The Substitute Librarian
All Work and No Play
The rumbling in his empty tummy tempted Emerald to stop in at the bakery for an actual piece of cake on his way to the library and his temporary job. However, Sun was up high enough in the sky to discourage such a slothful idea as to be late to his first day of work. That still did not mean he was unable to enjoy the journey.
He hastened his steps into a pleasant stroll in the direction of the huge oak tree in the center of town, which could only be the Golden Oak Library. The town certainly could afford to tear the old tree down and replace it with a modern structure if not for the pragmatic approach of earth ponies to such financial expenditures. Most probably the budget for pest control and arboriculture visits was less than the equivalent amount of upkeep on a brick and glass structure, and the savings could be held in the town’s reserve fund in case the old tree caught a stray lightning bolt or tipped over in a storm. Plus over the years, it put on its own free building expansion projects, although probably slower than the residents wanted.
Emerald felt just a bit sorry for his father’s groundskeeper, stuck out in the orchard in the heat of the day and sweating his hide off while the lazy pony he was sent to keep an eye on was resting in the shade. The thumping of heavy school books in his saddlebags reminded him of the studying he was going to be doing while sitting around a quiet library, which made bucking apple trees seem slightly better in hindsight.
Maybe I can slip over there during lunch and bring him a cupcake from the bakery. It would give me a chance to stretch my legs and Dawn always had a sweet tooth.
His rapid stride brought Emerald to the front door of the leafy library just about at the same time as a young schoolteacher and her following throng of reluctant students. The earth pony teacher was a cheery pinkish-purple, a shade that Emerald found himself at a loss to identify by name, although he was more drawn to her bright attentive eyes and friendly smile.
“Good morning,” she fairly chirped. “I’m Miss Cheerilee. Are you waiting for the library to open too?”
“Actually, I’m opening the library,” he explained while rooting through his saddlebag and trying to find where the key had settled. “My name is Emerald City, and I’ll be the substitute librarian while Miss Sparkle is absent. Ah, there it is.”
Emerald picked the spellkey out of his saddlebag and held it in one hoof before touching it to the library’s bright red door. “There we go,” he declared before giving the doors a sharp and ineffectual tug.
Oh, pucker. It’s one of the company’s horn-keys.
“Maybe it’s stuck,” suggested Cheerilee before hustling over to a wandering student and herding her back into the group.
“Actually, I was just testing to make sure the locking enchantment was in place,” said Emerald. “Who here is the most powerful unicorn?”
“Twilight Sparkle,” chorused most of the little ponies, with two of the colts adding, “Trixie,” just a moment later.
“Is Trixie here?” asked Emerald. “Because Twilight Sparkle is on a trip, and we’re going to need a really powerful unicorn to use this key and open up the library this morning. Trixie?” Seeing none of the students volunteering, Emerald lowered himself to one knee and held the spellkey out on the flat of his hoof.
“I don’t know if this is a good idea, Mister City,” said Cheerilee, looking more than a little nervous at the flickering glows of illuminated stubby horns.
“Call me Emerald, please. Now, let’s have a little contest this morning. If I can get the unicorns in your class to come up here to the front, we’ll have them try to lift the key one at a time. The rest of you will be responsible for cheering them on, and for judging just who gets to open the door. Won’t this be fun?”
The students cheered.
The teacher looked very much like she wanted to find a suit of armor and a welding mask.
Five little unicorns lined up with some small amount of tussling for dominance that Emerald quashed by assigning them positions.
He was not too worried. About half of the class did not even have their cutie marks yet, so the worst the little unicorns could probably do was light their corona and make sparks.
Admittedly, the first one made hot sparks, but with a name like Firelock, he should have expected it and been a little more careful about holding the spellkey. One of the others could not even get her horn to light up, and a tubby colt almost appeared to be having a constipation fit during his attempt. The most promising candidate was a tall colt who looked to be all knees and ears. He at least managed to light up his horn with a partial corona, but after a few moments when the key did not glow or move, Emerald had to ask.
“Snails, was it? Are you trying to lift the key?”
The tip of the colt’s tongue emerged from the corner of his mouth and the key trembled slightly, floating up a hoof-widths but only for a moment until the hornlight abruptly cut off and Snails took a deep breath. “Whew. I almost had it there.”
“You weren’t trying as hard as I was,” said Snips, puffing out his chest proudly to make himself look bigger.
