22By Dark Lady
James led the other boys into the library. There was four of them including himself; Derek was the grumpiest, he had red hair spiked in all directions and always had a fowl fixed upon his face, save when it was replaced by some sinister smirk.
Pete, he had long blonde hair in a loose ponytail, generally he was an nice enough guy had his morals and all.
Rick, had a few dark bits of stubble where hair should be, he also had several earrings in each ear and one on his nose. He too wore a permanent frown.
"God, Jay, why the hell are you so interested in a nobody?" Derek muttered. "And why the hell are you dragging us into it all?" They had an awkward nose around the room.
"Can it Derek!" James snapped. The librarian looked at them severely. "Think we've out stayed our welcome lads." He ran a hand through he thick dark hair and sighed before turning and making for the exit.
"Yo Jay! Whad'ya say her name was again?" Pete called after them.
"Saria Harper." James replied almost quietly. Not turning around to face the blonde boy.
"Thought so." Pete said, interrupting his thoughts. "I found her, or at least something to do with her." He pointed up at the wall. On it was the name Saria Harper and a huge poster with the name again and several pictures of books.
Immediately James' attention was on the wall. The others gathering around near him.
"Jay, you didn't say this geek chick was an author." Derek complained. "She must be rolling in doe."
"I didn't know." James replied quieter than even before. "I didn't know."
His new challenge was an author, at sixteen. He made a mental note of the titles of her books; 'Out of the Shadows', 'Childs Play', 'Tattered Fairytale' and a few more. Following this he made another mental note to read them, all of them. He had to find out some kind of clue as to how to get inside this girl's head. Something, anything.
He proceeded to browse the shelves searching for the books and found four titles written by Saria, four of seven. He sat and started reading.
"You're kidding me Jay!" Derek called out in disbelief. "You're not actually going to sit in this place and read?!" Pete took a seat also and read the back of one of the books on the table James was sat at.
"Sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but that's what people do in libraries these days." He chuckled. Derek held back all as much anger and dignity as he could and turned to leave, stopping only to inspect his red spikes in the window. The Rick followed him but Pete stayed.
Once lunch was over he checked the books out and proceeded to read them in registration and then in her study session. Then he took them home and continued to read.
The books were superbly written and commitment was evident but still they weren't his type of books. He read them none the less and tried to find any clue as to how each book was related to Saria. His target.
He had also planned to take her to the party next Friday. She would come and she would have fun. Whether it meant changing her into someone else or not or whether it meant taking her there against her will, forcing her to go, he didn't care. He was taking Saria to that party.
All of them were written in a humour, of a sense, but how they remained humorous when the story itself was so depressing was a wonder. Most of them were about people who were put down and people who were bullied and then the last one he read a girl who was suicidal. It worried him and brought him to reality. Maybe just because he hadn't noticed these people that didn't mean he shouldn't now. The more he thought, the more worried he became and the whole time something kept nagging at him, tugging at his mind, screaming for attention that he wasn't willing to give it.