Author's Notes: This story was originally intended to be a one-shot, but due to the wonderful response I've gotten from you reviewers (Thanks so much, you guys!) and the never-ending inspiration I get every day, I decided a second chapter would be in order. I will never post an unfinished story, so each of these chapters can be read as complete stories.

Disclaimers: I do not own the X-Men. Nor do I own any of the books or movies mentioned in this story. Some of the books are actually made-up – I WISH there was a Making of 'Pirates of the Caribbean'! I am merely having some fun, and am making no profit.

Special Thanks: to my friends and co-workers (you know who you are!) Some of the ideas in here are directly from you guys! I hope you enjoy this!

Chapter 2: The X-Kids go to the Library

Scott Summers walked down one of the many labyrinthine corridors of the school. As he walked by one of the phone stands that were placed around the school, the phone rang. He stopped and picked it up. "Hello. Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters."

"Hello, this is Paige from Salem Center Library. I'm just calling to let you know that the book you requested, Mutation for Dummies, has come in. We'll hold it for you for four days."

"All right, thanks, we'll send someone for it," Scott replied. He hung up the phone and continued on his way to the Professor's office, pleased that he would have at least some good news to tell the Professor. Xavier had been looking forward to reading Mutation for Dummies for some time. And the rest of the news Scott had to discuss with him was just a plain headache.

Scott arrived at the Professor's office, and waited for the Professor's Physics class to end. When it did, the children spilled out of the office, and Scott, dodging the small figures darting off to lunch, slipped inside and went over to sit at Xavier's desk.

"Ah, Scott, good to see you. Would you like some tea?"

"Sure, Earl Grey?"

"Yes," said the Professor, handing the cup to Scott. "Careful, it's quite hot."

Scott took a careful sip, and then said, "The library called. That mutation book you've been waiting for has come in."

Xavier smiled. "Excellent."

"Professor, I thought we should discuss the new girl that we just contacted. The mutant in California."

"Lynn? Yes, what's the problem, Scott?"

"Well...her mutation is the ability to fly."

"Yes, by my estimation, she should be able to become quite skilled at it. Better even than Ororo."

"But..."

"Yes?"

"She's afraid of heights."

The professor smiled. "That is a fear that can be overcome. I wouldn't worry about it, Scott. Now, I'm afraid I'm going to be terrible busy this afternoon, would you mind running over to the library, and picking up my book. And take any of the children with you who might want to go."

Scott sighed, knowing that afternoons were not a pleasant time to be in the library. "Sure, Professor. I know Rogue mentioned something about needing some new books to read."

"Wonderful. Make it so."

Scott wandered off to find Rogue, knowing that he was probably going to be stuck spending the entire afternoon playing chauffeur to a bunch of teenagers, which was not how he had planned to spend the day.

XXXX

At the Salem Center Library, Paige, a young library page, looked up at the clock and her face drained of color. "Oh, no," she said, looking at the head librarian, Marian, with an expression of dread on her face. "It's 3:00." Two of the other staff members, Paul and Jan ran to bar the front doors, but it was too late.

At that moment, the front door flew open, and a stream of kids just out of school, and the parents who had picked them up, started to spill into the library. The library staff dove into action and the next couple of hours were a blur of noise, motion, and problem patrons.

XXXX

"Can I have the bathroom key?" a little boy asked. Jan handed it to him, and then called hopelessly, "Please walk!" as the boy sprinted at top speed toward the restroom.

XXXX

"Excuse me," said a woman. "I'm looking for a book, but I can't remember the title."

"Do you know the author's name?" asked Paul, ready to type it into the search engine.

"No, but it has the word 'the' in it."

XXXX

"You guys need to quiet down, okay? You're being too loud," Marian told a group of teenagers sitting at a table, "studying." There was a few moments of quiet, before the noise level steadily and inevitably rose again to a level that would eventually cause deafness in the ears of all the library staff.

XXXX

A man came to the front desk. "I got this letter saying I have this video overdue, but I know I returned it."

"Hmmm, let's see. 'Pirates of the Caribbean: the Curse of the Black Pearl.' It's a DVD, it was due on March 2nd."

"Yeah, I returned it."

"Well, the computer says it's still checked out to you. Maybe you could look at home, or in your car?"

"No. It's impossible that I didn't return it. There is no doubt. I did return it. It's you people. It's your fault!"

XXXX

A teenage girl approached the desk, looking confused. "I'm looking for Lord of the Flies."

