The Awakening: Part 9

Billy had strapped the baseball glove on too lightly he realized. Every other book or so would slam against him so hard that his palm burned with pain. The room was a quizzical blue color today, not that it hadn't been as blue the day before. Was the void growing more vivid? The purplish-black hue it emitted was making his eyes hurt. He would have to wear sunglasses the next day. It had been a week now. His idea of a girlfriend had included telling Meryl where and when she could kiss him. She'd done so, at last count, at least three times by then. Once, for having saved her from her clumsiness. As he was walking downhill toward school one morning, some confused youth had thrown his skateboard out of his yard and it rolled sideways onto her path, almost tripping her, if it weren't for Billy's beefy hands that grabbed her by the waist and stopped her. That got them embracing and then Meryl giggled. It was a thing she did more often now. Before she'd visited her house, Billy didn't even think Meryl had the ability to giggle. The first one, of course but that hadn't counted as a real kiss because a real kiss, it surprised Billy to find, lasted a little longer than a second. Six. The third had lasted ten and it tended to be quite dismissive. Soft lips. His head was in the wrong state to catch books. He'd managed to save far less than the day before.

Throughout the week, Billy had saved at least six-hundred books from exploding or having their pages torn by the speed at which they were launched out of the void. How did Francine do it before him? Billy smiled at the thought of Francine wearing a baseball uniform crouching in the small room, to catch books. Billy was wearing a suit that day. There was a dance at the school at eight. With the effect of the books coming in more and more each day, Billy promised to help Francine for a half and hour longer than usual. He no longer sweat as much, he realized, and he also realized that those baggy jeans his mom had bought him a two months ago were starting to live up to their name. He might even have to buy a belt. In this respect, the void had paid off. In other aspects, like him getting ten dollars, instead of the promised twenty, well, things were just down right wrong. He suspected it had something to do with Simon's free lunches. Well, it kept Billy healthy at least. It seemed that Simon's dad really liked to pack a sandwich with vegetables, even the chicken ones tasted more like broccoli than anything else. In any case, he'd make it to the dance on time, that was for sure.

As he was thinking this, the void became a rumbling noise of eek, eeek, eeek. Could Francine hear that? The last book spat out of it and Billy was sure that the hour was up, since he couldn't see the void clearly because the room was so full of books and book dust. Plus, he could feel it in his bones now. When the hour was up, he usually felt winded and weary, as if his body had a response time to the void. It anticipated when it was going to close. He had mentioned this to Francine and she had speculated that it had something more to than a normal reaction. Francine didn't say much more about it than that and Billy was grateful for it. He didn't need another distraction. EEEEEEK. Finally Billy took off the face plate and walked out of the room.

"Francine!" He called out to the librarian. She was a fairly attractive lady for a forty-year-old aunt of a geek. She wore glasses, which diminished the effect, somewhat and was sometimes prone to clumsiness, not unlike Meryl. She twisted in her chair at her desk, and walked over to him through the narrow bookshelf pass. Billy was now thin enough that both of them could fit side by side but just barely. He let her brush past him. "It's making a noise," Billy said, closing the door behind him. It was her daily routine to close the door and clean up the books in the morning and that's why she had brushed passed him, her keys retrieved from her belt pouch at her waist. Today, she wore a sun dress with flowers drawn in purple around it to the background of a yellow field of falling leaves.

"What's that?" Francine asked him.

"There's a noise in there, why do you think I closed the door?"

"Hmm," Francine said, "Let's see this noise business, then."

Billy opened the door, and began to take off his uniform. Francine stopped him. "It's been forty minutes, Billy."

"Really?" Billy asked, wondering why his body had responded to the closing early.

When the door opened the noise was gone. Francine sighed, starting to walk over to her desk but then she peeked into the room. "Hmm, that's odd."

"Pardon?" Billy asked.

"There's a girl there. Where the void should be."

"And the void?"

"It's gone."

Billy walked into the room with her, while Francine crouched low. They both stared at a dark-skinned girl about Billy's age with the face of someone familiar. Billy certainly didn't know her but she was the prettiest girl he'd ever seen. She didn't look so good as far as her dress went. It was a light blue dress but all the shoulder straps were torn and her hem was falling off at the sides, so that Billy saw most of her stomach. Francine left the room and came back with a blanket. By that time, Billy was covering himself from blow after blow that the girl was dealing to him. "Who are you, huh? You're going to try and kill me too? I know that witch sent me somewhere horrible again. I just know it! All the world's I've been to are all full of lies and unjust crimes, even my own." She cried for a bit as she continued to pound on him, although Billy was trying to play the part of gentle giant, as he protected his face. Her hands weren't all that rough on him, not any rougher than the books had been. She had gentle hands that felt soft as they struck him. Then, she stepped on his toe.

Francine came in just in time. She dropped her blanket and restrained the girl by grabbing her hands. She then began to kick and scream. "Help! Help!" They got her quickly out of the dark room and through the narrow hallway into the actual library, where she dropped to the ground, exhausted form her display of bravery. Billy had never witnessed someone so determined to escape. She definitely had heart. What she didn't have was proper attire. Billy found himself blushing a couple of times, when her dress didn't quite cover her belly.

"Oh," Francine said, "Child. What to do with you? Come, calm down calm down. We're not going to hurt you. Oh, him? Yes, he's a bully but I'll keep him at bay, you can count on that."

"With magic?"

"Magic? Where did you get such a wild idea?" Francine giggle consoling the girl. She'd let her go and was now just observing her on the floor, sitting with one leg folded and one not. "What we need to do is get you some clothes."

"You don't use magic at all?"

"What kind of place you think this is?" Billy found himself asking.

The girl gave him a mean stare. "Billy, shush, now go. You'll be late for your dance."

Billy looked at his watch. Time had changed. It was nine. How had time changed by more than an hour in a few minutes? What was happening?

"Miss?"

"Yes, what, what is it, Billy?"

"Time changed," Billy said.

"What do you mean?"

"It was five forty when we went into the room, now my clock says nine and it's dark outside."

"And this are all things that seem strange to you?" the girl asked.

Billy decided to leave after that, not wanting to ask any more questions of the strange girl for the time being. Plus, it was going to be a hell of time explaining to Meryl why he hadn't been at the dance.

"Well," said Francine, concern growing on her face, "Why wouldn't they seem strange to us, deary?"