Roaming the aisles of the used book store, the yellow floors, and that faint, old-book smell, I hear Melanie, with her obnoxious laugh, as she points at Isabel, calling out some Shakespearian insult, one of our fabulous nerd jokes.  I keep disappearing from the group, slipping into the fantasy section to see if Ms. Lackey ever had any more dreams for Talia after she earned her Heraldic Whites.  Perhaps another reader, weary of the old tales, sold back her adventure in the hope that I might also stumble into the Queen’s court, and delve through the pages to visit the fishermen of the East and Holderfolk of the South, or some other region of Valdemar I haven’t yet visited.  The girls always notice my absence and return to the aisle of my favorite fiction to find me, pulling me from my Kingdom, back into the real world.

Melanie and Mara go back and forth, imitating a teacher with impossible expectations, no longer our worry for summer.  We know that we have her again next year, and we have more of her angry rants and hatred to fuel our anxiety before August turns to September.  Melanie’s voice reaches the level of criminal insanity I heard from that woman every day last year, so I let my loud, high-pitched laugh slip out.  The girls keep going, and we know the whole store is probably annoyed with the ongoing giggling of teenage girls.

A crack of thunder startles me from my bliss.  Outside the shop, I see long columns of raindrops splattering onto the ground.  The gray outside feels like a cold, damp sweater settling on my shoulders.  I shiver, feeling raindrops soak through my shirt and crawl down my back.  All the little hairs behind my spine reach out to touch the cold air.  No.  I tell myself, I’m inside, dry and warm. The events of this morning trespass into my consciousness.  It’s safe here, I promise myself, there’s nothing to worry about.  I push those thoughts to the back of my mind, joining the conversation.  Mara refuses to give any hints as to what she wants for her birthday, and the other girls don’t know what to buy.  Fortunately, her gift from me already sits in blue wrapping paper, awaiting next week’s party.

We continue our wandering, hoping that the rain will stop.  I think of that moment of vulnerability when I will have to run through the rain to Isabel’s car, an easy target for any clouds desiring to strike me.  I think of the gray clouds gathering within the walls of my home, ready to release their rage.

 Startled by a loud quack/honk which could have emerged from the throat of a duck-goose hybrid, I turn around to see the source behind me.  “Melanie, you need to stop,” I tell the source of the noise for the 20^th time today, laughing even as I scold her.  Melanie is weird enough, but today we also have a caffeinated Isabel, who bounces herself up and down, not quite leaving the ground, but bobbing her entire body.  “Now for you,” I whip around to face her, “we need to put you in a straight jacket”.

“Nooo. Those are boriiing,” she whines, “Can we put rainbow duct tape on it?  Then it would be a lot more fun.  I could bounce all over the place.”

“No.  You wouldn’t be able to move.”  I countered.  She began speaking quickly about flopping around like a dying fish, changing the subject to how she saw someone kill a fish by bashing its head into a dock.  I can almost see the bloody flesh and scales as her eyes light up in near madness.  Our laughter rings out in the quiet bookstore as we interpret the words we can understand.  Teenagers loitering, unwanted in a public space, we continue our wandering.  Titles about foreign lands, particle physics, and the depths of the human mind line the walls.  I could explore the whole world in these aisles, putting off tomorrow, lingering in a disturbed almost-peace, but I don’t even need those books.  I need only the voices of my friends to pull me into their sunshine.