The Hobbit: An Unexpected Reading
"Here you are, ma'am." Malik whispered as he handed something to Kitty. He was quiet as to not wake up Logan, who was snoring lightly in the bed next to her.
She smiled widely and murmured, "Thank you so much. I'm dying of boredom." Kitty took the book and opened it, her eyes craving the words on the pages. Malik left Kitty to her reading, which she had been at for an hour when someone spoke.
"What is that?"
Kitty yelped in surprise and gripped the book in her hands, ready to use as a weapon. Her eyes softened, then became slightly annoyed when she saw it was just Logan. "I thought you were asleep."
"I'm not allowed to wake up?" Logan asked as he sat up in his bed.
"You are," Kitty nodded as she reopened her book. "Just not when I'm reading."
"I thought the doctors said we couldn't have outside things in here." He nodded to her contraband.
"I convinced Malik to sneak me in some Hobbits, Dwarves, and Elves." She held up the cover for him to see. "That way I wouldn't try to escape the bubble."
"Is it good?"
Kitty looked up with surprise. "You've never read 'The Hobbit'?" He shook his head. "Want to?" She held up the book for him, but Logan didn't take it.
"Not much of a reader." He told her.
"Oh." Kitty considered this before asking, "Do you want me to read it out loud?"
"You've already started-"
"It's fine." She assured him. "I've read it over a dozen times now." Kitty flipped back to the first page and smiled up at Logan. "You'll like it." She promised in a sing-song voice.
"Okay." Logan agreed, nodding his head.
"In a hole in the ground lived a Hobbit." Kitty started reading. "Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and a oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: It was a Hobbit hole…"
When a nurse came in to check their vitals, she was not entirely surprised to see that the two patient's beds were pushed together. Logan was laying on his bed so he was facing Kitty, who was still reading from the book. "Uh," The hazmat-suited nurse stopped and pointed to the object in Kitty's hand. "I don't think you're supposed to have that."
Kitty, without breaking eye contact with the nurse, slowly tucked the book behind her pillow and asked, "Not supposed to have what?" Logan looked over at the woman with what he hoped was an innocent expression.
"The book that you've stashed behind your pillow." The nurse pointed a gloved finger at Kitty, who just shook her head.
"I've got no idea what you are talking about." She said, batting her eyelashes.
The nurse rolled her eyes and started to take her vitals. Then, to Logan's annoyance, she insisted on checking on him. As the nurse walked out of the clean room, she glanced over her shoulder and said, "Don't let the doctors see that book."