It was about four in the afternoon when I made it back to the campus. I was still listening to my music as I made my way into the library. There weren't very many people here at all. I knew that most people would just do their research online. And if the professor hadn't told me about that book, and if Dad hadn't kicked me out, then I would have just ended up doing the same thing.
I wasn't doing that, though. I was here, and I was going to make sure that things were done right. I was going to put all of my effort into this paper. And when I finished it and turned it in, I was still going to hate fairy tales just as much as I used to. This assignment was not going to change my mind. Whether that was Quill's intentions or not, but it simply was not going to happen. I would never like fairy tales. They were stupid and pointless.
I didn't bother to take off my backpack or my headphones as I walked around the inside of the library. I knew what it was that I needed to find. All I needed to do was figure out where it was in this place.
There were catalogs of course. Both digital and paper. I could go to those littler drawers that were all in the front of the building and search for the books that they had in the school before the invention of modern technology. Or I could sit at a computer and start looking for where the book might be located. Those were two of the options available to me. And I guess I could ask one of the six librarians that were working around the place. They might be able to tell me where to look.
However, I didn't want to do any of that. I wanted to burn off some of the steam that was coursing through me. I wanted to let some of the anger and frustration dissipate before I got to work on the paper that I needed to write.
I decided to just start looking in the fiction section. I mean, where else would you find a book about fairy tales if not in the fiction section. So, I of course went right over there.
I saw that there were some tables sitting near that part of the library. There was only one that seemed to be occupied, at least partially anyway. There was a backpack and a pad of paper that was sitting open. It looked to me like the occupant just went to find another book or something.
I found it refreshing, at least a little bit. I mean, someone other than me was here studying in the traditional way and not just looking up everything on the internet. It was nice to see, but that didn't mean that I wanted to see this person. And I didn't want to leave my stuff just sitting there like they did. What if someone came up and took it? What would they do with my notes and other important things that I had with me? Yeah, I definitely wasn't going to be leaving my things just sitting around. I was going to keep them with me until I sat down myself.
I started to search the shelves that were nearby. All of the books in the front part of this section seemed to be new. There were fiction novels and stories that were written in every different genre. I saw names like Stephen King, Dean Koontz, George R. R. Martin, Christine Warren, Laurell K. Hamilton, Cassandra Clare and many more. They were all good and I considered them and more among my favorites. The only problem was, these were not the books that I was needing to find. I needed to find old stories and tales. So, I kept looking.
As I moved back further in the library, I started to get to some older fiction novels. I started to see names like Miguel de Cervantes, Jane Austen, Alexandre Dumas, Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle, Victor Hugo, and Jules Verne. Now these were from as recent as the nineteen hundreds and went all the way back to sixteen hundreds.
"Well, I guess that they don't care about separating these by date at all. If it isn't current fiction then it's all bunched together like it's just one entity." I rolled my eyes as I looked at a book by Miguel de Cervantes that was sitting next to one by Jules Verne. "Their names aren't even close, and one is science fiction while the other is a play. What the hell! This is one janky ass library." I made sure to keep my voice down, but I had to vent it out of me at least a little bit.
Part of me, the obsessive compulsive orderly part of me, wanted to start organizing these shelves so that they were divided up by subgenre, century or, at the very least, alphabetical. This mess that these shelves were in proved to me that no one that worked in this library cared about this section of it very much.
I didn't have time for that though. I was here with a specific job in mind and that was what I was going to take care of. That and nothing else. I was going to see to it that I found the book that I was looking for, even if it was the last thing that I ever did.
I know that I was being a little overly dramatic, but I didn't care. I was going to take care of what I needed to and that was that. No distractions. No diversions. I would keep telling myself that until it was all done and over with.
After a little while, I did start to find the old fairy tale books. Not the silly little children's versions or anything written for a cartoon movie. These were going to be the original stories. They were in dark colored, leather bound books that were very old.
I saw one that was written by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. That would be a good place to start. There was one by Charles Perrault and two by Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy. There were also Hans Christian Andersen, Joseph Jacobs, and Andrew Lang. All of the original masters of this particular craft. So, in general, all of my least favorite authors in the entire world.
I took three of those books into my arms, picking them at random since I didn't really think that it would matter whose books that I read. Then I continued on looking for the book that I needed. I was trying to find the one that was written by Harmony Andrews. It wasn't anywhere else that I had checked so far so I thought that it would be back here with these. That was a logical thought in my mind anyway.
There still wasn't anything that was what I needed to find here. Not on the shelves anyway. However, there were two books lying on the floor in front of me. It was a really long shot, but I guess it was possible that one of them was the 'Unconventional Fairy Tales' that I was looking for.
I walked closer to those two mystery books and set the three in my arms down on the floor. The first of the books was laying there closed. It was like someone else had set it down to investigate just like I was doing.
"Well, isn't that a shock." I couldn't believe what I was seeing. This was it. This was the book that I was looking for. But what the hell was it doing on the floor like this? Why had someone just left it here?
I know why. People were rude and inconsiderate. They never put anything back because they were too lazy. All they wanted to do was just move on. They saw a book on the floor, glanced at it, and just left it and the one they had been holding laying there. It was completely rude and irresponsible. They should be slapped for being such an idiot.
"Oh well, I have my book that I need. That is all that matters now. I guess I can let it slide that someone was careless and stupid." As I talked to myself, I reached for the other book and picked it up. I wanted to see what this one was. It had been laying there with the pages open but there was nothing written on that part of it.
I knew that this was not a new book. It was old with a leather cover and yellowed, parchment like paper. It was definitely special and should be taken care of better than this. What was it even doing out of special collections?