“Guys, we have one more contestant,” chided Emerald. “Your name is Dinky?”
The little student nodded, then put on her fiercest face. Somepony out in the diminutive audience whispered, “Go Dinks!”
Several sparks later, the young filly gave out a rush of breath and sat down on the library path.
“Nice try,” said Emerald in his most encouraging voice. “It looks to be close, but I believe Snails is our winner. Come on up here and open the door so you can be first inside.” He held the spellkey up to the door and watched Snails light up his horn again.
It was difficult to conceal his trepidation. After all, if the schoolfoal could not push enough magic into the working, Emerald would have to go find an adult to open up the building. An adult unicorn, of course, because Emerald could not do it himself. And that would probably put an end to his attempt at keeping a low profile.
The workings under the doorframe felt smooth, far more expertly laid than the commercial locking enchantments in House Chrysanthemum’s catalog, even the most expensive custom ones that were sold only by appointment, cash in advance. As a small colt, Emerald had tagged along for several of the security installations, quietly observing the elderly locksmiths ply their trade in interconnected runes and intricate workings that hurt his eyes unless he squinted really hard. For this door, the warning sensation of magical lines of force nearly flowed like water under the spellkey’s codes and Snails’ magic, a fluid entwining that grew right up to the point where the door lock gave out a low clunk. Emerald pushed the door open and waved the schoolfoals inside, giving a deep bow of the head to their teacher who was following them all in like an alert sheep dog.
“Thank you, Mister… I mean Emerald,” said Cheerilee with a smile. “They’re all supposed to turn in a book report next week, and that would be a little difficult without a book, wouldn’t it?”
Emerald had never been in a library tree before. The students seemed to know where everything was, and their teacher had them under control. It would be a shame if he did not poke around his new workplace at least for a few minutes, so he knew where everything was.
With that in mind, he took a quick look around the entrance, a respectable divot in the cavernous central chamber where incoming patrons could stomp the mud out of their hooves, which he did. The thick bristles of the welcome mat scratched right on the frogs of his hooves where he needed it most, making him feel welcome indeed when he took a step forward into the main room and responded back to the smiling teacher.
“Not a problem. This is a library, after all. Although it’s not quite like my father’s. I’ll just look around while your students find what they need.”
He tried to get a sense of the job ahead of him while walking past the book-crammed walls, starting with a quick stop inside the library’s bathroom. From the looks of the claw-footed cast iron bathtub and tidy sink, the small space did double-duty for both patrons and librarian, with a short stool in front of the sink for shorter foals to reach the spigots, and…
…with only one partial roll of toilet paper, and one rough cotton towel.
“Welcome to the Monastery of Saint Twilight of Ponyville,” he murmured once he had taken care of his business.
Thankfully, the packet said Thistle Burr had been the previous librarian, commander of the leafed legion, and squirrely nut in the library tree. Since she had been an earth pony, and most likely an earth pony had preceded her for several generations, most library processes were uncomplicated by his lack of a horn. This meant the main room’s librarian desk contained the locked bathroom linen closet’s key, a simple twisted piece of metal from a style dating back decades.
He used it to open the wall cabinet, which thankfully had not been magicked-up by the current librarian for security, and considered the contents. These were not towels for the patrons, being plush and fuzzy with a script ‘TS’ embroidered on each end, just what one would need to wrap around a soggy body after a good, long soak.
Also and oddly enough at the back of the cabinet, there was a collection of scented soaps and body lotions that would have put most beauty salons to shame, a short row of perfumes bottles that still had the sealing wax on the lids, five different kinds of mane shampoo and twelve conditioning products, as well as several sealed boxes of exfoliating pads, blush, eyeshadow, mane ‘frosting’ treatments, and other such feminine products.
He refilled the toilet paper dispenser, put an ordinary bar of soap next to the sink, got out an extra roll of toilet paper to sit on the back of the toilet, put the lush towels back on the shelves, and locked the cabinet with a sigh of relief.
Duty (and the quiet knocking of a student at the door) evicted him from the peace of the small chamber, and he strolled up the short-stepped ramp to the second floor. Which, of course, was just about as densely packed with books as below, including some on shelves which only pegasi or unicorns could possibly reach. There was also a closed door, most probably containing Twilight Sparkle’s personal space in the library, which he left closed. And a few steps up the ramp took him to an open balcony, the perfect place for the aspiring young librarian to enjoy a fall breeze, look out across the peaceful town, and still keep an eye on the library’s main room.