"Yes, that's in the fiction section, under Golding."

"Where's that?"

"The fiction section is right over there."

The girl, still looking confused, wandered in that direction. She returned a few minutes later. "I can't find it."

Sighing inwardly, Paige led her over to the G's and pointed at the book sitting on the shelf, right in its spot. "What school do you go to?"

"West Salem High."

"Do they teach you the alphabet there?

"Uh, yeah, I think so."

XXXX

And so chaos reigned in the Salem Center Library. And a dark blue mini-van swerved into the parking lot, and swung into a parking space, narrowly missing the car next to it. The driver grinned, and the five passengers all breathed huge sighs of relief.

"See, told you I was a good driver," said Jubilee triumphantly.

Scott released his death grip on the dashboard, and turned to look at her. "It's a miracle we made it here alive."

"What? I did a good job!"

"I think that SUV back on Sycamore Street would disagree," put in Bobby, who was carefully disengaging his hand from Rogue's gloved one. He was pretty sure she might have broken one of his fingers. Rogue reached for the door handle, getting ready to open the big sliding door, and looked around for Kitty. However, Shadowcat was already standing outside, having exited the vehicle in her own unique way as soon as the car had come to a stop, not waiting for anyone to open the door.

"C'mon. And I get to drive on the way back." Rogue hopped out of the car followed by Bobby. Logan glared at Scott. "I can't believe I let you talk me into coming. Couldn't you have gotten Jeannie or someone to come with you?"

Scott shrugged. "I told you, she was teaching a class. And you wanted to renew that book of yours anyway. And I sure wasn't going to get stuck with a carload of teenager by myself!"

XXXX

Upon entering the library, the X-Men scattered. Scott went to the math section in the 500s. Bobby wandered off to look at the comic books. Logan paused to take a look at the display case, which this month was featuring an exhibit on the mating habits of wolverines. Rogue, Jubilee and Kitty went straight up to the front desk, to talk to Jan who was checking in a pile of books. They started chatting.

Meanwhile, a few feet away, a woman was checking out a stack of books. Paul scanned the books and printed out the receipt and handed it to the woman. "Okay," he said. "They'll be due on the 10th."

"The 10th of next month?" she clarified, just to be sure.

Paul pretended to take a closer look at the receipt. "Oh you're right, it was the 10th of last month! Sorry, ma'am, they're overdue."

Looking worried, the woman studied her receipt, before wandering off to drop her books in the book drop outside.

XXXX

"...and so I said, 'I'm just going to quit school and go work in a bar!'" Jan was just finishing a story, and Rogue and Jubilee broke into giggles.

"You didn't! But what about the polar bear--" Jubilee started.

"...in the jungle!" Rogue finished, giggling hysterically.

Logan was standing off to the side, looking at them funny. "You kids are weird," he said, before turning and stepping up to the desk.

He slammed his book, Complete Idiot's Guide to Experimentation on Mutants, on the desk. "I wanna check this out again."

"You want to renew it?" Paige clarified, before scanning it into the computer. "Oh, you've already renewed it once, you can't renew it again. Sorry."

"Oh really?" Snikt. Paige looked at the six-inch adamantium claws and quickly typed the override into the computer. The receipt printed out and she handed it to Logan. "It'll be due on the 10th. Have a nice day."

Logan headed for the door and was nearly bowled over by several young children were running inside, apparently finished with their game of playing outside in the trashcan. He managed to dodge the children, and successfully made his escape to the relative calm of the spring afternoon.

Jan broke off her conversation to call to the kids. "Hey, no running in here!" She held up a paper clip, threateningly.

Jubilee grinned. "Do it, do it!"

Rogue asked, "Do what?"

Jubilee grinned some more. "Didn't you know what her mutant ability is?"

Rogue looked at Jan with astonishment. "You're a mutant? Why don't you go to the school?"

"I did. I graduated. I'm in my second year of college now."

"Rogue, how did you think we knew her? She used to go to Xavier's. Not everyone sticks around to become X-Men," Kitty explained.

"So what's your ability?" Rogue asked curiously of Jan.

"I can make kids disappear. I infuse an object with my disappearing power and throw it, and whatever it touches, disappears. Paper clips are my weapons of choice. I try to restrain myself here, though. The parents will get kinda mad when they come to pick up their kids and they're not here."

"Where do they go when you disappear them? Do they come back?"

