Author's Notes: Here's another short. Please read and review!

Disclaimer: I do not own the X-Men.

Chapter 4: X-Men Day at the Library

Scott Summers burst into Professor Xavier's office, brandishing a flyer. His mouth was set in a tight line, and if you could have seen his eyes, they would have been flashing in indignation.

"Professor, you need to see this!" He slammed the flyer down on the Professor's desk. "It's an insult!"

The Professor picked up the paper, and read it. It read as follows:

Spidey reads, too!

Come see Spiderman

at the Salem Center Library

June 19 at 4:00 p.m.

no registration required

"Scott, calm down. It's just a library program."

"But they got Spiderman! Why didn't they ask us? That little wall-crawling twerp isn't even local! He lives in the City!"

"You don't like him?"

"How could you tell?"

"We're getting sidetracked here. You know as the X-Men we try to keep a low profile."

"Still, the X-Men do a lot more good for humanity than Spiderman."

Xavier sighed. "I suppose I could make a call to the library, and offer our services. Would you like to put together the presentation?"

Scott looked surprised. "Well, uh, I'm not really good at that kind of thing..."

Xavier nodded. "Jean and I will put something together."

XXXX

The day of the X-Men's library program arrived. It had been decided that just Xavier and Jean would go. Jean was good at public speaking, she had spoken at the Senate hearing, and done fairly well, even though the audience had not been very receptive. The presentation that the two of them had put together for the library program focused mainly on the importance of reading, and how much reading helped the X-Men in their fight against anti-mutant hatred.

Jean took her place in front of the roomful of kids, ages ranging from four to ten, who were sitting on the floor looking up at her expectantly.

She took a deep breath. "Mutation is the next step in human evolution--"

Suddenly Xavier's telepathic voice interrupted her. Wrong speech, Jean. These are six-year-olds, not senators.

Oh, yeah, sorry, she replied, and started over. "Hi kids! I'm Jean Grey, and I'm one of the X-Men! Before going out to save the world, I like to read books!"

"What kinds of books?" piped up one of the kids.

"All kinds of books."

Another kid raised his hand. "Have you read Captain Underpants?"

"Um, well, no."

A little girl asked, "What about the Powerpuff Girls?"

"Uh, no, not that either..."

"Well, what have you read?"

Jean looked helplessly at Xavier. He pointed at the bag they had brought with them.

"Oh, look, we brought bookmarkers. Everybody gets one!"

As Jean passed out the bookmarkers that said X-Men love to Read on them, she thought to the professor, Well, that could have gone better.

The children seem happy, he replied. They are getting to run around and be noisy.

And so they were.