hard copy forever clique. I forgot.

While they chat about Three Tears, which they apparently all read, and the boys are playing with the giant chess set, my mind drifts of to Sorley in the nineteenth century. What would he be doing now? More parties? Or just work? He could be one of those clerk-people, writing down numbers all day and composing letters and walking around with a clip-board. Oh well, it's better than being the farm hand I suppose. Then I would have to talk to him between horse manure and prickly piles of hay. I never really became a horse girl.

At five o'clock we say goodbye. There's still some homework that needs to be done. After all I can't flunk this year.

At home I decide to fabricate a potato dish, seeing we're almost out of left-overs. We don't really have a cooking schedule, my mum and me. On weekdays she's mostly home late and she likes to cook elaborately in the weekend. My own culinary skills are quite impressive, if I say so myself, but I usually don't feel like it.