Anne
Our Math teacher droned on about how this was very important for future tests on simultaneous equations while we copied sums down from the chalkboard. I say we because I was stuck with Aidene sitting beside me.
Why was I still sitting next to her? I honestly don't know but there wasn't anyone else I knew and my only other option was a girl who looked like she was either permanently on a sugar rush or on hard drugs.
Aidene looked around constantly moving her eyes or clicking her pen and looking out the window. That other bench was looking like prime real estate right now. She had somehow managed to finish her sums and was now staring out the window in a trance-like state at least that's what I thought she would be doing the rest of the period until she started talking to me. In the loudest possible whisper of course.
"Why do you think new students get similar timetables?"
"I don't know," I said, trying not to get caught and finish the sums as fast as possible.
"Where do you think we should start?"
"Start what?"
"The search for the journal of course."
"Aidene, come on now. Finding some journal that may or may not exist because of some obscure 'legend' should not be our top priority. It makes NO sense. Be a little more sensible for once." I said, my voice slowly trailing off as I furiously scribbled down the unintelligible numbers down in my notebook.
"So how old are you?" her voice laced with curiosity.
"What?"
You said that you didn't want to talk about the journal so how old are you?" she gave a half-hearted shrug.
"13"
"Hey I am 13 too. Which month?" she said, going from half-hearted to very excited.
"March." I was still indifferent as usual. Oh! How I wish I could be as emotionally open as her... [heavy sarcasm]
She somehow managed to engage herself by staring out the window looking at absolutely nothing and the most amazing part is that she managed to shut up. The teacher kept going and it felt like the class was in a trance. Not a single sound except for the scratch of pencils and the monotonous voice of the teacher. The class was dark and bleary despite the perfect picnic weather outside.
What surprised me (apart from Aidene managing to shut up) was that the idea of Greylight's journal was stuck in my head. Several questions started to form a whirlwind around my head. The silence was getting eerie. Wait!... Did I just get used to Aidene's nonstop blabber?
I couldn't stand it anymore. I slammed my book shut the moment I copied the final answer. My adrenaline got the best of me and thus looked over to Aidene.
"Speak." that is all I needed to say.
"Library after classes get over, can't stand this class anymore." she said with a sweet smile.
I watched as she walked down towards the teacher's desk and asked the teacher if she could leave early since she was done with her work. The teacher looked at her and nodded. A few groans of jealousy was heard for her early release. But Aidene could be a perfect angel when she needed to be one.
I climbed up to the second floor and walked into the library across the hall from the principal's room which I tried my best to stay out of sight from. The entrance of the library was marked with huge double doors, which was also different from all the other classroom doors. It had ornately carved designs into the polished wood. One of the doors was propped open by a heavy-looking iron door stopper. I stepped in and it looked pretty much like the most cliché fairytale-type library, but it was pretty nonetheless.
The high arching ceiling was adorned by little windows of stained glass, creating a faint disco light pattern on the floor which was further diluted by the sunlight coming through the much bigger windows on the side.
The library had two floors with tables pushed up against the side of shelves and occasionally a long table passing through the middle. The walls also held little gas lamps that weren't lit right now obviously because of the broad daylight. Now to address the elephant in the room...
Who I was finding trouble finding.
How am I supposed to find Aidene in this maze of shelves? For all, I know she could be on top of one. And they just had to make it harder by having two floors.
I scanned the room for as far as I can see then I walked around aimlessly. With absolutely no hope of finding this girl. I trudged through the place just admiring its beauty.
"Down here Annie." a voice sang out.
"What the heck are you doing on the floor? There are plenty of good tables here." She sat on the floor beside an upturned table that was propped against one of the dustier bookshelves in the room. With the 'Norse Mythology: An advanced Synopsis and Anthology' book she had issued from the Cavera's library.
"Did you know the trickster god Loki is tied to a rock with ropes made of his son's intestines for poking Baldur with a mistletoe dart?"
I did not need to know that.
"Ok, I am here where do we start?" I said trying to divert the topic from ropes made of human intestines.
"Well we don't have any leads on where the jornal might be except for the point that it is in the main school building since the other buildings were made after his death." a calculating look took its place but it did not make the curious smile of hers disappear.
"Let me get this straight you want us to search the whole building room by room." I said after she explained her idea.
"Yes and maybe have a map or a list to cross out the rooms from"
"THAT..."I started to raise my voice but remembering that I was in a library I lowered it to an angry hiss. "That does not make the situation any better."
