How not to behave in a library.

by The_Swedish_Horror

The Canterlot Library

Twilight Sparkle was a happy pony. But this day she was even happier than usual. With a big smile she trotted trough the old, cupper plated doors of the "Bibliotheca Celestianum", also known as the Canterlot Library. It was a part of the vast Canterlot Archives, containing thousands of works of pony literature. And as a student Twilight had been granted entrance to this precious books for her research about piracy and seafaring during the early ponyistic age. This was going to be so fun!

The lavender unicorn stopped by the small cafeteria next to the lobby and bought a take away cocoa and a cinnamon bun. She knew that she would stay at the library for a couple of hours and she really didn't want to have to leave her studies just to go and buy some food later. It was always good to be prepared, she thought.

Soon she had passed the security check (where she had to leave her bags, this library contained the most valuable books and bags were not allowed because of an earlier incident where a grey pegasus had "borrowed" the Golden Book of Equestria and somehow lost it on her way home. It was later found in the bushes together with an empty box of muffins) and approached the help desk.
"Excuse me, I would like to look at the Illustrated Incunabulum of Celestia's Wisdom," Twilight said.
"This way, please."
After a little while Twilight was seated at a table in a very quiet part of the library and the librarian had carefully placed the old book in front of her.
"Do you want hoof gloves?" she asked.
"No, thank you. I prefer to turn the pages with my magic just to make sure I don't leave any hoof prints on the parchment."
"How thoughtful!"

When the librarian had left, Twilight slowly opened the book and started to read and take notes on her papers. After a while she remembered that her cocoa would get cold and she decided to have a sip. She placed the cup right beside the open book. A pinkish unicorn with purple mane approached out of nowhere. She wore an elaborate dress.
"Excuse me, but should you really put it there? It might spill..."
"I'll be careful," Twilight said and took another sip. "I'm a librarian in Ponyville and I know what I'm doing. But thanks for the concern."
"But food is really not allowed in the library. You must hide it if Miss Crumplepony comes around!"
"I will, thank you... North Star?"

The handwritten pages were very thin and every time there was a little draft they wanted to get turned over by the wind. It annoyed Twilight and she decided to put something in the book to hold them down. Twilight put her cinnamon bun on a napkin and placed it on the page as a makeshift paperweight. She continued to read.
After she had finished the page, Twilight realized that she was getting a bit hungry. She took a bite of her bun and placed the cup on the page to hold it in place. Then she switched cup and bun. And then back again. The text was so interesting!

Suddenly she heard hoof steps coming from behind! Could it be Miss Crumplepony? Quickly she decided to hide the bun under the book, but she hadn't thought of the cup placed in the middle of the page! When Twilight lifted the old incunabulum the cup fell over and hot cocoa flushed over the parchment like a brown deluge!
"Oh no! No no no NO!!!" she said, frantically shaking the book, trying to get the cocoa of its pages.
"Is there anything wrong?" North Star asked.
"Oh, no, not at all!" Twilight answered and quickly slammed the book shut. "Absolutely no problem here."
"All right then..."

But as soon as North Star had left, Twilight opened the book and watched in horror the mess that she had made. The Illustrated Incunabulum was donated to the library by princess Celestia herself! It was probably over a thousand years old! What to do? What to do?!
Twilight took her napkin and began to furiously scrub the pages. But it didn't work. The big, brown stain of cocoa was clearly visible! The desperate unicorn thought about hiding the book somewhere and then run away, back to Ponyville. But she knew that she couldn't do that. She had to somehow return the book and then sneak away before the librarians discovered the horrible truth.
And what if princess Celestia would hear about how she had destroyed her book? She would at least be very, very angry with her. And maybe punish her! Twilight quivered with fear. What if Celestia decided to fire her from her work as a librarian? And what would happen if she couldn't find another job? Then she would have to leave Ponyville and all her friends!

The lavender unicorn came up with a brilliant plan. She quickly ripped out the damaged pages and replaced them with blank pages from another book that she had taken from the shelf. If she could carefully copy all the text from the damaged pages, nopony would notice!
The only problem was that Twilight's writing didn't match the fine calligraphy from the thousand year old book at all! Her letters looked clumsy and big compared to the older text. But she had used a quill and she couldn't erase her mistakes!
"No no noo!" she said for herself, burying her face in her hooves.

