"You've been looking at that shelf for a while, now, Frisk."

Having been perched on her toes and was suddenly startled, Frisk lost her balance and fell back. "Huh?!" she exclaimed, her glasses slipping down the bridge of her nose. She looked up at a big blur, and then she looked down at the red rims on her nose, and quickly shoved them back into place. She blinked up at a kindly faced woman, tall, and in a flattering, yet simple a long pink dress. "Heh, you got me, Ms. Anne. Yeah… I can't find anything…" she grumbled.

"Well, you have checked out this entire shelf, so I'm not surprised."

"You keep track?" Frisk scratched the back of her head, blushing with a weary smile.

"What's that look for? There's no shame in reading so much." Ms. Anne's voice rose shrilly. "Fairy Tales. You want something you haven't read before? You can try the section to the-"

"No, no, I'm looking for something specific… uhm, the Hollow Earth theory? Not a story. Like, theories and archaeology...?" She was ready to say more, but trailed off and let Ms. Anne think.

Ms. Anne raised her head, surprised. "Hollow Earth… Jules Vern style of stuff? But you don't want stories, you want actual lore."

"Yeah! But… I can't really find anything… that I don't already know." Frisk waved a hand in dismay at the shelves before her.

"There's your problem right there; it should be in another genre entirely. There's a section for mysteries of the world, you know. Not stories like these." Ms. Anne turned away and waved a hand. "Follow me, I'll help you find something."

"Really?" Frisk scrambled to her feet, slinging her backpack over her shoulder and stumbling from the weight. "Uha!" she gasped as she nearly toppled, spread her feet, slung the backpack over again, and went on.

"You can leave it there," the librarian laughed.

"Someone might grab it…" Frisk grumbled as she followed Ms. Anne.

A minute later, Ms. Anne was stretching over a bookshelf adorned with many old looking and thick books. The books she aimed for were quite high up. Frisk wouldn't have been able to reach them without a chair from one of the computer desks… but it was a good thing Ms. Anne was so tall. And she was quite lean too. But perhaps a bit too much… however she didn't seem overwhelmed by all the books she had to carry sometimes when she went to put them away.

"Hmm…" Ms. Anne turned to Frisk and held out to her a tall and thin green book, and a wider white one. Frisk, gently took the books, but her weight gradually shifted when she held them, and she nearly fell again. She shrugged off her backpack to let it clunk to the floor while she reasserted her balance and began to flip through the white book furiously. "This is about Mt. Ebott…?" she blinked, shrugging the weight on her back, and balancing the books. "There's a hollow earth about Mt. Ebott?"

"I don't know. Is there?"

"Says so here." Frisk pointed to the index. "It's not all about Mt. Ebott, though. It's just one of the cases scattered around the world. The biggest one is mentioned at the North pole… says there are tunnels all over the world."

"You read the index. Of course you do!" Ms. Anne giggled.

"Well, yeah, it's how you find stuff…" Frisk blushed, looking through more. Slowly, her legs bent, and she lowered herself to sitting cross-legged on the carpeted floor. "Thank you… I haven't read this before."

"Let me guess. You out of classes early? Buses are at 3:40." Ms. Anne began to walk away, watching Frisk over her shoulder. "Hey?"

"Okay…" she was gone into the book already.

"I'll come get you." Ms. Anne laughed, walking back to her desk to check in books and put them away.

Pale, thin lipped, eyes wide with furrowed brows, Frisk followed the lines with furious concentration. At the rate she read, it were as though her life depended on it, or perhaps as if she were desperate to find something… there were things she thought weren't a part of what she needed to know, but as she kept going, things gradually began to fall into place. Soon, Frisk's eyes wandered the paper, not truly reading. She gripped the book with white knuckles. This was more than she had expected to verify. What could it all mean?

"Frisk! It's almost 3:19! Come here and let me check those books out for you." Had Ms. Anne spoke just then? She couldn't be sure. She should check, but…

"Frisk, dear, wake up!" Ms. Anne called gently.

