By Your Side(9)

“I think I grabbed the book you were looking for by accident.”

“By accident?”

“I heard you mention your topic; it must’ve stuck in my mind.”

I smiled and reached for the book he was holding out. He raised it just out of my reach. When I laughed he held it out for me again, only to do the same thing. I sighed and waited for him to place it in my hands this time, which he did.

“Do you think Mr. Garcia forced us to use the library for this assignment because he hates Google or because he’s old school?” Jeff asked.

“Probably a little of both, plus he knew it would make it harder on us. I really think he wanted us to spend our whole weekend on this.”

“We probably shouldn’t have written ‘history is a thing of the past’ on the board. I think it set him off.”

I laughed. “We? You wrote that on the board. I was going to write: ‘history spelled backward is yrotsih.’”

Jeff tugged lightly on the ends of my hair. “That would’ve been funny. You should’ve.”

I could never have done that. It had made me nervous enough watching him.

“Mine was a joke too. I think Mr. Garcia liked my super clever observation about the subject he teaches,” Jeff said.

I laughed. “He does seem to like you.”

His finger skimmed along the book next to my hand. “Everyone likes me, Autumn.” He winked in my direction. He may have said it as a joke but it was true. Everyone did like Jeff.

“When’s the last time you were in a library?” he asked.

“When I was a kid. My mom used to take me to the Mother Goose reading time they did here. That lady who dressed up like an old woman. I still have no idea why they called her Mother Goose. We should research that today. Forget World War II. This is the information we really need to know.”

“So true. If they called her Mother Goose, she should’ve been dressed up like a goose, not an old woman. Let’s find the librarian and ask her to enlighten us.” Then he cupped his hands around his mouth. “Librarian!”

“Shhh,” I hissed.

He laughed and whispered, “What? Did I do something wrong?”

I smiled. “Maybe we should actually read something so we can get our papers written and get out of here.”

“Right. Homework. That’s what we need to work on.” He pulled out a book and flipped through the pages, but his gaze never left mine.

I dropped my eyes. Behind Jeff, about waist high, a head appeared to be sitting on a shelf, disembodied. I yelped before I registered it was Dallin. Jeff turned around.

“You both need to get ahead on your reading,” Dallin said.

Jeff took the two books that Dallin’s head was resting between and proceeded to use them like a vise, smashing his head.

“Don’t crush my genius!” Dallin yelled.

“You’re an idiot,” Jeff said.

Dallin couldn’t stop laughing long enough to back his body out of the shelf. I was sure we were seconds away from getting kicked out of the library.

“What are you doing?”

I gasped, pulled out of my memory by Dax’s question. I shifted on the floor to look over my shoulder. “You seem to have a habit of sneaking up on people.”

He was in the open doorway at the end of the hall, twenty feet away. “I called to you twice.”

“Oh. Well, I was thinking.” When he didn’t respond I added, “Did you need something?”

“There’s a TV in the break room. Thought you might want to know.”

“Break room?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t see a break room when I searched the library yesterday.”

“I guess you missed it, then. The TV only gets local stations, though.”

I pushed myself to standing when he walked away. It was nearly noon. I wasn’t sure what played on local channels at this time, but I wasn’t going to turn down television. I rounded the corner and jogged to catch up with him. “So, what? Soap operas?”

“It’s Saturday.”

Right. Not soap operas. Cartoons? Whatever it was, it was something. “You know the soap opera schedule well?”

“By heart,” he said straight-faced.

Next to the door he approached was a small square electronic box. We’d need some sort of employee badge to open the door. Which we didn’t have. Dax didn’t seem to care about that; he jiggled the handle a little and gave a hard pull and it swung open. How often had he stayed at the library, anyway? He seemed to know this place well.

“How’d you do that?”

“It’s an old building. Some doors are more pliable than others.”

I followed him in. “Which doors?”

“None to the outside.”

But what about other ones? Ones that might have phones in them? I’d have to try all the doors again later.

Dax stopped in front of a vending machine. He surveyed the items on display behind the glass. I went immediately to the fridge that I hadn’t yet explored. I opened it and found nothing but old ketchup packets. I closed it with a sigh and joined him by the vending machine.

I still had no idea how much money he had. Would we get one bag of pretzels or five? I thought maybe we’d take a vote on what to get, but he slid his bill in the slot and began pushing buttons.