As she scoured the review sources for the fifth time, she began to think that this monetary disappearing act might not be entirely a bad thing.

"How about Boys Town?" the other librarian proffered helpfully.

"No good. I order Family and Children's videos, and that one would be in the Classic section."

"I circled that review of The Postman Always Rings Twice for you..."

"I had hoped you were kidding; it was rated R. I can't have anything higher than G for the kids, and PG for the Family."

"Oh."

She scowled as she turned back to the review book. With her highlighter, she drew a large yellow circle around the block of Maisy videos. That ought to kill fifty dollars, she thought. Only three hundred and fifty more to go. Perhaps she could blow another chunk of the money on Blue's Clues; the faster the task was over, the better.

It was difficult to concentrate on her work, considering the distractions with which she was dealing. The children's room had been decorated for the Summer Reading Program, so now a large, fluorescent mobile of the solar system wheeled silently over her head. Two inflated astronaut dolls were suspended from fishing wire, and three large Styrofoam airplanes swayed gently in the breeze from the air conditioner. Incongruously, a tiny disco ball had been hung from the ceiling beside her desk, and it shone little rainbows over her papers and magazines. An inflatable chair, covered with glow-in-the-dark stars, occupied the center of the floor and served as trampoline for the excited youngsters. As a finishing touch, a mirror and chest of dress-up clothes had been placed in the corner, allowing the children to costume themselves as birds, bugs, or astronauts, and they did so with gusto.

It was not a quiet scene. It was loud in both decibels and taste, and her head was beginning to throb from the stimulus of it all. On top of everything, a group of teenage girls had decided that the dress-up clothes could be fun for all ages and were giggling and squeezing into the tiny sets of wings. She'd warned them, but they were apparently not in the mood to listen. A single fly buzzed about her head, doing its part to add to the level of chaos in her mind.

Perhaps it was the overwhelming feeling of restlessness and anxiety, holding reign in her mind for five days running, that was causing her to respond so negatively to the everyday happenings of the library. Just a week prior to this, she had been laughing and joking with that very set of teenagers; now she was on the brink of asking them to leave.

Sighing, she shook her head and forced herself to return to her task. Perhaps when the video ordering was out of the way, she'd feel more able to face the rest of her problems. Maybe they would even have disappeared by then.

It was amusing to her, this role of storyteller. It was a role that her own mother had filled with ease; on car trips, the whole family would be regaled with tale after tale, from Ingalls Wilder to Grimm. As the children grew, the stories were replaced, though not displaced; the popular fare became essays from Dave Barry or other comedic writers. The driver was never worried about falling asleep at the wheel, since Mother would always stay awake, turning page after page.

Now she was her mother, reading to her husband the stories he remembered from her childhood, as well as new ones that she'd discovered in the meantime - science fiction stories, mostly, with a few longer novels, as well. At first he'd protested, claiming that her reading made him feel like a child. Then he'd dropped to only a few grumbles. Now he made no pretense at boredom, wanting her to read more and more to him. She glowed inside from his obvious enjoyment, though she knew better than to say anything to him about it; he was still occasionally inclined to snatch the book away, saying, "I can read well enough for myself."

Tonight, if he were so inclined, they would embark on the third book of Xanth.

She smiled, and felt her cheeks relax. The day was almost over, and most of the children had left for the day. Though most of the day had been a total disaster, she could begin to feel a sense of relaxation finally creep across her shoulders. A massage would have helped, though there was none forthcoming. Maybe...nobody was looking...

Quietly, she stole downstairs to her office, where she grabbed her mug and teabag. A few minutes later, she was sitting in front of her computer, checking her email. This was a luxury that she had not been afforded in recent weeks, when her boss had been on vacation and she'd had to cover double duty. The green tea slipped down her throat with a soft warmth that released her body from the final throes of tension. It was turning out to be a good day, after all.