Jo Walton - Among Others

Just as I was writing that, Miss Carroll came over.

“Has your father signed the form for the book club?” she asked.

“Not yet,” I said. “I’m sure he will, but there hasn’t been time yet.”

“If you like, I could take you tonight. If I’m there the whole time, in loco parentis , that would be all right. It would be like taking girls to the theatre. I’ve checked with Miss Ellis, and she says it would be fine.” She smiled at me.

“But do you want to go?” I asked. I can’t help being such an ungracious lump when people are nice to me. It isn’t what I mean, it just comes out before I think.

“It should be interesting,” she said.

“Do you even read SF?”

“I try to read a sample of what’s in my library, so I can recommend things to people. I’ve certainly read some SF. It isn’t my favourite, like it is yours, but I have read some. I’ve even read some Ursula Le Guin; I’ve read A Wizard of Earthsea .”

“Did you like it?” I asked.

“I thought it was excellent.” Miss Carroll sat down opposite me across the wooden table and looked at me quizzically. “What is this? I didn’t expect to be interrogated on my suitability for the book club, I thought you’d be pleased.”

“I am pleased,” I said. “Thank you. I really want to go. I’m just not used—I mean I can’t quite believe you’re giving up your evening for me.” She’s quite young really. She must have boyfriends, or at least somewhere she lives and cooks herself dinner and reads her book without being disturbed. To be honest, I find it quite hard to imagine her life away from the school. But whatever it is, she could be doing it tonight, and instead she’s going to the SF book club because I want to. Why would she do that? I didn’t know magic worked this well. It’s frightening.

“It’ll be an interesting experience,” she said. “It’ll be nice to see how they do these things at the town library. And I always like hearing about books. Maybe we could start a book club here. Some of the older girls might be interested. Besides,” she leaned forward and lowered her voice, even though we were the only people in the library, as usual. “One of the things they tell you in library school is that you have to consider the needs of the clients and keep them happy. Now you’re definitely my best client, and one of the few people who is really using this library, so keeping you happy is important.”

I laughed. “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you very much.”

So I am going to the book club tonight! Miss Carroll is going to pick me up after supper.

Of course they didn’t instantly decide they were my karass and welcome me to their bosoms. That would be too much to expect. But it was brill anyway.

I was so afraid we were going to be late that we were actually early. The library was just closing when we got there. The librarian looked quite surprised to see me coming in with Miss Carroll. “Ah, Miss Markova,” he said, which is literally the first time anyone has ever called me that. I’ve been called Miss Phelps before occasionally, but never Miss Markova. It felt weird. “You made it after all.”

“This is Miss Carroll, she’s the librarian at the school. And this is, um…” I floundered.

“Greg Mansell, but do call me Greg.”

“Then I’m Alison,” Miss Carroll said, to my total surprise, and they shook hands. I’d stupidly never thought of her as having a first name, maybe because Carol is a first name.

I knew that I should have said my name, that they were both looking at me waiting for me to say it, but my tongue clotted in my mouth and I couldn’t get it out. It wasn’t that I’d forgotten my name, so much as I wasn’t sure what form of it to use. “Mori,” I said, after way too long. “My friends call me Mori.”

Then two other people arrived, both middle-aged guys but one tall, Brian, and one short and stout, Keith. Greg took out his key and let us into a room at the back of the library.

The library must have been built about a hundred years ago. It’s Victorian, with stone windows in brick walls. The room where they have the meetings was once a reading room, but now the reading room is the reference library upstairs and this is kept locked. It has wood panels to about elbow height, and above that it’s painted cream between the windows—there are lots of windows on one side, but I couldn’t see what was outside because it was dark. On the other long wall there’s a huge dark Victorian painting of people sitting in a library reading, looking down at their backs as they sit at little tables among rows of bookshelves. This room isn’t like that at all—there’s one big old table in the middle with old wooden chairs around it. There are two busts, one at each end of the rectangular room. One is Descartes, who I don’t know but who has a wonderful face, and the other is Plato, yes!

I sat on the side of the table facing the picture, with my back to the windows, and Miss Carroll sat down next to me. The men, who all knew each other of course, were standing up talking. Some more men came in, some of them younger, but none of them much under thirty. Then two boys came in, wearing the purple school blazers of the local comprehensive school. I’d guess they were sixteen or seventeen. I was starting to think there weren’t going to be any women when a stout grey-haired woman bustled in and sat at the head of the table. She had a big pile of Le Guin books in hardcover editions and she put them down next to her in a businesslike way. Seeing this, the others started to take seats. I was wishing I’d brought copies, but of course I didn’t have any except my dear old Wind’s Twelve Quarters, Volume 2 . My mother still has all my books, but books are replaceable.

Miss Carroll was looking at the pile of books a bit nervously. “Have you read all those,” she asked me quietly.

I looked at them properly, and I had, all except one called The Eye of the Heron . “All but one,” I said. “And I’ve read one that isn’t there, The Word For World is Forest .”

“You really do read a lot of sci fi,” she said.

Just then the grey-haired woman took a deep breath as if she were about to begin, and as she did the door opened and a boy—a young man—practically fell in to the room. He’s the most gorgeous thing I ever saw, with longish blond hair flopping about his head, extremely blue eyes, a passionately intense gaze, though I didn’t see that at once, and a kind of casual grace of movement even when tripping over his own feet. “I’m sorry I’m late, Harriet,” he said, favouring the woman with a dazzling smile. “The bike had a puncture.”

It seemed a cruel trick of the gods that such a glorious creature should have to go about on a bicycle. He sat down directly opposite me, so close that I could see the raindrops beading on his hair. He must be eighteen or nineteen. I wonder why he isn’t in university? He has somewhat the look of a lion, or of a young Alexander the Great.

“I was just going to start, but you’re not late,” Harriet said, smiling at him. (Harriet! I’ve never met anyone called Harriet in real life. I had a brief fantasy about her being Harriet Vane, because she’d be about the right age for that, except that Harriet Vane would be addressed as Lady Peter, and anyway she’s fictional. I can tell the difference, really I can.)

The door banged open again and a teenage girl came in. She was wearing a purple blazer, which looked appalling with her ginger hair. She sat with the two boys in blazers, who, I saw now, had kept a seat for her between them. I felt ... not exactly jealous, but I felt a sort of pang when I saw that.