Taking a deep breath, Frisk willed for the shakiness in her limbs to go away. Untangling her lanky legs, Frisk stood herself up, hefted her backpack up slowly with one arm, carefully cradling the new books in one arm.

"Frisk, just bring me the books and you can go back for… "Ms. Anne cut herself off short as Frisk suddenly swung the backpack over her shoulder and hurriedly took another step forward from all the weight. She ambled over to the counter.

Ms. Anne was shaking her head. "How many books have you got in there, anyways?"

"Uhm… five… no… I've got a few smaller paper back ones so there's 10. There are five heavy ones for class, and then I've got notebooks and pencils and… uh..." Frisk trailed off as she slid said the books over the counter. "Hey, did you know," Ms. Anne grinned, "That there was actually some kind of war over the territory of Mt. Ebott between two Native American tribes?"

"I know about it. There's still a few monuments there that tell of the story." She scanned the book with a red light, and then went to checking her computer, squinting a bit as she did.

"Uh…" Frisk's face went blank. "How come we never learned about it?"

"There's not much to make a test on?" she shrugged, "At least there are resources for us to learn things outside of the school system, right? How closed off things would be." She tisked, checking out the book, and slid it back to her. "Are you done with any of those others? Have you even got anymore room in that backpack, or do I need to get you another one?" she was smirking, but her eyes were smiling.

"Uhm…" Frisk shoved up her glasses, squinting as she thought. "Uhm… I could… uh…" she slid off her back pack with a heavy "Umph!" of strain and unzipped it. Her hand appeared over the counter to drop one, two, three books, and a third- but then her hand reached up grabbed it and took it back. "Never mind that one…" she stood up again, grabbed the new ones, and slid them inside her backpack. She zipped it, stood, slinging it slowly over her shoulder.

"Sure you haven't got any more books you've finished?"

"Uhm… I have a report I have to finish tonight, and there are specific references I need from some of these… uhm… that shouldn't take me long to do… its only three pages worth…"

"Will you be able to finish with that all that lore burning your mind?"

"Uh… I hope?" Frisk grinned. "I didn't know Mt. Ebott had such a cool past! I love these kind of things… it's so exciting!" she jumped up and down. "A world under the ground? And there's ways it seems real, and other ways it's just faded into myth as spirits who could be nice or evil and just caused all this trouble and people who didn't like them, and sides of the story is just so weird and biased, and it's hard to tell which is true or not, but obviously the parts about magic and sacrifices and things like that is totally fake, but- well, no, I know certain people did sacrifice… uh… and they had meanings for it… so maybe it's written fantastically but it's really not… It's just symbolic…"

Ms. Anne was nodding with a smile, "Okay, Frisk. Have fun."

Frisk was grinning. "I wonder if there's any sign of the tribes that used to be there! But I would think whatever relics there are would be barred off and protected or something… so I probably couldn't see it… being an untrustworthy vandalous kid."

"Probably not," she shrugged, "But it's still cool to read about."

"Yeah! It really is!"

"Did you know Mt. Ebott is only a few miles out of town? You could probably get there in some 30 minutes."

"I… don't much go into public places aside from school libraries… willingly, I mean…" Frisk looked withdrawn now.

"I sense a field trip coming on, Frisk." Ms. Anne grinned.

"No way! I just read and watch tv, I don't go anywhere." She looked away, looking sad.

"Well, if you ever want a ride over, let me know."

"R-really?"

"Yes, really. I'm here for you, Frisk. Besides, you have to know the feeling of reading good book in the park."

Frisk smiled. "I've sat on a swing."

"Oh that's fun too! But there's the most beautiful sunset there…" Ms. Anne looked dreamy now. "Oh well, if you ever decide you want a ride, let me know." She winked.

"Yeah!" Frisk nodded, "Uhm… I better go… Thank you for finding the books!" she hurried on out, waving, and nearly tripping again. She caught her balance again and went on out the doors. Ms. Anne shook her head at the child as she ran out in a frenzy.