The door jangled sleepily in his wake. He could almost smell the dust on the air—dust mixed with mildew and the smell of old paper and leather. There was nobody behind the counter—if that flat surface surrounded by a heap of books was the counter, that is. There didn’t seem to be a bell, sign, or register—nothing besides books and fragments of broken books filling the sagging frames of bookshelves and most of the floor space.
“Hullo?” he called tentatively, staggering a little over a pile of paper and broken bindings that had seemingly jumped unannounced into his path. He brushed against a bookshelf trying to avoid colliding with another pile and stirred up a cloud of dust. “I say, hull…oootish!” He sneezed.
“Over here,” came a muffled response at last. “Behind the shelf.”
“There are at least fifty shelves,” Barney replied exasperatedly. “To say nothing of the piles of books that one can't tell whether they are shelves or not.” No further information was volunteered, so he sighed and continued. “What do you mean, 'behind the shelf'? Which shelf, exactly?”
“Find the window, you dolt. The shelf in front of the window. Or at least I presume that's why you came in here—because you saw me in the window.”
Barney located the window with more difficulty than one would think and began to wade towards it. “This is worse than when Uncle Baxter took us on that excursion to the swamp,” he complained. He stubbed his toe on a shelf and bashed his head against the wall. “Ouch!”
“See, you only found that experience painful because you fell in. Some of us are coordinated, and swamps are quite enjoyable things.”
“You? Find the swamp enjoyable? Ha! If I remember rightly, the swamp found you quite enjoyable, a fact you did not exactly appreciate. You were scratching mosquito bites for days—and complaining.”
“Well, there are those who are just sweeter by nature, and the skeeters know it. But enough about me. Are you going to get here before tomorrow? We close at dark—no money for lamp oil, you know.”
Barney rounded a bookshelf, squeezing himself between it and a corner of the window seat, and nearly fell at the feet of the lad reading in the window, a ginger-haired youth with his face shoved behind an enormous tome. He had a quill clenched between his teeth which steadily dripped ink all over the grey smock he wore (presumably for the same reason). He did not bother to look up.
“I didn’t expect to see you here,” Barney said at last.
“I’d think you’d be used to it by now,” pontificated the shock of red hair—all that was visible behind the book. The quill dropped unheeded into his lap, where it dribbled gleefully all over a scrap of torn paper. “I am becoming too predictably unpredictable. I must remember to do something completely predictable sometime, so as to completely catch you off guard.”
Not fair! That's far too short a section to be called an excerpt - I want more! ^.^
This section was GREAT!
Can we have a Day 3 and Day 4 Excerpt Pweeaase? *look of unibunny cuteness*
I like it. The description reminds me somewhat of the wand shop from the Harry Potter series. The only thing I didn't like was, "He could almost smell the dust..." since I'm not sure how one can almost smell dust. I really like how the shop owner drops his quill in his lap near the end. It's somewhat unexpected, and fits very well with his comments about unpredictability. Good post. :)