Hide and Seek

St. Ia's, Highgrove; what was the difference? Other than being suddenly surrounded by a helluva lot more people, it was really the same, wasn't it? Sure there was the whole new sensation of being around boys again, which was nice. The whole being surrounded by women who all seemed to get their lovely time of the month at the same fucking hour of the same fucking day was getting old to say the least. At least when Mum was on the rag she normally could go hide somewhere or distract her by attempting to play the guitar. Key word attempting. She'd never made it past the first few chords of learning anything and was more content to try to build her own amp with the boys. Not that she could do something like that here. No she was monitored just like she was at St. Ia's. Those bitches had probably sent ahead a note or some shit letting the administration know her habits. It wasn't as though she hadn't assumed they'd tell the staff about her, it was more of she had been hoping that there would be a bit more of a clean slate period than what she had been given. Instead the first few days had shown her an automatic pattern of a staff member coming in and turning her shit inside out in order to look for anything she may have collected in the sparse minutes between chores and classes and whatever else useless shit they decided to throw at her. The only thing that was working in her favor was that she had in her favor was that she did have a bit of free time where she could skulk around and attempt to find things.

Then again what was she really trying to find in a place like this? There wasn't any real machinery she could get her hands on - and even if she could she didn't have the proper tools to go in and take the thing apart. What this place needed was a garage or something. Then again with the emo cutter crowd and the stab you in the face until it stops being funny lot it was probably best that large machines weren't available to the general public. That being said, she would have still appreciated some sort of hands on, real technical learning facility to have been built in this new piece of boring she'd found herself in. Then she would have had something to keep her busy, something to keep her mind occupied and fresh. Something that wasn't some sappy poem about a red rose or a dark lady. Like that was going to do her any good. Really the people in this place needed a reality check if they honestly thought that this was a well rounded education. But, she shouldn't complain too much. At least she got different teachers here instead of simply Sister Josephine who had the most monotone of voices that droned on from one topic and blending the tones to a perfect lull even when she was talking about something that might have been half interesting.

Also luckily for her, this place had more than one building. More buildings meant more hiding places for things. So far she hadn't found a place that would be nice and out of the way to hide her precious possessions...until she stumbled upon the old chapel that she'd somehow neglected to notice on the initial tour. The place wasn't huge, but it didn't have to be. The main point was there was plenty of space. There was space between the books, behind them, that existed from the end of one book and the back of the shelf that held the tomes of literature in place. This was where she'd decided to begin her small new little pile of things. She'd taken to sliding in after chores and depositing whatever she had behind the really dusty books; dusty meant that no one was interested in them and therefore wouldn't move them anytime soon. As long as she checked out a book she figured and returned it the next time she came, she wouldn't have to worry. Soon she would have a working system of things and then she could organize them properly.

Striding into the small library she looked around quickly for the blonde man that ran the place. Satisfied that he was busy with something else she crept over to her new little back corner of the chapel and pulled out the books that concealed her precious treasures. Bobby pins from the bathroom floor, paperclips from the classroom, a few pencils from here and there, buttons from loose clothing left around the room when her roommates were out... her collection was growing quite nicely. She grinned at it and slowly moved the different pieces into their little groups. What could she make with this...what could she make....

Solomon was a neat man. There were many things one could accuse him of being, but disorganized was not one of them. His first and most important task at Highgrove had been to start reorganizing the less well-kept parts of the library. It was a task that had been neglected for ages which warranted more than one person to accomplish it, and he was doing it on top of his regular duties, so it was taking him some time to get to all of the disused corners. He threw himself into ruthless organizing day after day, observing the children in the library but not talking to them unless absolutely necessary. He used to enjoy interaction with teenagers, but the disastrous activity session he had run with Madeline had left him bereft of any desire to make contact with the student body. They did their thing and he did his. The problem with Solomon's 'thing' was that it was becoming increasingly neurotic. While he had been neat before, now he was swiftly drawing near to OCD; while he had been observant before, now he was almost obsessively vigilant. Sleeping through an entire night without being awakened by horrific nightmares was now just a fond memory. His cat, which he had named Benjamin in honor of his deceased former self, did not appreciate being ejected out of the bed every night by his violent tossing, and he was sure that his roommate was growing sick of his making tea at odd hours.

A few days ago, the sleep deprived and profoundly anxious librarian had discovered a small cache of various trash items behind some dusty and long unread books he had been planning to clean around. He had almost thrown it away, but instead he had left it alone, deciding that he could catch the little squirrel-like hoarder at it and make them clean it out themselves. Solomon had kept a loose eye on the corner, careful not to touch or rearrange its contents, but no-one had approached it yet, at least not while he was watching. Today was a different story, though. While he was reshelving books with authors whose surnames began with 'e', he watched a redhead walk in out of the corner of his eye. He'd seen her in here before, but she'd never taken a book out. His suspicions were confirmed when she immediately disappeared into the hoarding corner. Good. He could finally catch the little magpie at it. Quickly shelving the book he was holding, he followed her into the remote and lonely corner of his half-organized library. No-one was going to clutter up this room until he was around.