"Yeah, I can bring them back. The people I've disappeared say they were in a sort of blank place. Kinda boring there."

Kitty nodded at Paul. "Y'know, Paul's a mutant, too. He's a shapeshifter."

Rogue looked at him with interest. "Really? What kinds of things can he shapeshift into?"

Paul was listening to his walkman, and didn't hear that they were talking about him. Jan threw an unpowered paper-clip at him, and he looked up, turning his music off.

"Paul, get over here. Rogue, Kitty and Jubilee want to know about your powers."

He came over, but then the phone rang and he grabbed it, answering, "Salem Center Library."

While Paul talked to the patron on the phone, the girls continued to discuss Paul's abilities.

"Sometimes, he'll go out into the bookshelves, and shapeshift into a book, then throw himself off the shelf, right at a patron's head. It really freaks people out."

After having a good laugh about the hapless patrons being scared out of their wits by books jumping off the shelves, Kitty took herself off, saying she really needed to get a few books.

"I should get some, too. That's what I came for. And I should see what Bobby is up to." Rogue went off in the same direction Kitty had.

A ten-year-old girl ran up to the desk and said, "Can I have a pencil?"

"No," Jan said, and passed the girl a pencil.

Jubilee looked at Jan with a mischievous glint in her eyes. "I have an idea."

Paul got off the phone, and said in a very satisfied tone. "The lady on the phone was looking for a book. She said she was here earlier, and she said we didn't have it. I checked, and it was right there on the shelf. I told her to try the Southeast Branch. So she went there and they told her to call us." He chuckled.

"Okay, well, if you're done sending the patrons on wild-goose chases, Jubilee here has an idea."

"Oh, no."

XXXX

Bobby had picked out a couple of comic books that he wanted to check out and was now wandering around looking for the other X-kids. He found Scott heading toward the desk, carrying a pile of algebra and trigonometry books. He caught up to him, and said, "Hey, have you seen Rogue?"

Scott stopped and looked around. His face crumpled and he started saying in a tone of despair, "She's gone. She's gone... She's gone!"

"Scott! Snap out of it. You're having another flashback to Alkali Lake! Stop it and help me find Rogue!"

Scott straightened up. "Oh. Okay. There's Jubilee, maybe she knows where Rogue is." They headed toward Jubilee, who saw them coming and met them halfway.

"Hey Jubes, you seen Rogue?" Bobby asked her.

Jubilee grinned. "Oh yeah, she's back there, in the 700s." She pointed to a corner of the library.

"700s! That's the movie books! She's probably looking all googly-eyed at that Orlando Bloom book again!" He ran off toward the 700s.

Jubilee snorted, and told Scott in a side whisper, "Nah, she likes Johnny Depp better."

XXXX

Bobby skidded around a corner, and found Rogue and Jan looking at The Making of 'Pirates of the Caribbean'. Rogue looked up, closing the book, but making sure to keep her place marked in the section about Jack Sparrow.

Bobby tried to look casual, like he wasn't illogically and insanely jealous of that pretty-boy Orlando. "Hey, Ro-" But he didn't get to finish whatever casual excuse he had made up about his sudden appearance, because at that moment a small paperclip hit him on the forehead and he vanished.

Rogue looked at Jan a little worriedly. "You will be able to bring him back, won't you?"

"Of course, don't worry about that. The important thing is now we know it works on teenagers."

Bobby reappeared suddenly, looking confused. "What was that!"

"Just a test, hon. Now what?" Rogue turned to Jubilee.

Jubilee looked at Paul. He sighed, "Fine." He headed off in the direction of the side of the library the younger kids normally congregated in.

XXXX

In the children's section of the library, Scott was picking out a stack of books to take back to the school for some of the younger kids. "Let's see," he said under his breath, "Okay, we've got Series of Unfortunate Events, Lizzie McGuire, Pokemon, Mary Kate and Ashley --" he grimaced at that one, "-- and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. This should work for all the pre-teens at the school." Since mutation usually manifested at puberty, Xavier's was home to children as young as 10 or 11 years old. Which meant Scott and the other teachers often had to endure such pre-teen interests as the dreaded Mary Kate and Ashley.

Suddenly, Scott noticed an odd person walking into the children's section. A tall, thin man had suddenly leapt onto one of the low tables, and struck a rather ridiculously heroic, but menacing pose. "I am," he called out in a threatening tone, with a flourish of his arms, "the villainous Count Olaf!" The kids had all fallen silent and were just staring at him. "Count Olaf" glanced at Scott, and asked in a stage whisper, "Is this not scary enough?" Scott just stared at him, as bewildered as the kids.

