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Tom was also on the side, listening to this question.
This question was quite complicated. The complexity stemmed from the magical world's bizarre currency conversion system—1 Galleon was equivalent to 17 Sickles, and 1 Sickle equaled 29 Knuts.
Tom was truly puzzled; why would you choose two prime numbers as the conversion units? Wasn't the decimal or duodecimal system good enough? Even if the magical world wanted to showcase its distinctiveness, why not choose the most magical number, 7?
Hard to understand.
Nevertheless, he could make a rough judgment. The entire set of Lockhart's works was worth 35 Galleons, discounted to 31.5 Galleons with a 10% reduction. The decision to give change depended on whether the remaining book fees were sufficient to cover 2.5 Galleons.
With a price of 3 Galleons 9 Sickles for the next book, even with an 80% discount, it was still greater than 2.5 Galleons. Therefore, the person needed to pay extra.
But then Tom was a bit dumbfounded: How much did the person need to pay extra? This probably required careful calculation.
Hermione:...
She seemed to be suffering from information overload, her whole being went offline for a moment. Finally, she couldn't arrive at a result, and in the end, she took out pen and paper and calculated to get the conclusion: "367.5 Knuts, which is 12 Sickles and 19 Knuts?"
Mr. Lawrence directly took out a machine similar to a typewriter and started clacking away. After a while, he nodded, "Remove the change, it's indeed this amount."
Seeing Tom and Hermione looking at the machine, he felt a bit embarrassed. "This is a calculator. Honestly, the question I just asked was deliberately tricky; we don't usually have such fancy discounts in our store..."
Then he demonstrated to Tom and Hermione how to use the calculator. It was covered with metal gears and levers, giving it an intimidating appearance.
The usage was not complicated either. On the left side of the calculator, there were three glass rollers corresponding to the customer's payment in Galleons, Sickles, and Knuts. On the right side were five rollers where you input the book prices; the first three represented the currency units, the fourth was the discount amount, and the last was the confirmation. After pressing the confirmation, you could input the price of the next book. Pressing twice indicated that all book prices were entered, and the machine would start calculating. Below the machine were three rollers that displayed the change.
Tom and Hermione, after watching this calculator, had complicated expressions: there were too many points to criticize for a moment.
"So if you enter a wrong number, you have to start over, right?" Hermione spotted the key issue.
Mr. Lawrence:...
"You actually obtained the correct answer just by pen and paper calculations?"
Hermione: "It's nothing, just sensitive to numbers."
Tom & Mr. Lawrence:...
Mr. Lawrence coughed a couple of times, "Actually, because it's too troublesome to calculate, Liren Bookstore rarely gives discounts. Let me ask you a few more questions."
So Mr. Lawrence presented a few more questions. This time, since there was no discount involved, Hermione was much faster, even faster than Mr. Lawrence typing on the calculator.
"Merlin above!" Mr. Lawrence scratched his sparse hair. He felt that Hermione was simply a monster, too incredible.
"She is the top of our grade." Tom reported Hermione's identity.
Mr. Lawrence's gaze drifted between the two for a while. He didn't say much and took Hermione to sign the contract.
After Hermione signed the contract, Mr. Lawrence gave each of them a vest with the Liren Bookstore logo. Tom and Hermione were now officially part of Liren Bookstore.
Hermione was responsible for the front desk cashier, and Tom was in charge of restocking the shelves.
For Hermione, the work in the bookstore was leisurely. There were not many customers on regular days, and many people just came in for a stroll and left, so her workload was not heavy. Her working hours were also normal, exactly the bookstore's opening hours: from nine in the morning to five in the afternoon. Tom came an hour earlier, organizing the shelves. Hermione worked five days a week, earning ten Galleons per week.
Tom was a bit busier. He needed to take out new books from the storeroom, place them on the shelves, record the missing books on a notebook, and then go back to the storeroom to replenish them. But since not many books were sold and only a few were popular, Tom quickly became proficient.
Soon, Tom completed his work and started boldly fishing. Sitting on a small stool beside the cashier counter, he put his hands on the counter, tilted his head, and stared at Hermione.
Hermione had nothing to do for a long time—the last customer had checked out fifteen minutes ago. She was engrossed in reading a bestseller called "Breaking Up with the Female Ghost." Sensing someone looking at her, she put the book down and saw Tom with his head on the cashier counter, staring straight at her.
Hermione blushed and slapped the book up, saying, "What are you looking at? Go do your job!"
"But I've finished my work."
"Then find a book to read!"
"Is this book good? The author's books have been selling well recently."
Talking about books opened Hermione's floodgate of words. She began to talk enthusiastically about her impressions of the book. Tom listened quietly on the side, treating it like a solo stand-up comedy. However, after listening for a while, he also had the idea of finding a book by Lockhart to read.
So, he found a novel by Lockhart and read a few pages. At first glance, Tom was attracted by the story. Lockhart's stories were "based on true events," and combined with his good writing style, they naturally won the approval of many people.
The first day of work ended like this. At five o'clock in the afternoon, Tom and Hermione finished cleaning up and left Liren Bookstore. Hermione crossed the Broken Cauldron and took her father's car home, while Tom returned to Ollivander's Wand Shop.
Back at the wand shop, Mr. Ollivander had also finished his work. He got up with a smile, handed Tom a thick book and a half-person-sized box.
"These two days, take a look at this, combined with what's in the box."
Only then did Tom know that the big book was an illustrated guide to wand materials, and the box contained samples of various materials. After Mr. Ollivander handed over the guide to Tom, he left. However, Tom didn't immediately go back to the dormitory. Although Mr. Ollivander didn't say it, he still cleaned up the shop a bit. He swept the floor, wiped the counter, and cleaned the shelves—a duty of an apprentice.
Afterwards, he moved into the room provided by Mr. Ollivander. The room was behind the wand shop, not very spacious. Inside, it was simple: just a bed, a chair, a table, and an oil lamp. Next to the room
, there was a small compartment, a combined bathroom.
This would be Tom's residence for the next two months. Although the room was simple, it was very clean, and the various pieces of furniture gave a feeling of just right.
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(End of this chapter)