A Nosy Librarian

The serenity of hearing nothing but the faint sounds of scribbling pens, murmuring voices, and flipping pages were all music to my ears. There truly is no better environment for one to sleep in, but I’d dare not try the act. It’s my first year of duty, he who gazed at books now officially takes care of them!

As a second-year, I wore a light gray necktie. The student who had just entered the library wore teal, a first-year. It looked like she didn’t know this place very well. It must be her first time venturing into our school’s beautiful library. An afternoon student by the looks of it since first-years don’t have club activities this early into the academic year meaning there'd be no reason she'd stay this late. Library committee is an exception of course, since in spite of it being categorized as a club it functions throughout the school year from start to finish.

“I’m zoning out again,” I whispered to myself. I took a deep breathe and then continued arranging the books in the shelves in front of me. “What am I doing staring at an underclassman?”

I fixed the little name plate the school librarian made for me. ‘Arthur’ was engraved on it as it lay attached to my dark blue vest. Every time a few books would fall out, or some would get returned, I’d be the one assigned to put them back and arrange them. As I finished fixing the volumes, I then sat behind the librarian’s desk. There’s usually nobody here in the library during these hours. Although, it was odd that there were a lot of students who came here a while back and had just returned their books. Sir Darren is probably bullying his students with literature work again.

Oh, there was the girl who entered a while ago. I never noticed her pick up a book. Surely, she wouldn’t loiter in the library. I had thought that since it was mid-afternoon, she must have come here to pass her vacant time by studying or reading a story or two, something I used to do.

As I walked around the library to look for her, I realized that never had I been more wrong in my life. What I had stopped myself from doing for years, this freshman nonchalantly did on her first day here especially with me on duty. With her raven hair tied in a low ponytail, she slept soundly on a table.

“Hey. wake up.” I tapped her shoulder causing no response. This was a trivial matter I’d rather not trouble myself with, however, sleeping in front of the air-conditioning, “You’ll get a cold if you sleep here too long.”

I hope you're comfortable right now. I wonder what kind of annoyed expression I have right now.

She murmured something incoherent under her breath. I decided to leave her alone for a while, but after half an hour, her sleepy demeanor was faint as she was quick to leave the room with unkempt hair after I unintentionally dropped a few books from the shelves behind her.

She sat at the same seat, slept at the same table, with the same position the next day. Half an hour later, a stack of books I definitely worked hard to set up unfortunately came tumbling down causing a ruckus in the library. I had caused myself to get entangled with matters completely irrelevant to me.

She came again the day after that. I unintentionally caused noise again. And the day after that, I accidentally dropped a bunch of books near her.

It was the end of the week; I didn’t have any library duties. I was walking around the school’s corridors and when I had blinked, I was already in front of the library’s glass doors. How miserable.

“What’re you doin’ here?” The old woman scowled at me. “You’re supposed to be enjoyin’ your Fridays! Like a regular student! Go on and scurry home, brat!”

“I have homework. I need some material for reference.”

It was a good thing she didn’t notice that it was an awkward time of the day for me to be looking for books. My classes ended two hours ago. I have to fix my habit of wasting time like that. I wandered around the bookshelves looking for trouble.

“She’s not here today.”

And so, I went home. Well, I was supposed to until I saw a somewhat familiar ponytail passing through the canteen.

“Hey, Rachelle?” A female freshman called out to her friend, “Why’re you always missing during our breaks?”

“Oh, about that!” Rachelle enthusiastically replied. “I’m always at the library. There’s this noisy librarian there, but I like this magical spot near the air-con because it always somehow gets me to class on time!”

“Why aren’t you going there today?”

“I have a gut feeling that it won’t work this time.”