This Still Happens

Chapter Twenty-Six - Maundy: Gordon

On Saturday morning, I wake up from a dream about the book Ffion supposedly lent me, and to the urge--the overwhelming urge--to make sure Mr Mayes sees me giving it back to her on Monday at school. The only problem--other than how I’ll make sure Chris sees nothing--is that she hasn’t actually lent me a book.

Guess I’ll have to improvise--good thing I’m doing well in Drama--and lend her one of mine, instead.

Dragging myself out of bed, I put on my glasses and stumble over to my bookshelf, drawing the conclusion I’d have reached in a quick, simple thought, if I’d not just woken up a moment ago.

None of my books will do the trick. I can’t see Ffion being able to take a single one home without… without some kind of consequence. I don’t get the impression that her parents are very lenient.

Let’s not think about how they’d react to “Us Three” by Mia Kerick. Gay polyamory. My favourite. Probably not Mr and Mrs McDade’s favourite.

But I want Mr Mayes to see me hand Ffion a book, so that I won’t have to have lied about giving her a book. Not entirely, at least. “A book she lent me” still won’t be true, but there are limits to what I can do to change time.

More’s the pity.

But it’s not just that I want Mr Mayes to see me hand Ffion a book.

Ffion’s sweet, and I’ve a lot of lost time to make up, being friends with her and I like to treat my friends, hence the tea and cake at the Wainwrights’. If she asks why I’m giving her a book, I’ll tell her it’s a belated birthday present. I’m fairly sure her birthday’s sometime in the spring, so I’ve probably missed it.

And if it’s a birthday present, I can’t very well ask for it back once she’s finished with it, can I? Giving her a cast-off might even be worse!

No, I think it would be best if I just… gave her a book.

I scratch my head as I stagger around my room, still bleary from excess of sleep and lack of coffee, dressing in some cleanish grey jeans and a zippy jacket.

Methinks it be time for a little… spree.

-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-

I'm not sure if I like the smell of the Christian bookshop on Prudhoe High Street. It's definitely not a bad smell—it's crisp and clean and bright, almost—but it's not a bookshop smell. And I'm not sure if I know what I mean by that, either.

A bookshop should smell something like an attic, of cardboard and paper and tape, of dust and low light and spiders, of the old and unknown. Like a treasure chest.

But this place smells new, and young, and fresh, as if the books are still branches growing on trees, as if, by opening any given one, I might find a burst of vibrant, verdant leaves growing out of the central stitches.

I walk through the rows of shelves, craning my neck to look at the genre labels. I had no idea there were so many kinds of Christian books. But there are. Romance. Historical. Spiritual. Literary. Classics. And I never really thought about it, but that makes sense. Victor Hugo had a lot to say along the lines of, "be nice to each other or God will be disappointed in you." So of course "Les Misérables" is here.

I'm gonna admit that I don't really understand Ffion's Church, let alone where it stands on "spiritual" issues (or what those are), so I think it's best for me to steer clear of that section, if only for the moment. I don't want to upset her—and ruin all of this—by getting the wrong end of the "God is bread" stick, for example. I know that's not the only stick, but I don't know what the other sticks are, or how many there are only that, if you get them just out of alignment, they'll spell out, "Ha, you fucked up."