nanobooks

Scratching the Surface

Kella hugged her book tighter, and looked down at it. Mo led the way to a large round desk.

"Remember to be polite," whispered Mo to the side as they approached.

A woman with dark hair and glasses looked up as the two came close to the desk.

"Are you a librarian?" Kella asked.

The woman smiled. "Yes. How can I help you?"

Kella looked down at the book she was clutching to her chest. She held it out in front of her with both hands. "It's my book. It's sick."

The librarian leaned forward. She placed her hand on the desk. "Put it here. I'll take a look."

"You can fix it, right?" pleaded Kella. The pain she felt for her sick book seasoned her voice. When the librarian nodded, Kella placed her book on the counter and watched the librarian eagerly.

Momoka placed her hand on Kella's shoulder. "Don't worry."

The librarian ran her fingers along the cover of Kella's book. She turned it over and inspected the back, then returned it to cover-up orientation, and rotated it so that the spine was at her left. "May I open your book?"

"Yes! Please help it."

The book had a green cover with tinges of brown. Striations ran from the top of the bottom of the cover in a pattern that resembled tree bark. The surface was smooth like beechwood bark, not deeply grooved like mesquite or maple. Its hue resembled that of a palo verde. The cover had no knotholes. Deep embossing formed two words upon the cover. The edges of each letter were not cut into the book bark, but seemed to have been etched over time by the natural growth of the cover itself. The typeface was Vendome, a face similar to Times New Roman, but with distinct differences in the serifs and spacing of the loops and whorls. It read, "Kella Weald."

Kella silently read the name on the librarian's desk. Marjoram Sylvania, then looked up at the woman.

Marj ran her fingers down the spine of the book, as a doctor might check that of a human. Her attention was more in her fingers than her eyes. With her left hand still at the spine, Marj gently placed the fingers of her right hand upon the edge of the cover. It opened to reveal what would normally be the title page. The page was not completely blank, but the writing thereon had faded so that it was nearly the same color as the page, a pale pistachio green. Yet the hue of the page itself was also somewhat splotchy, with portions of the page more tan than green.

Marj turned the page. More faded writing and splotchy page colors. A few more pages in, and Marj smiled and asked Kella a question. "How was its page complexion when you last read it?"

"It was good. Nice and green. Dark brown words, almost black."

Marj asked, "Was that today?"

Kella shook her head.

"Yesterday?"

Kella shook her head.

"The day before, perhaps?"

"Yes. I'm sorry." Kella's voice volume increased.

"Don't worry. I think your book will be fine," Marj assured her. "But let's take a closer look."

Marj opened a drawer beneath the desktop. She pulled out a pair of glasses and handled them to Kella, then a somewhat larger set for Momoka. As the girls put theirs on, Marjoram raised her own glasses that had been hanging from a braided cord like a necklace at her chest.

All three pairs of glasses had cylinders in front of each eye, magnifying glasses. Mimoka stepped closer, and Kella stepped up on a small stool that had just emerged from her side of the desk. Everyone went about adjusting their magnification to focus on the current page of Kella's book.

Marj placed the tip of a thin dowel of bamboo upon the page. "Focus here," she said. Both girls moved their heads accordingly and adjusted their zoom setting on their glasses to autofocus. The fine tuning was inaudible.

The dowel pressed into the surface of the page, and the letter at that position became darker brown. It was an e. All watched as the dowel ran to the e's right, also Marj's left, but the left for Kella and Momoka. An r appeared. Then an i, an n, and a g. The dowel ran backward. Before the e appeared an n, an a, and a w.

"Wandering?" asked Momoka.

"What was wandering, Kella?" Marj asked.

"Wandering? Oh. Wandering. Me, I guess."

Marjoram noted calmly, "I see. Without your book?"

"Yes," answered Kella. Her image of the book went fuzzy, then became clear again.

Momoka's voice was harsher. "Kella, I've told you..." She trailed off.

"Lenses, zoom out." All six lenses obliged. Mark ran the bamboo skewer backward across the line. There were some faded spots before and after the word wandering.

The skewer scraped across the page, letting forth a green fluid that ran like blood. Above the underline, the words darkened from pistachio to forest green.