She seemed to be playing with her stash as he approached, touching and rearranging the bits of stuff in ways that surely made sense to her even if it didn't to Solomon. He had ceased to try to understand the various issues of the children; Keziah Biard had cured him of that interest forever with her 'story'. It was better not to know what was wrong with the residents of Highgrove. Nevertheless, a twinge of pity paralyzed him for a moment, but it quickly passed. If she wanted to pile up junk, she could do it under her bed, not behind his books. Making his likely haggard face as stern as possible, he tapped the girl on the shoulder and said,

"Excuse me, miss, but is that your, um...collection? If it is, could you please clean it out of the bookshelf?" There. Not harsh, not mean, but authoritative. She would take her garbage and be along and he could go back to work like none of this had ever happened.

Shit.
Damn.
Fuck.

The expletives tumbled from Ellie's brain and onto her lips but all that came out was a soft jumble of sounds that ended up coming out as something between a gasp and a bunch of cacophonous syllables clacking together as they came spilling from her lips. To Solomon it probably sounded like the girl was cursing in some made up language and perhaps she was. She was cursing in her very own Eleanor certified language that only she was able to decipher. If she had to decipher the noise that she just made of course it would translate into those three words smushed together. Shamk. Fait. Dut. Something like that. But the over all emphasis of the sound was probably not lost on the librarian; 'Oh dear god - you caught me.'

Positioning herself between the man and her pile Ellie glared up at him slightly. It wasn't as though she had any real animosity towards the man. From the time that she had been in the library making her stash he'd always been nice to her. When she was pretending to look at books he would always direct her to the right section. Eventually she'd even settled on a biography of John Lennon - yes she knew it was stupidly ironic or at least some other sort of literary term that made it funny, but hey her Mum had raised her well. At least she could hum softly to herself in the nearly abandoned library while looking over iconic pictures in the book, even if she didn't have her ipod to back up the songs in her head. All of that aside though, the man was suddenly threatening her stuff. It was her stuff and she'd just found a nice place to put it. It would take weeks for her to find another spot like this unless she wanted to go outside and bury it somewhere or something. And that would just ruin some of the stuff and what happened if she forgot where she'd put it? It would be useless to her in an emergency.

"Look...I'm sorry if it's in your way or something but....it's not hurting anyone is it? I've been watching and no one really comes back here with the..."

She paused looking back over the small shelf of books to try to remember just where she'd hidden the stuff anyway.

"Geology textbooks. I just need somewhere to keep it. They keep raiding my room and getting rid of everything. I promise I'll keep it just here where no one can see it. I'll even trade you something for it...like rent or something. I could...dust or help you move books or something. Just...please let me keep it there?"

She gave him her best pleading look that she could muster.

Please....come on just please....just this once. I won't let it get out of hand....again...

Solomon was pretty clueless about psychology -- he knew as much about it as he did about anything. A brief overview, all the important facts and landmark cases. He knew enough to know that it would be bad to let this girl keep collecting her garbage in the back of his bookshelf, anyway. That was enabling, and her psychiatrist would likely give him a stern talk about it if they found out. But she seemed so desperate to keep it, and he wasn't good at putting his foot down. 'Librarian' was hardly a position of authority, and that was how he preferred it. Ordering people around wasn't his thing. But he knew that he had to be the mean guy, just this once. As important as keeping her stash of junk was to her now, years from now she'd thank him for making her clean it out. Right? And besides...this was his library, and he wanted it clean, dammit. The little mess behind the seldom used geology textbooks would irritate him even if he couldn't see it, and he'd likely clean it out himself in the end if she didn't do it now. Better for her to know what happened to it than come back and find her things missing days later. Shaking his head slowly, trying to ignore the pleading look on the girl's face, Solomon replied,

"Sorry. You're going to have to clean it out. I'll get the garbage bin; wait here." He didn't necessarily think it was a good idea to leave her alone; she'd probably try to make a run for it with her little cache of items. But it was a short walk to his desk, and he could keep an eye on her as he went. Solomon made the trip to his desk to retrieve the garbage bin that sat behind it fairly quickly, then brought it back to the disused corner just as swiftly. He put it down in front of the shelf and said,

"Go on." Rethinking that last sentence, deciding that it probably sounded mean, he added, "I'm sorry if this isn't...exactly what you envisioned. But you know I can't let you keep that stuff, right?" He almost added that she didn't need it anyway, but that would have been insensitive. It would have been like someone telling him not to sort all the magazines by year and topic. He didn't need to, but things definitely looked better that way. Things just looked better for this girl when she had a stash of random garbage for some reason. He couldn't pretend that he understood, but he sympathized. That being said, he didn't particularly have the patience for any sort of sass today, so if she got mouthy he might get a little less understanding. That would be just excellent...everyone would know him as mean Mr. Halsley the prematurely crotchety librarian and throw things at him. Ugh. Teenagers, he thought, conveniently ignoring the fact that he was only about eight years older than the oldest kids here. Especially the ones here. Banishing these undeniably old and crotchety thoughts, Solomon waited for the girl to comply. Come on. Get it over with. Like ripping a bandaid off.