And then I realized we did not have to spend the next few days (years actually) in this library looking for this stupid journal and then spend a couple more years searching for it in the rest of the million rooms in the school building. We could have just asked the librarian... it was so obvious how did we not think of that first? I need more sleep and Aidene probably needs to stop being so impulsive.
"Couldn't we just ask the librarian? Instead of starting a full search on the school building" "What are we doing here?" I said realizing that I had forgotten.
"We are looking for a journal and GREAT idea. Let's ask the librarian." she skipped towards the entrance while saying that.
Sitting behind the desk was not the librarian but a 17 year old boy. His blond hair was cut short and his brown eyes were drooping out of boredom.
"Umm...where is the librarian?" I questioned.
He looked startled as he jumped to look at us. I guess he didn't see us walk in.
"The library staff is on a break something about the flu. James Harris by the way"
"WAIT! Harris like the boy who got detention on the first day." Aidene raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah gee thanks but I would prefer to go by James and aren't you Rayner's the girl who shouted but didn't get in detention." He gave up trying to hide the jealousy in voice as he said the last few words
"Any way you can call me Aidene and this is Anne Gray." she put a hand on my shoulder which I subtly brushed off by lowering my shoulder. She was too occupied with introducing us to notice...
"Okay, then why are you both here?"
"Where are the oldest books in the library kept?"
"I... don't know that I probably cus started working here, like today..."
He suddenly ducked under the table.
"BUT... I can always check the at-least-a-few-thousand-page-long directory Mrs. Tride, the librarian if you didn't know, handed me before disappearing. Or make you guys check it of course." a naughty lopsided smile took its place on his face.
"Oh My God! You're not doing your job and that just might mean...." Aidene lowered her voice to a dangerous hiss (which I did not know she was capable of doing) and leaned forward with a threatening glare.
"...Me and my friend just taking walk to the other side of the hallway into the principal's office and ...I don't know...maybe pull the ol' snitcheroo about a boy named James Harris who isn't doing what he's supposed to do." She finally dropped the glare and replaced it with a smirk.
Her 180-degree somewhat-schizophrenic personality flips were really scaring me and James at the same time.
"Okay okay give me a minute," he said with his eyes wide and started flipping through the directory at an impossible speed caused due to the fear.
"He is scared of you now," I stated.
"Nah! He's scared of the principal," she said with a smirk. Who wasn't scared of the principal in this school?
What was the principal's name again? Did he even introduce himself? Or am I just forgetting things again? My train of thoughts were stopped by James' announcement.
"North-East corner of the second floor, that's where the old, dusty, useless and decrepit books are kept. Happy?"
"Yes very much, thank you," Aidene said with a sweet smile which confused James even more.
I put down another book that had records from the second decade of the school's existence. We both had to sit down on the floor since there were no benches on this side of the library.
All the books on this shelf had loose, yellowing pages, torn bindings, oil stains, and more. They had to be ancient and I have got to admit I was surprised that they hadn't just crumpled to dust under their own weight yet. James was right; these were old, dusty, useless books. Most of them were records of staff from the starting of the school and what appeared to be curriculum plans.
"Uuuuuugggghhhhhh!" I heard a bang as Aidene groaned and hit her head on the side of the shelf. We had been going through these books for who knows how long and instead of having a lead on the journal we had a huge knowledge about the ex-staff of the school.
Aidene at some point of time had taken off the school tie and tied it around her head like a makeshift bandana to keep her tousled blue hair out of the way (if you are wondering why we are still wearing our uniforms, we never changed). Piles of books surrounded us and I had dozed off several times and Aidene had changed her position from leaning against the shelf to lying on the floor. I ran my finger down the spine of a particularly old and dusty book in a corner.
"Guess we need to go with my plan to search every single room." Aidene for the first time seemed exhausted and heartbroken. I almost pitied her (emphasis on almost, I haven't exactly forgiven her for being extremely annoying).
I turned to look outside as Aidene got up to search the shelf, which we had emptied, one last time with deflated hope. She ran her hand over the bare shelves. A piece of bluish-paper fell to the floor.
"Hey, wouldya look at that, it's a piece of paper."
It was surprisingly intact and I could tell it was blue at some point in time.
I watched as Aidene picked it up and unfolded it's corner.
"It's just a map," Aidene said in a monotone voice which was the complete opposite of her usual personality. I saw how she was able to tell it was a map. It had the words 'MAP' written on it haphazardly in now barely visible graphite across the folded piece of paper.
I got up and stood next to her as she unfolded it revealing a blueprint of the school building. But...
"Curiouser and curiouser!" She said, looking up at me and doing a fair impression of the Cheshire cat from 'Alice in Wonderland'.