"Count Olaf" began to shimmer and melt, and became a rather ugly pirate, a hook for a hand. "Do you not know who I am?" he bellowed. "It is I, the fearsome Captain Hook! I am going to make you all walk the plank! Argghh!"

"Cool!" yelled one of the kids. The rest of them grinned and giggled, delighted at this new entertainment.

"Captain Hook" slumped his shoulders in defeat, and the shimmering and melting effect took place once again, leaving behind a dejected looking mutant library page named Paul. Then inspiration struck him. "Hey kids! There's pizza! Outside!"

"Yeah!" Immediately the kids formed a stampede to the park outside the library. Within moments the children's section was deserted.

Scott, reveling in the sudden peace and quiet, looked at Paul. "Nice work."

"Thanks."

XXXX

Meanwhile on the other side of the library, Jan was hard at work, holding a cup full of paper clips, carefully taking aim, and letting fly her paper clips of doom. One by one, teenagers were disappearing, leaving behind cell phones which clattered to the floor. Any teen who tried to escape was thwarted by Jubilee, Rogue, Kitty and Bobby, who were able to use their unique powers to keep anyone from getting out of the area that they had corralled them into. Within ten minutes, all the teenagers were gone.

Jubilee plopped down at one of the now-vacated tables, and snatched a bag of M&Ms from the backpack of one of the disappeared teenagers. "Success!"

The other X-kids and Jan joined her at the table. "Wow," Jan said. "It's so ... quiet in here." She smiled in relief.

"How long can you keep all those teenagers disappeared?" Rogue asked.

"Well, I've never disappeared this many people at once. But I think I can hold them until 6, the time when they usually head home."

Just then, Paul and Scott came over, followed soon after by the head librarian, Marian, and the other library page, Paige.

"Are you kids responsible for this?" Marian asked.

Jubilee grinned. "It was my idea. But Paul and Jan did all the real work."

Marian and Paige joined the group sitting down, each grabbing a handful of M&Ms. "Well, it's brilliant. It hasn't been this quiet at this time of day in ages."

Rogue considered Paul and Jan. "You guys did a great job. Scott, don't you think they should join the X-Men?"

Scott frowned. "I'm not sure if this is a misuse of their powers. But ... it's for a good cause!" He reached in and grabbed some candy, taking some and handing the bag over to Paul.

For a few lovely, quiet moments, the group sat, eating candy, and occasionally making a comment about how nice the silence was. The adult patrons in the library wondered where all the kids had gone to, but were mainly relieved that it was quiet enough to think, for a change.

Just then, Logan came bursting in, running over to the table where our conspirators sat eating candy. He was looking rather disheveled, with leaves and twigs all over his clothes and in his hair.

"What did you guys do?" He yelled. "I was sitting out in the park, minding my own business, having a cigar, when a pack of kids swarmed me, demanding to know if I was the pizza guy. I had to start cutting animal figures out of the bushes with my claws to entertain them. They're wild! We gotta get out of here. I made a topiary maze, but that'll only hold their attention for so long. Come on!"

Jan sighed. "Well, we had a few moments of peace, anyway. Thanks guys. It's been fun."

Paul said, "I'll go check out your books for you, while Jan starts bringing the teens back." Paul, Scott, Logan and the X-kids headed over to the front desk to check out their books. Teens starting popping back into existence, looking extremely confused, while the children started trickling back into the library, having gotten bored inspecting the topiary sculptures created for them by Logan, who was now considering a career as a gardener.

The X-kids bid goodbye to their librarian friends, and ran out to the car, arguing about whose turn it was to drive. "C'mon Edward Scissorhands," Scott said to Logan. "Let's get back to the mansion and try to explain this to the professor."

"Hey pal, I'm not the one who had the idea to come to the library during after-school hours."

"No, you're the one who decided to cut all the bushes into life-size animal figures," Scott shot back, as they walked past a couple of dinosaur-shaped hedges on the way back to the car.

The library returned to it's normal noisy situation as the X-Men drove away, the X-kids satisfied in a job well-done. At least they had been able to give their friends a few moments of peace.

XXXX

Back inside the library, Marian asked wistfully, "Are any of them looking for a job?"

Author's Notes: Okay, that's the end! I do have ideas for further chapters, so if you like this, please review!