After taking a deep breath of the fresh morning air and relaxing, he had a few comforting moments to look out across the library floor from altitude with all the students scurrying around between the bookshelves. The space inside the tree was larger than he expected, since everything packed neatly into curved corners and nooks instead of nice, straight, labelled shelves. It did have accommodations for earth ponies with ladders and inclined steps, which only made sense since Ponyville was a mostly earth pony community, and the world had not started when Twilight Sparkle set hoof here. In fact, it was a much warmer space than his family library, where each child had been trained to remain silent and respectful.
“Hey!” he barked to a pair of students right below him. “No running, please.”
Not a sign that Emerald was turning into his father. Really. He tried to tell himself that while walking down the short-stepped ramp to the main floor of the library where he had dropped his saddlebags next to the desk. It was, of course, an oak librarian’s desk, built much the same as librarian’s desks had been built since the first pony had put together the first book and placed an implacable guardian to prevent it from being touched by lesser beings. The chair behind the desk’s impressive bulk was as stately as a throne in its own way, much like his father’s sturdy chair in the library at home.
Rather than sit down, Emerald decided to check out the rest of his new job’s work space first.
Just behind the librarian desk, there was a kitchen tucked away in a woody nook, a tiny space that just cried out ‘spinster’ in large, capital letters. All it needed was a half-dozen cats lounging around the tiny window and outside the back door, a few scattered around the window planters, and the picture would be complete. It certainly was just large enough for one, or two if the second was a very small dragon. The sink had barely enough space to put the drain rack to one side, and it had the obligatory two of everything from plates to spoons to cups, a teakettle on the stove…
Make that a full set of tea-making things, and every meaning of the word ‘full’ was obvious. Princess Celestia with her legendary love of the leaf could have walked through the low doorway to the kitchen and made herself perfectly at home. The copper kettle on the stove was burnished to a fine glow, the three infusers in the drain rack would fit perfectly into the mouth of the simple ceramic tea kettle placed on the small amount of counter space, and… Tea. There had to be tea.
Opening the door to the pantry revealed the elusive tea supply, which was nothing near what he expected. It appeared Twilight Sparkle had purchased several large tins of generic wake-up juice powder simply labelled ‘Wake Wake’ and stacked them across the bottom of the limited pantry space, with only the last one showing signs of use. Then there were the usual pantry items such as canned goods, flour, sugar, and baking supplies, all at a height where Emerald would have to duck his head to use them, and which fit with the estimated size of Twilight Sparkle’s dragon servant.
There was a considerable shift once the contents of the shelves reached his nose height. Many boxes of tea, boxes of strange brews which Emerald had never heard of before, and which he suspected were gifts on the order of ‘What can we possibly buy a unicorn who has no life?’
Still, there was nothing that fit within Emerald’s limited ability for cooking, i.e. haychips or… well, that was about it. The icebox seemed to be a better candidate for an early-morning snack before work, or at least until he opened it.
“Cheese,” he murmured, giving the orange block of supposed lactose produce a solid thump, “or some sort of brick. A bag of fossilized prunes probably older than the town. A jar of olives with all the pimentos sucked out of them. Brown stuff that’s supposed to be green. Green stuff that’s supposed to be brown. And wake-up juice,” he added, looking down into the pitcher, then pouring the thin granular residue remaining into the sink to make more later. “At least the icebox has cold water.”
That was an understatement. The filtering pitcher was the top of the line, with a familiar thaumic osmotic separation system guaranteed to give only the cleanest possible drinking water. Or as he got a better look, the cleanest possible tea water for the kettle sitting on the stove.
“You’d think they didn’t have hot tap water,” muttered Emerald, only to give the statement second thoughts. “I wonder if they have hot water.”
The rational place for a water heater in a building made out of a tree… would be somewhere he had not looked yet. Emerald poked his head out the kitchen’s back door and checked the porch, a little underwhelmed at the plebian nature of the utility room. A set of closed bins with some carrots and potatoes, an open bin of dusty alfalfa that had most likely been purchased a year or two ago, and the expected water heater where it would not leak all over the books when it inevitably failed. Oh, and a worn rake, the most needed yard tool for anypony who lived in a tree.
