*Brrrring! Brrring! Brrr-*

"Hello? Yes? Okay, one moment." Dad put his hand over the mouth piece on his cell phone, and addressed Riley and Mom, who had stopped just ahead of him. "Go on ahead; I'll be ready when it's time to check out, I promise."

"Okay Dad!" Riley dashed up to the waiting library doors, pulling one open for her mother. Mr. Andersen stepped to the side of the entrance, resuming his conversation. It was Tuesday, and Riley had managed to see The Empire Strikes Back on Saturday and Return of the Jedi on Sunday. After weathering two days of school, Mom and Dad were finally taking her to the local library, which fortunately did not close until late at night. Of course, nothing is ever easy in HQ.

"How are we going to find anything in here?" Fear moaned.

"At least there should be new books here. We read all the good ones back in Minnesota." Disgust quipped.

"What if we get lost?" Fear continued. "Or a shelf falls on us? Or we can't figure out how to use the card catalog? Or- or-" Fear started running over his list of disasters.

"Now hold on, Fear, I'm sure everything will be fine! Remember when we went with Meg to the other library the first time?" Joy called up a bright yellow memory from Long Term. On the screen, a short clip showed of entering a cavernous structure with rows of books and a computer-lab. Fear calmed down a bit.

"Yeah," said Fear, already loaded with sarcasm. "Then we went and got lost in the reference area!" He called up a slightly later memory, this one sporting a purple sheen.

"Well duh, Riley was only three." Disgust retorted.

"I hope Dad's call isn't bad." Sadness wondered aloud.

"Oh come on everyone. Let's just give it our all. You with me?" Joy jumped in the air and pumped her fist. The response was as could be expected: "Yeah," "Uh-hu," "Maybe," and an indiscernible grumbling from Disgust, Fear, Sadness, and Anger, respectively. Joy rolled her eyes, and with a flick of the wrist she added a spring to Riley's step as she followed Mom inside.

"Okay Riley, I'm going to go get a library card. You can go look for books, but meet me back here in a half-hour. Got that?"

Joy twirled a thingamabob, ignoring Anger's "Of course!" and Disgust's "Do you think we're three?"

"Okay Mom!" Riley turned, and in mid-step shifted from running to fast walking, thanks to a button press from Fear.

"Wouldn't want to break the rules already!" Fear cracked his knuckles, his mood much improved.

Soon enough, Riley was wandering the shelves of the Juvenile Fiction section with a short list of author names from the catalog. Joy had pretty much taken the reigns, allowing the others to sit back and give occasional yea-nay on a book.

"Okay, how about this one?" Joy made a point of asking each time Riley held up a book. First there was one with a picture of the Earth with a bite taken out of it.

"Ooh, that one looks like it might be a monster book!" Anger said, enthused.

"Oh, no! I have dream duty soon, and I do not want another nightmare!" Fear, of course. Anger prevailed enough to proceed to looking at the synopsis. Disgust had come up with this method: first the cover, then the synopsis, then the first page, then they voted. If no one liked the cover or synopsis, they could skip the vote. It only took a simple majority to get a book. Joy, before the Incident, tried her hardest to game the system; now she was glad to have the procedure established. It kept Fear and Anger from tussling over monster books, at least.

"Oh, it's another of those sappy sympathetic monster books," Anger said, putting a mocking emphasis on sympathetic.

"That sounds better" Fear allowed.

"I'm for it," Sadness put in.

"Oh, that reminds me!" Joy pulled out a Mental Note, which looked like a sticky note, and scribbled "Unfortunate Events- SNI" before sticking it to the console. No one had remembered to look it up in the card catalog, but Riley had remembered the author's name. Sadness noticed, and smiled appreciatively. Meanwhile, Disgust nudged a switch, and Riley opened up the book to the first page and scanned it briefly, as her emotions watched and tweaked knobs and buttons as they saw fit.

"Alright, so let's vote!" Joy, as usual. "All in favor, raise your hand!" Sadness and Fear put up their hands; Anger sighed and lifted his.

"Closest we're going to get to a real monster, anyway."

As time passed, similar scenes played out for various books. The first of the Series of Unfortunate Events passed over Fear's objections, with Anger and Sadness leading the support. They passed over both the Judie B. Jones and Magic Treehouse series, much to Disgust's relief and in spite of Joy's appeal to nostalgia, though Riley did pick up a new Geronimo Stilton book. A book with a cat on the cover underneath the stately word Warriors was accepted unanimously, as well as a new book with a pen displayed prominently, the latter because Disgust pointed out the author. More books were rejected, until only four minutes were left before Riley had to meet Mom to check out.

"Ooh! What if we look for Star Wars books! Dad mentioned there being some good ones!" Joy called up the relevant memory. The others nodded their assent. Upon reaching the catalog, however, they faced the daunting task of sorting through multiple pages of hits on a search for "Star Wars."

"It'll take forever to look through these in time!" Fear cried.

"Yeah, The Science of Star Wars? No thanks. Who knows how many are like it are hiding under cooler titles?" Anger began to smolder a little.

"Or Death Troopers. Just look at the cover picture!" Fear began to shake.

Suddenly, Joy jumped up. "I know!" She went and grabbed an Idea Bulb. "Let's ask the librarian!" No one objected, so Joy inserted the idea into the console. Ideas are trickier than most operations, because Riley would have to consciously consider it; a few bulbs had shattered when rejected forcefully from the receptacle. Riley accepted this one, though, and was soon on her way to the help desk. Upon reaching the desk, she found a young man, probably in his late twenties, reading a heavy tome on database management.

"Um, excuse me," Riley began, with the help of Joy and a little nudging from Disgust, who did not want to just stand there awkwardly.

"Yes, can I help you?" The man put down his book, revealing his face and a nametag which identified him as "James McGreeley, Catalogue Manager."

"Hi, I was wondering if you could help me find a good Star Wars book," Riley said uncertainly. Fear may have had something to do with that, combining actions with Joy to create a bit of shyness.

"Well, it's not my usual job, but I think I can help." In spite of his nonchalant voice, Mr. McGreeley visibly brightened. "What period are you looking for?"

"Um, what?" Riley and her emotions said in tandem.

"Well, do you want Old Republic? Or Prequel? Maybe Legacy? Clone Wars?" He stopped, noticing that the kid was just getting more confused. "I see, new to the fandom?"

"Yeah, I just saw the movies this weekend" Riley admitted a bit sheepishly.

"Hey, no shame in that. Which ones did you see?"

Riley thought a moment. Joy called up a memory. "New Hope, Empire, and, I think Revenge of the Jedi?" The last one wasn't so clear.

Mr. McGreeley didn't correct the Return of the Jedi title. "Okay, so you just have the Original trilogy. I think I have something for you." He wrote quickly on a notepad, tore out the page and handed it to Riley. "That should do you for a beginning in the EU. It'll be over in 'Sci-Fi'"

"Thanks Mr. McGreely!" Riley turned and walked briskly towards the correct section, with just enough time to grab the book and meet Mom to check out.

On the paper, he had written: Death Star, REA.