#12 Royalty

Dear diary,

There was absolutely nothing to shelve in the library today. Everything had already been done in the morning, and the carrels were empty of students and book debris. Bron got me to shelf-read for the first half hour. That's thirty minutes of my life I will never get back. Shelf-reading is one of those ugly tasks which someone has to do, like garbage removal or telemarketing. I don't mind it because I can slip into a daydream, often returning to consciousness several stacks later and finding everything in perfect order.

But I was glad when after a while Bron came to join me. She said that she'd get the rest of the staff to come do some shelf-reading if things stayed like this. Five minutes later TJ wandered over and pulled up a stool without a word. Pepper came to chat as well because she was bored. I joked that with everyone here, who was at the front desk. They all laughed then stopped awkwardly, and Bron sprinted off to the counter.

After shelf-reading Pepper got me to hang up some castle-themed decorations in Junior for storytime that afternoon. As there was still no shelving to do we were able to do a bit more setting-up than usual. Pepper's original idea was to have little paper cutouts of crowns and fairytale castles adorning the walls, but she scrapped that idea and went or something a bit more creative. When she pulled out the blueprints of her masterpiece I knew we were in for a long haul.

Two hours later, parents beinging their littlies to storytime were confronted by the coolest castle ever built inside a library. The papier mache turrets which lined the red carpet walkway stretched all the way out to the catalogue terminals. Pot-plants dotted the spaces between the turrets, and we'd created a 'pond' by capsizing a blue table, covering the underside with glad-wrap and placing a rubber duck on top.

I was dressed as a courtier and met the excited children and bewildered parents at the entranceway. I led them down the carpeted avenue, pointing out the scenic features including TJ, who was dressed in knight's armour which he'd hired from the costume shop down the road. The carpet spilled onto the storytime mat where Peper sat dressed as a princess. She bade everyone sit down (not possible for TJ) then began reading the stories.

The applause at the end was tremendous. We did three curtain calls - which is prety impressive when you don't have a curtain - and Pepper was presented with a bouquet of roses. I've never seen anyone beam so much. After the library'd closed TJ replayed us what he'd filmed of the day, with Pepper interrupting every now and then for screen edits. It was a really good day after all, so good that I didn't realise until I'd gotten home that I'd worked for two hours unpaid. I don't really care though; it was fun!