Maggie had spotted the boy as soon as he walked in. She’d recognised the look of terror most creatures displayed when placed in an unnatural environment. He had seemed less fish out of water and more alien on wrong planet. She’d seen similar expressions when she’d transported her sheep. But this one didn’t have the safety of the herd. He’d come alone and that intrigued her.

Maggie decided to catch up on world events via the newspapers while she was there. February was chilly and the longer she stayed the later she would need to light a fire back at home.

Maggie liked it at the library; she always had. Books provided a secret door to escape through – something she had often been grateful for in her life. She’d been grateful of the library too. Many a time she’d needed somewhere safe and quiet to run to and the library had never let her down. These days she came for slightly different reasons. It was warm and most of the book group attendees were friendly people. She liked to be around people. Even if they weren’t the most exciting bunch they still had something to say, as did she, but Maggie had found she increasingly had no one to say it to. She chatted to the other lingerers until they too ebbed away and she settled herself down with the selection of newspapers and some magazines. She went to the headlines first to catch up on what was happening in the world. She’d save the gossipy magazine stuff until after the news had depressed her; it usually served to cheer her up.

After a while she’d become so engrossed in the latest scandals she’d almost forgotten where she was. She read about an actor getting locked out of a hotel room with only a sock to cover his manhood and she hooted a laugh.

‘Are you okay, Maggie?’ asked Christine the librarian, straightening an already perfectly neat pile of books.

‘I’m fine.’ Maggie quickly closed the magazine.

‘Nice to see youngsters using the library. That teenage lad signed up earlier. I’ll be able to report back to the council that my poster campaign has been a success.’ Christine pointed to the noticeboard where a sad picture of a teddy bear informed kids that reading was fun.

‘I thought I heard him say the books were for his mother?’

Christine bristled. ‘Technically, yes. But getting kids in here is the first hurdle.’

Maggie wasn’t going to argue. It was pointless. ‘Let’s hope we didn’t scare him off.’ She saw the time and began packing up. She had a while before her bus but Christine didn’t like people lingering when it was nearing closing time. Maggie said goodbye and made her way outside.