Library helper sign ups (if I must) on Library

Librarian Fox-Reynolds

April 01, 2017 3:16 AM

Library helper sign ups (if I must) by Librarian Fox-Reynolds

The library had a strong air of the uncanny. It was familiar enough, having been his place of employment and home for a number of years, to be truly unsettling in its small and subtle differences. Desks had been revarnished, walls repainted, long enough ago now that they were in a similar state to when he’d left but the chips and marks were all in the wrong places. The notice board was the same old battle-scarred cork, but with advertisements for clubs he’d never heard of, run by students he didn’t know. The worst thing had been his bedroom. Someone had re-arranged all the furniture and charmed the walls a different colour. He had soon set that to rights, putting the furniture back where it belonged, and casting the walls back to a pale shade of grey that didn’t disturb the eyeballs. He had improved the main library space by adding one of his posters to the outside of the door into his office - it was the sort of promotional thing that got sent to librarians, which he hoped he gave the impression of hanging up because he was obligated to but which he secretly rather liked. This one showed an open book with a maze inside, through which a small child wandered, the caption reading ‘Get lost in a book at your library!’ With a tendency towards a monochromatic wardrobe and not reading anything printed after 1900, Tarquin was not the sort of person who gave the impression of liking that sort of thing, but he found them charming. He hadn’t dared transport his old favourite, a boy staving off a fierce dragon, using a book for a shield, as it was now showing signs of imminently disintegrating with age. He doubted the people who had printed the posters had thought that anyone would keep them after they sent out next year’s cheery replacement. He supposed he liked them because they reminded him of what reading had meant to him as a child, when it had been his best friend, and his only escape from a world that he didn’t fit into.

He liked to think he had only undergone positive changes since leaving, although that was in part due to the fact that he frequently forgot how thoroughly middle-aged he looked until he saw photographs or glanced in the mirror. His black shoulder length hair and black beard were flecked with grey and his face was more lined than when he’d walked these halls before. They sometimes called that ‘care-worn’ which was funny. He’d had many more cares when he’d come here as a young man. He hadn’t known how to be himself, afraid of what other people would think - a reaction which was not entirely unfair or unsurprising after the homophobic reactions he’d received from his own father. Nothing had given him cause to suspect that the rest of the world would be different, and he had kept to himself, afraid of his personal life being discovered and judged. Until he’d nearly lost Danny. He had pushed him out, tried to make him too much of a terrible secret… And losing Danny hadn’t been worth it. Hadn’t been a price he was willing to pay to avoid judgement. And it had been… fine. Certainly, he hadn’t hung rainbow flags from his office or become a social butterfly. He still hadn’t had enough close or direct interactions with the other staff to know what they’d really thought. He had still been quiet and private, but he had ceased to be secretive or embarrassed, and this was reflected in the way he set his office up now. It was a small room, behind the main desk of the library. A place into which few people would probably venture. But on the desk in the corner was a framed family photo - himself, with fewer greys and fewer lines, a girl of around five with brown ringlets standing in front of him, and a man with a mop of blond hair, holding a small toddler with hair that, by pure coincidence, matched his own. Given that the two children in question were now alumni of the school, there were a great deal more family photos, many of which were decorating his personal quarters, but this was the first, and still his favourite, and the one which he wished to gaze on when he had long and boring stock reports to compile. The set up of his office was complete with the installation of tea making paraphernalia on a small table in the corner. He had cast an odour dispelling charm to get rid of the unwanted smell of coffee that had lingered in the air, but was still irked by the memory of it. He boiled some water with a wave of his wand, making himself a cup of strong black tea with milk. He had kicked the habit of adding sugar several years back.

He held the cup in his hand as he walked over to the notice board. Certainly it was too hot to drink and would remain so until he had completed this small and simple task, but he didn’t want to leave it on his desk. Physical distance from one’s tea diminished the positive psychological effects it had, and it was comforting to keep ahold of the warm cup, even though he had to perform a small sort of finger dance, wriggling the drawing pin free, and then holding the notice steady with different fingers, slowly inching them up by increments, until his drawing-pin-holding fingers were in the top centre, then driving the pin home. The notice read.

Student Helpers

Students who wish to help out in the library may sign up below. The two roles available are:

Monitors (advanced and intermediate only): checking books in/out, assisting students, organizational tasks and errands.

Assistants (all ages): organising/reshelving, and other tasks as directed by the monitors.

Please sign up with your name and year below. Speak to Librarian Fox-Reynolds if you have questions.

He had added that last sentence as a courtesy, but he really hoped they didn’t. Library helpers… He didn’t need or particularly want library helpers. He was a perfectly well qualified librarian, and he had rather gathered that that was the point of having such a person on staff, and why they’d been so pleased to get him to cover at such short notice. But apparently it was traditional. He tried not to be too grumpy at the prospect… His own daughter had done the job when she was a student, and he certainly wouldn’t have wanted some grumpy librarian resenting her help or her presence. He tried to remind himself that any students who signed up for the job were likely to be quiet, conscientious and respectful of books. It wasn’t like inviting the house Quidditch teams to come and help him. Still, even though he didn’t dislike students per se, he tended to prefer only to have the minimal interactions with them possible - a tendency that actually extended to colleagues and other humans in general. He wasn’t misanthropic, but he liked tea and books, and those were better enjoyed without company. He supposed his library monitors might save him some interactions with the rest of the student body, but would he, in compensation, have to interact more with them, or at least have them around all the time? And was a greater number of interactions, but only with conscientious, book-oriented students, a good trade off for having to interact with the rest of the student body? Perhaps. He supposed he would find out. He returned to his desk, sipping his tea, and trying not to look like he was watching the sign up notice like a hawk.

