"So, who're you then?" said the girl, fastening the waistbelt on her clunky backpack and wedging the book between the strap and her body to keep it in place.
"Well, I'm the Doctor. Apart from that, it's a really long story. Do you always carry your books like that when you're not reading them?"
Sorry? oh, well it helps when i need both hands. Also, if i don't have a bookmark, i can hang it over the strap to mark my place." She demonstrated quickly, holding the book parallel to the strap in question, tucking half of the pages against her, and the rest on the other side. The effect was something like papery washing hung over a line.
Laughter sprung up from the mysterious doctor. "And to think, Orla, to think, whole races have evolved extra appendages, when they could've just... hung it over the strap!" He made a series of hand gestures at blurred speed, and then an odd noise halfway between a click of the tongue and a hiccup, and then laughed again, in peals of redoubled mirth.
Such hilarity seemed to be lost on the young girl however, who simply smiled, one eyebrow raised in query. The Doctor shook his head dismissively, the ghost of laughter still present in his demeanor. "No, sorry, inter-species humor. If you were an alpha centuri, you'd be in hysterics."
He gained only a look of amused skeptism for his troubles. "What are you a doctor of then?"
"Hah! Many things," he said with another of his brilliant grins. "Right now, trying to get ships out of hedges when the grav-sensor malfunctions." He tapped the blue corner and gave it a wry glance.