He did not step outside to look at the recycling bins in the back yard, because the door tingled just as much with security workings as the front, and the idea of having to knock on the library front door to have one of the children let him in would be more than a little embarrassing. An additional small door in the kitchen proved there was even a basement in the tree, although it mostly had boxes, a few stacks of old encyclopedias, and some stored medical equipment for whatever reason.
Enough time to scrounge through the basement later and see if there’s anything interesting in the junk pile. Better deal with the students now. I’ll check back when things slow down.
Returning to the main room, he took his place in the big oak chair with all the grace one would expect from the King of the Library. The chair creaked regally when he put his rump down on the flattened cushion, thus leaving His Majesty to reign over his papery kingdom…
...which was presently being pillaged by a marauding band of barbarians.
“Hey, no more than one pony on the ladder at once,” he cautioned. “And no fighting over the books… um… whoever you are.”
The king quickly turned into a jogger, moving around the library in a mix of exploration and discouragement of same, particularly when two of the colts had the expanding platform lift shoved over to the section on pony anatomy in search of a lesson that their parents would probably have kittens over. The teacher was a great help in identifying the names of the little spawn so they could be chastised more correctly, with the most troublesome being three of them who did not have their cutie marks yet.
There was also a red tag on each of their library cards with a long listing of book topics they were forbidden from borrowing, some of which made him look twice. And one which required checking to see if the library even had books on that. And it did.
Thankfully, the process of checking out books was so easy even the school foals could not mess it up. They each signed the notecard in the back of their desired book and turned it in before trotting off with their teacher, leaving Emerald to stamp the card with…
He added another note to the ‘Equipment For Purchase’ list, because the existing datestamp dated back to the Paeleopony Era, and had been stuck in a bottom drawer long enough for the ink to have turned into an insoluble glue. That meant having to mouthwrite the date on each card and file it, then retrieve the cards for the books the students had returned and match them up. At least the ‘Youth’ section of the library was all in one location, although just why the previous librarian had put the shelves there in backwards order baffled him. Maybe it was so that the students would not have to use the ladder?
The returned books having been dealt with, Emerald returned to the task he had originally intended and had been procrastinating about. Since there were no more library patrons wandering around, he spread all of his college books out on a table near the front door, got out his notes and his mechanical hoof-scriber, and had just settled down when an itching reminder in the back of his head made him get up. He walked back over to the librarian’s desk to open the thick packet of instructions he had been given when he got on the train and gave them a quick scan, which confused him even more at first until he realized that the librarian had written on the backs of the pages too.
She wrote out a numbered schedule. Broken into five-minute chunks for the entire day. With bathroom breaks. Oh, we can’t forget going to the bathroom, Little Miss Obsessive-Compulsive. And process statements for every task. Like I need…
Emerald got up from the desk and checked the library card drawer. There was one of the students with an overdue book, but she had brought it back, and it really was not worth nagging the youngster for two bits, so he marked out the fine and struck through the line in the ledger. That brought up a second moment of disbelief, which made him review the ‘Process - Overdue Fines’ guidelines, and then another reading of it to make sure it was right.
“Nopony charges compound interest on overdue library books,” he muttered. Flipping to the front of the ledger as an experiment, he took the first un-struck overdue book on the list, applied Twilight Sparkle’s formula to it, and began flipping beads on the desk abacus. When he ran out of beads, he resorted to using the graphite hoof-scriber on a piece of notepaper for calculations and considered just how many zeros the answer represented.
I don’t even.
Flipping the notepaper over, he sketched out a quick sign in graphite lines, then took a quill in his teeth and inked it. As a substitute librarian, he most certainly had the authority, and the thought of some unsuspecting long-term citizen of the small town having a debt larger than the Equestrian yearly budget hanging over them would have kept him from studying anyway.
Once the ink had dried, he took it outside and tacked it to the wooden Golden Oak Library sign, then returned to his books to get his studying underway. If the quiet library had a few customers who dropped off a forgotten book or two today, it would not bother him at all. There were still three classes worth of notes he had to get through just to keep even in his schoolwork, and that was not counting whatever his fraternity brothers took in review notes for the midterms he was facing later.
The useless schedule Twilight Sparkle had prepared for his imprisonment remained unread on the librarian’s table, while outside a simple paper sign attracted its first pony. She read it with growing interest and promptly set off to her home, spreading the news as she galloped.
Four Bit Friday Amnesty
Overdue library books may be returned today for a maximum fine of four bits each. Cash only.