Not my usual style of writing, and I had bigger plans for this chapter, but I wanted to finish it before the creative juices ran out! Enjoy!
Mottled with viridescent vines, the orange hues of the library brickwork were fading against the infiltration of green. The place did not stand tall, nor was it imposing. The public centre was rather subtler in its majesty, with the patchy, unkept grass and creaking doors underselling the treasures hidden inside. Adrian Fletcher knew that appearances could be deceptive. By all counts, his military buzz-cut and black hoody combo screamed trouble-maker, not library-regular. His image was somewhat softened, however, by the woman currently yanking his arm in all the wrong directions, mumbling something about romance novels or the lark. Fletch didn't really care. His mother could do what she liked once they entered those rusting doors – he was heading straight towards the non-fiction section.
Perhaps this was one stereotype Fletch lived up to. He was more focused on messing around in class for his academic studies to be anything better than mediocre, but give the boy something broken and he could fix it, no matter how testing, or how taxing. It was something that made his chest puff in pride, and the thrill of a mechanical puzzle gave him more of a buzz than algebra or Spanish or Keats, or whatever the teachers babbled on about.
When he had almost bid a fine farewell to his arm muscles, the tension dissipated as his mother released him from her overzealous grip. He rubbed his wrist in mock accusation, looking up at her with the best exasperated look an eleven-year-old could manage. She just grinned at him, a grin that he mimicked almost immediately. It was a grin of mutual understanding.
"Meet you back here in fifteen minutes?" His mother asked, as she always did. It was a routine of theirs. They would select their respective books, migrate to the back of the library, read together, and scoff some chocolate whenever the thin-lipped librarian looked away. Fletch would wipe his sticky fingers on the browning pages of whatever book that had taken his interest, and would then, inevitably, be scolded for it.
His eyes lit up in anticipation. "You know it."
Before she could blink, Fletch had skidded over towards his favourite section. Car mechanics. He ran his thumb over the spines of a few volumes, scanning the titles for anything he hadn't already read, to no avail. Huffing, Fletcher, not one to give up easily, hopped in a new direction, over to a batch of books piled precariously on a debilitated table. It was when he could not find one interesting blurb that his attention wavered. That was how he ended up making the make-shift book tower, humming rather loudly to himself as he did so.
"Do you mind? It sounds like you're trying to strangle a cat over there." And that was how his make-shift book tower clattered to the floor, smacked by his arm and thrown by the momentum of his turning around. He cringed at how bloody loud it was, a flush staining his skin red. A red-headed girl, the owner of the voice, he supposed, glared at him disapprovingly, her arms crushing a paperback to her chest.
"Sorry. Sorry." He bent down in a flurry of uncoordinated limbs, scrambling to retrieve the novels, and his dignity. The mysterious girl remained still, watching with something between vexation and…no, just vexation. After what seemed like an age, he had gathered and replaced all the fallen books, straightening in triumph, flashing her a winning and embarrassed smile. The girl just stared at him with an eerily unreadable expression. He squinted at her, fishing for some sense of what she wanted.
She was his age, roughly, and her clothes had seen better days. The thin, dark yellow cardigan wrapped across her small frame was fraying at the sleeves, a few small holes dotted around the hem. Fletch reckoned her sneakers had once been white. Now they were dirtied, the worn material cracking at the heel. Aiming his gaze back upwards, he met her eyes with a stupid look on his face.
"Move."
"What?" He just stared at her dumbly.
"It's how you get from A to B."
"What?"
She rolled her eyes, shoving past him to the ruin of his physics-defying book building, and sifted through carefully. Hand stilling, she lifted a particular volume and examined it, before tucking once of his improvised bricks under her arm. Throwing him a disparaging glare, she sauntered off, and he gawked after her. Fletch jogged to catch up, his curiosity getting the better of him. He'd make the joke about dead cats if he had paid enough attention to his mother's warning idioms.
"Anatomy," he blurted, not able to stop himself. She stopped, tilting towards him, and he could almost feel the sigh ripple through her. Fletch pointed at the book she had chosen, looking rather like a toddler in his attempt to appear anything more than brain-dead. "Anatomy is pretty cool, but I'm more into mechanics meself."
"I don't care." That was blunt. He stuttered a little, at a loss. The girl arched an eyebrow. "Can I go sign these out now?"
Fletch recovered somewhat, managing coherency. "Feel free. Was never stopping ya." She eyed him with thinly veiled annoyance, his accent grating on her withering nerves. "I never seen you round here before, is all. And that's well weird because I know everyone in these parts."
"You can't know everyone," she replied incredulously. At least she was engaging with him. It was a start.
"Swear on my life!" Fletch argued stubbornly, his voice rising an octave. Her lips twitched with touches of mirth. He smiled sheepishly, knowing full well he claimed the impossible. The pause allowed him a cheeky peak at the other book in her possession, determined to keep the conversation going.
"And baking," he exclaimed, craning to read the title half-obscured by her thumb. This mouth diarrhoea was becoming quite the habit. "Got something special coming up?"
Her expression darkened, and Fletch got the feeling he had stumbled on something off-limits. She seemed to retreat back into herself for a few awkward moments, before, to his surprise, she answered him. "I'm turning twelve next week," she confessed, something wistful in her tone. Fletch frowned, confused.
"Can't you just buy a cake? Would be a lot less effort."
She jutted her jaw. "No." And this time, there was a finality threaded into the timbre of her voice. He was struck by the need to fix whatever was bothering her. Fletch figured it would be a big job, repairing something that seemed so broken. He didn't doubt his abilities, however, being the engineering whizz he was.
"Adrian?" His mother stole his concentration for a moment too long, as he glanced over in the direction of the homing call. When he twisted back around, the mystery girl had vanished in a puff of smoke, the non-fiction with her. She hadn't even bothered with stamping them, and Fletch would have been lying if he wasn't a little impressed by her moxie. He supposed she would be back for more. No one could resist the books, or him, for long. Excited by the prospect of seeing her again, a grin crinkled his face. There was something about her. A bit rough around the edges, but with hidden depths. A lot like his library.
"Adrian?" This shook him from his reverie.
"Coming!" He yelled across the room, ignoring the glares he received in return.
He'd wait for her, he decided.
And that's what he did, every day, clutching a homemade and hand-drawn birthday card, until they knocked his library down.
Too broken, they said. Impossible to fix.