13 Librarian Fox-Reynolds Library helper sign ups (if I must) 1464 Librarian Fox-Reynolds 1 5

John Umland

April 24, 2017 8:22 PM

Being nosy. by John Umland

It was, John thought absently, typical. He had managed to scrape together a Quidditch team, and that was precisely why he now had a headache. No matter how he arranged them, he found disadvantages of various kinds, and that was even before he occasionally remembered that he did have some responsibility for the mess with Jack and Louis and could not just tell them to cross wands at twenty paces to settle it between themselves.

Finally, exhausted, he decided he had to go out. He preferred being alone now, with his door locked firmly behind him and with a number of additional enchantments of his own laid upon it to make absolutely sure no-one could possibly reach him, but he didn’t have a clean beaker in his room and therefore would have to go to the Cascade Hall if he was to have any tea and thus any relief. He had had to switch teas because even the thin American excuse for breakfast tea reminded him too much of home, but had finally found an adequate enough substitute in a blend of Ceylon and Assam, breakfast tea (he thought uncharitably) for those too pretentious to appreciate a proper sturdy Kenyan

He was nearly out of the stacks when some small movement, a man picking up a teacup, at the front desk caught his attention and made him withdraw quickly to assess the situation before he proceeded any further. He had noticed that the library looked a bit different and had heard that its usual keeper was away, but he had not actually seen the new adult allegedly inhabiting his home yet. Now he did. John looked him over as best as he could between a few historical surveys and concluded that he looked insufficiently threatening to warrant a further retreat. Accordingly, John emerged and glanced at the bulletin board out of sheer habit, where he saw what looked like the sign-up sheet.

He walked over toward it, glancing rapidly back and forth between it and the stranger, and skimmed familiar information until he found a name on the bottom of the sheet. He scrawled his name and his old Monitor title on it, then turned back toward the desk and the stranger, who he presumed was the Hyphenated One responsible for this year’s list.

“Hello,” he said. “Do you - ah - are you...relatedto...anyone - someone named Charles? With your same - name? Assuming you're the librarian now?”

16 John Umland Being nosy. 285 John Umland 0 5

Librarian Fox-Reynolds

June 08, 2017 10:33 AM

The feeling is mutual by Librarian Fox-Reynolds

Tarquin hurriedly buried his nose back in his book as the student turned away from the sign up sheet, trying not to get caught staring. It was ridiculous anyway, he could neither read the boy’s name from here nor do anything to stop him signing up. A slightly ridiculous vision of himself seeing the word ‘Pecari’ beginning to form, and throwing himself in front of the sign up sheet, taking a quill to the heart, danced through his head. He tried to squint surreptitiously at the board but it really was useless, as only ‘Teppenpaw’ was a dramatic outlier in terms of name length, so he really couldn’t tell from here, plus the boy seemed to be trying to watch him.

This latter theory was confirmed when the boy came over and asked him about someone named Charles. This was a less alarming question than Are you staring at me? and invited Tarquin to talk about one of his preferred subjects, so he considerably brightened, hoping that this common association was going to be a positive, and that the boy had not had some kind of issue with his son.

“Yes - yes, I am. Uh, both. Both the librarian and related. Charlie is my son,” he smiled. Technically the boy was inaccurate, as he and Charlie only partially shared a surname - well, his surname was two thirds of Charlie’s, but one-hundred percent of his name was contained within it… So, he supposed he shared a surname with Charlie, but Charlie didn’t quite with him? The fractions of it were too confusing to make a quick, witty statement, so he let it be. “But I’m at a disadvantage,” he added, eyes sliding again to the notice board, “You know my name, but I don’t know yours…”

13 Librarian Fox-Reynolds The feeling is mutual 1464 Librarian Fox-Reynolds 0 5

John

June 08, 2017 6:05 PM

In theory, that should work well for both of us. by John

John also brightened considerably when his suspicions about New Guy were near-confirmed. The question posed to him in turn only slowed him down for a moment. “My name? Oh, yes. It’s John. I’m John Umland – my sister Julian, you might have heard of her, he was friends with her….”

Abruptly, John’s smile dropped as his brain caught up with his ears and he processed the words my sister Julian. For one thing, it reminded him that they were currently on poor terms, and for another, he was not sure it had actually been wise to point out the possible connection between their two households. He had never had the habit of monitoring Julian’s correspondence with others and didn’t have the means to do so now, so it was quite possible the man had heard less than flattering things about Julian’s brother John in the recent past. Julian would have complained to someone, if not in exact terms because of the tricky legal circumstances of their situation, and it could have as easily been Charlie as William or Lenore or their priest or anyone else who happened to pop into his sister’s head as a good candidate for venting to. He hoped she’d been prudent enough to keep it in the family, rant about him to Stephen at the worst, but….

Too late to think of that now, though. “Anyway. I’m the next brother, and the one after me – our brother Joe, he’s here, too. He’s a fourth year in Teppenpaw. Doesn’t look anything like me or Julian, though – blond hair.”

16 John In theory, that should work well for both of us. 285 John 0 5