Lila pointed to one about halfway down the page. It was an older, Wonder Books version of the classic fairy tale illustrated by Ruth Ives and it was listed as checked in.

“Come with me,” Lindsey said. “It should be over here.”

Together they went into the fairy tale section. It was a bit lesser used than the picture books and so the books held up a bit longer. Sure enough, there sat the classic version of the story. Lindsey handed it to Lila and she hugged it to her chest.

“Oh, thank you,” Lila breathed. “I’m going to show my mom.”

She took off to the baby section of the room where they had a thick rubber mat on the floor and shelves of board books for the under-two set. Lindsey watched while she flopped down next to her mother and began to flip through the book. The mother glanced from Lila to Lindsey and gave her a warm smile. Lindsey headed back to the desk, fully understanding why Beth loved being a children’s librarian so much. For children, books were still magical.

When she returned to her desk, she opened up her e-mail and began reading. She had several e-mails from the personnel department about the amount of hours her part-time staff could work per week. Part-time staff was not paid for vacation time, so Lindsey had hoped to bank those hours and use them to staff the library during its annual book sale.

The dragon lady who ran personnel, however, did not, as she put it, want her to “hoard” hours. It made Lindsey clench her teeth, so she forwarded the e-mail to the mayor’s assistant, Herb Gunderson, hoping he could explain to the dragon that the hours still belonged to Lindsey. Herb was higher up than Lindsey, and the dragon was less likely to argue with Herb.

She had just hit send when she felt the floor shake. Earthquakes very rarely happened in Connecticut, so she glanced at the window to see if they were having a sudden turn in the weather.

The colorful leaves outside moved quietly in the gentle breeze and the sky that was visible was a crisp, cool blue that looked like it could be scooped and served on an ice cream cone. She glanced back at the library and that’s when she saw her coming. Kitty Vine was stomping toward her, looking like she wanted to do some damage. Uh-oh.

21

“How dare you!” Kitty seethed. “How dare you send one of your minions to come and question me!”

Lindsey glanced over Kitty’s shoulder and saw Beth hurrying toward her, waving her arms as if to indicate that Lindsey should exit through the nearest available door.

Lindsey looked back at Kitty and kept her expression bland. “Why, whatever do you mean?”