Never Judge A Book #amwriting

She hated going home on Wednesdays. Not because she hated being at home, but because the latest round of budget cuts had meant that they now closed at 3pm on Wednesdays. Apparently, no one wanted to read or research after 3pm in the middle of the week, and so the decision was made. Dullham Library was closed, literary pursuits were prohibited, on a Wednesday afternoon. Sylvia was initially worried about the cut in her pay, but they had been able to work around it. They had dropped a 'brand level' in the supermarket, and agreed that they didn't really need two cars. Sylvia's had been the car to go of course. Which meant that Wednesday afternoons were now a hellish 45 minute commute on the number 37 bus, which just happened to be the bus which was used by dozens of the local kids on their way home fro school. They were so... feral. That was the only word she could think to describe them, as yet another kick reached her kidneys through the back of the seat. She sighed. Only another 4 stops.

She was greeted at the door by the family cat, Oscar. On the face of it, he looked pleased to see her, rubbing his little ginger cheeks against her black work trousers. 'Get off Oss, you'll get hair all over me' she complained, at the same time scooping the little fur ball up and burying her face in his warm belly. 'OK poppet, let's find you some food'. As she was scooping out the dry cardboardy biscuits into the small bowl, a shout came from the front door. 'mummy! we're home!!!' Her daughter, Annabelle, and her partner Charlie. She tied her hair back into a knot on top of her head, light brown wisps dancing merrily around the edge of her face as she greeted them both, glad to be home and with the people she loved. Their evening could begin now, it was her time.

She woke feeling refreshed the next morning, had made breakfast and kissed her dear ones good bye for the day, Oscar was out terrorising the neighbourhood, or sleeping in the garden, and the house was quiet. She picked up her red leather laptop bag from the hall way, and sat at the varnished pine dining table. Unzipping an inner pouch, she pulled out four books. 

She laid them out in front of her, and pulled out her scalpel and a small thin tube of superglue. Her stomach was fluttering and she had that familiar feeling of glee as she began. She turned the first book over - some stuffy mid 19th century novel that people read to say they've read. She turned to page 278 and picked up her knife, slicing delicately, neatly to sever the page from the spine, like a surgeon removing a tumour. The second book now, a dreadful 'Thrills and Groom' thing, read by people who don't like reading. How she hated this stuff. It gave her such enormous pleasure, this small act of dissent.

The knowledge that just as the reader was reaching the climax of the story, it would briefly take a very odd turn, make them look up, make them wonder if they had drifted off for a bit. She tucked a stray hair behind her ear, and took a steadying breath to prevent her hand from shaking. She turned once again to page 278 and cut. Then, using precision that six long years of medical training had instilled in her, she applied the glue, swapped the pages and performed her transplant, holding the books open long enough for the glue to set without the pages sticking.

Leaving the transplants to set, she collected the two remaining books and went in to the living room to find the super thin black marker pen which lived out of Annabelle's reach in a pen pot on the mantelpiece. This was a book of children's stories, in which small girls always wore dresses and played with dolls, whilst the little boys were 'mischief' and rode pretend horses and were knights and kings and saved the day. She took out a small pot of corrective fluid and started working her way through the book. 'James', the hero of the book became 'Janet'. James now found himself in his best dress, with his pigtails tied in a neat red bow, whilst Janet came home covered in mud and barrelled, with Spike the Dog in tow, straight through James' doll's tea party. She changed all of the pronouns to 'They' for a gender neutral effect.'Yes' thought Sylv, 'let's rewrite some rules here' and she chuckled at the thought of one of the very conservative mummies puzzling over this book, recommended by the local Prep school, and its non-traditional plot and characters.

The final book on her target list was a men's action thriller, where the hero was full of bullying menace, with entitlement coming out of his perfectly, sweatily, well defined, muscled pores. This book she simply opened in twelve random places and crossed out every 10th word on the selected page, obliterating them with the marker pen.

Her work complete, she popped the books back in to her bag, grabbed her flat shoes, neutral lipstick and beige cardigan - the Librarian's cloak of anonymity - and set off for the Library. She would put these books back on the shelf this morning before the building was open to the public, along with the other returns that had been deposited over night. Sitting on the bus, she beamed, giggling to herself, as she pulled a heavy brown note book from a pocket inside her bag, flicked through to find the end of her growing list, and noted down the Dewey Code and title of the books she had 'mended'. She had been working at the library for almost a year now. She already had over 200 books in her list. She sat back against the bristly material of the bus seat, eyes glazed as she peered out of the window, wondering where she would find her patients today.