The autumn drizzle was already setting in on the first day of a new academic year. Pulling into the campus grounds, the bus was packed with both freshers exchanging meet-and-greets and returning students catching up with eachother on the events of the long summer, not a thought spent on the lectures that were to come.
One young woman sitting on the bus had thought, one year ago, that she had done this return for the last time. After crossing the final gauntlet of education, Perri was certain a placement in some swish new tech job was waiting for her.
Well, that was on hold for a while. In the meantime, she pleaded a few final favours from the librarian to get her an interview for a job on tech support. She still lived on beans, but after getting a job in the library on the old campus, and sharing a rent with some ballet dancer she somehow become friends with over the last few years, she at least kept the lights on.
Perri never came to Bleu Demone Campus much, the Yzma L.O Campus she went to was where she got her Computer Science degree, and was a magnificent world of glass and metal, everything felt practically new, and it was. Bleu was where the university started, focused on the arts, and was an ancient ground of mossy old stone buildings, structurally sound in the same sense that the Pyramids were. The library was an old converted church, and was black from grime. She could inhale the dust from a mile away.
Whoever was running that building, she guessed, had to be a million years old.
She was the last off the bus, noting that it probably wasn't a good show for the first day on the job to come in at the same time as the students. She turned until she set eyes on the Front Office, deciding that it was where she had to go to get her stuff. Covering her hair from the drizzle, irritatingly becoming a light shower, she took her first steps on her first 'real' job.
They were nearly her last, she reflected on later, when her crossing of the road came close to turning lethal, as a blue and white blur sped past her, mere feet in front of her.
"Hey!", she cried out, doing a full 360 as she jumped back from the blur. Steadying herself, she saw it continue down the road through the campus. Pushing her glasses back up, the blur came into focus, and confusion gave to anger as it turned into a blue motorcycle, rider in a helmet and white tanktop.
"Watch where you're going, you-", many words passed through her mind, only at the last moment did she catch herself. She was now staff, this was her workplace, and she had to set an example of behaviour.
"You, CLOD!"
The incident of the morning aside, she soon got her keys from the office and had settled into her new domain. The computer suite was an extension to the original church building, a 'new' addition that was still twice as old as she was. She didn't think the felt floor was that exact colour when it was first put in, but it was mostly clean and, more importantly, quiet.
Perri waited for calls for assistance and, by midday, she was bored.
Minesweeper beckoned her on the old PC sitting on what was now her desk, but she resisted. She supposed she should at least get to know the layout of the building, and she hadn't even met the librarian that had to be somewhere inside. She never was much of a charmer, she thought, but it was better to meet her coworkers while they were in something of a greeting mood. She might even find something to read.
The library section was a labyrinth, three stories built inside the old main hall of the church, and she saw books on countless topics, literature, history, painting, maths, politics, economics, and the bottom levels built deep underneath the building housed some books that looked one, maybe two hundred years old. The whole maze felt heavy with the knowledge nearly trapped inside the stone walls.
Perri worried about getting lost and starving to death. She didn't even have breakfast this morning. Yes, not a good show on the first day at all.
After what may have been five minutes or an hour, at last found her place again, and arrived to a space that framed the main entrance to the library.
There, finally, she met another human being, sitting behind the desk at the side of the space. And she was a surprise.
She looked about Perri's age, dark skinned, with dyed blue shoulder-length hair. The hair was her main and only extravagance, other than that she was the most Librarian librarian Perri had ever set eyes upon. Her light brown sweater looked several sizes too large, her blue scarf nearly covered her entire neck, and her furrowed brow hid behind a pair of large round glasses, not too different from Perri's own. Her cheeks were rounder and fuller than Perri's narrow face and sharp chin, and her lips were quietly muttering as she kept full attention on the book she had six inches from her eyes. She hadn't noticed Perri at all.
"Emmm..." Perri began, moving towards the desk to get her attention. "Hello?"
"Ahh!", gasped the librarian, finally noticing Perri, dropping her book onto the desk and whipping her neck to face her. "I'm really sorry, I..."
She seemed to have a bigger need for glasses than Perri, her pair had to be twice as thick for them to be so magnified, but even then they seemed to get larger as they stared at Perri. Both women were motionless, the librarian moving her jaw in a futile attempt to form words and Perri herself frozen and beginning to sweat at the eyes studying her face as intently as she had studied hers.
Just as Perri was beginning to worry if she had a stutter, she was beaten in being the first to speak again. "I, I, apologies, Miss, first day back is always a bother." Her voice was soft, steady, more calm than outright posh. Perri liked it.
"Nono, it's alright, it happens to the best of us!", replied Perri, suddenly aware of her 'nasally slobbish geek' tone when compared to the librarian.
The librarian rubbed her chin, her hands disappeared up the huge sleeves of her sweater. "So, well, can I help you with anything? I imagine it's a strange new experience coming to university!", she offered, along with a smile of pure innocence.
Perri blushed, as much to the smile as to her long-running case of vertical disadvantagement. "Ehh, actually, I'm the new I.T. here, thought I'd stop over, meet the coworkers."
The smile disappeared into a look of pure horror. "Oh my word, I'm so sorry! Oh, I was told we would get a fulltime computer technician, but they weren't at their desk in the...well, never mind that, it's good to meet you!" She jutted out her right hand, holding it straight as a board, though visibly trembling. Perri decided to put her out of her misery and accepted the handshake, "I'm the librarian here, Laplace Lassoli. Not 'La Plass' as in the famous mathematician, but 'La Pièce' as in the phrase, 'La pièce de résistance', French for 'the main meal'." she greeted, ending with a nervous chuckle. She was still shaking Perri's hand. "On most days it is just me and Amy, our archivist, although it seems she believes the year has yet to begin. One thing you should know about her, she's in Greek Studies, and she is a true student of Aristippus!"
Perri did not know who that was, and she decided to not challenge it. Mercifully, Laplace let go of her hand.
"Yeah, I can't wait to meet her. I'm Perri Fifecksgee, by the way. Don't ask me to spell that." It only just then occurred to her that she only planned as far as giving her name. "Umm, do you..." Blank. Panic. Autopilot. "Do you want to get some coffee?"
Her cheeks burned red as she realised what she just said, and on seeing Laplace's reaction. "E-eh-excuse me?!", exclaimed Laplace, her own cheeks beginning to blush.
Perri's mind raced to explain itself. "Ah! I mean, well, it's, it's the afternoon, and I think maybe we should get a coffee and a sandwich? Like, I bring you something if-"
Laplace couldn't have replied any more quickly, "Nonono, I understand you, yes, that is an excellent idea, let us go-, she cut herself off, turning her face to look at something behind Perri. Perri turned to see it herself, and to her horror saw three students, two lankey twin sisters with dyed red hair, and a third shorter girl with a head of strawberry blonde so thick her eyes were hidden to the world, all looking at them.
"Are, are you girls in need of assistance?", asked Laplace, struggling to keep her voice from cracking. The twins looked at eachother, and one of them answered, "No, Miss, we're alright."
"Alright.", Laplace turned back to Perri. "Then I suppose we shall get a bite to eat."
Perri and Laplace were in such a hurry to leave the building, they didn't overhear the students talking, and neither had any interest to.
"Wow, Rue, who do you think Ms. Lassoli was talking to?", spoke one of the twins.
Rue replied, "I'm not sure, Tilly, she must be a fresher, but I didn't see her in lectures."
The shorter one let out a loud gasp, before declaring, "Ms. Lassoli has just met someone!"
Tilly pinched her own nose. "You don't say, Paddy?"