Then she came up with an even more brilliant plan. What if she could just switch the book's cover? Twilight looked around to make sure that nopony watched. Then she tried to tear the cover from the old Incunabulum. It was hard work, but after a while she had managed to rip the cover from the book. She then took another book, a new one that was in perfect condition, and discretely tore of its cover. Now she had three damaged books!
Twilight sneaked back to the help desk and stole a small bottle of glue when the librarian looked away. She then emptied the whole bottle on the old book's cover and put the contents from the undamaged book there. And she pressed everything together with her hooves.
But after a while she got a bit tired. Twilight decided to put the book on the chair and sit on it for half an hour, just to make sure that the glue would harden really good.

When half an hour had passed, Twilight decided it was time to hide the evidence, return the book and discretely sneak away. Hopefully the librarian wouldn't notice that it was now a completely different book between the covers.
Then she realized that she had glued herself to the book. Her long, dark blue tail had come in contact with the glue and now she was stuck like a fly on a flypaper!

Very slowly she rose from the chair and sneaked away from the table, constantly moving in an angle that would hopefully hide the book from view. Then she heard a pony approaching!
Quickly Twilight pressed herself against the bookshelf, just moments before an old, wrinkled pony appeared.
"Oh, hi Miss Crumplepony!" she said with a big, awkward smile.
"What are you doing?" the old pony asked.
"Oh, nothing at all! Just leaning against the shelf. Relaxing, you know. Not hiding anything... because there is nothing to hide, off course!"
"I beg you pardon?"
"And I like to relax. Everypony likes to relax from time to time... No, I meant so say that I was stretching. Yes! That's it! I was stretching my legs because I have become tired of sitting for so long while carefully reading my book, which is in excellent condition."
"Excellent condition?" the old pony asked, a bit confused.
"Yes! Very excellent condition, in fact so excellent that I got tired in my legs by just reading it. And therefore I needed to stretch."
"Vey well then..." said Miss Crumplepony and slowly walked away.

As soon as Miss Crumplepony had left, Twilight jammed the book into the space between a heavy glass door and the doorframe. With her hooves pressed against the door she managed to tear the book loose from her tail. But in the process she cracked the glass and a couple of long, dark blue tail hairs were left, still glued to the cover! Oh no!
Twilight decided to use a lit candle and burn of the hairs from the book, thereby elegantly removing the evidence of her vandalism. She held the book over the flame and the hairs went up in smoke. It smelled horrible, but at least nopony would... Then the glue caught fire! The whole book cover erupted in flames!
In panic, Twilight tossed the burning book into the wastebasket, which immediately erupted in flames too!
There was a lot of smoke and fire and Twilight galloped across the room to get the fire extinguisher. She then filled the whole basket with foam and sprayed some of it on the carpet too. Quickly she emptied the basket's half burnt, messy contents on the floor, grabbed the book and brushed of most of the foam. Luckily nopony had seen her.
Then she quietly sneaked away from the scene.

On her way out she saw North Star preparing to return a book that she had borrowed. Twilight got an idea. A very, very villainous idea... Slowly she sneaked up behind North Star and switched their books when the pinkish unicorn was looking away. She had made it! Nopony would discover her secret!
Happily Twilight trotted towards the exit, now carrying North Star's book instead of her own! With a big smile she handed the undamaged book to the librarian.
"Excellent condition, indeed!" the librarian said and Twilight left trough the security check, still smiling happily.

When North Star returned her book to the librarian, the pony looked very angry when she discovered its condition.
"What the hay have you done to the book? The cover is burnt and sticky with some kind of foam... What in the hay, North Star?"
"Oh, I'm sorry... I don't know what..."
"This is truly unacceptable. You have damaged one of Celestia's most valuable books!" the librarian said angrily. "This is covered with glue! How the hay did the glue get there, North Star?!"
"No... please, I didn't... I don't know what went wrong."
Then suddenly Twilight came back.
"Oh, silly me! I almost forgot," she said and put the empty bottle of glue back on the counter.
Her smile froze when she realized her mistake.

Author's Note:

This was inspired by a Mr Bean episode. I thought "What would happen, if Twilight did it?"

Comments

[TwizzleDragon]

I'm going to thumbs this up just for the description.

Edit: Break up the text wall, this is very unattractive.

[BlackShadow94]

Wow Twilight, just wow. And to think your the next princess. If this is how you're going to rule Equestria after Celestia then...

...yeah. Equestria is doomed.

[The_Swedish_Horror]

Thanks. I've added some breaks now, just to make it more easy to read.

[Salivanth]

I like the concept, but much of it seems a bit rushed. It's less funny to say "This happened. Then this happened." We should FEEL Twilight's growing panic, as everything she does gets worse and worse. We should be able to see a description of how things go wrong. Basically, you're telling us what happens, but that's not as funny as showing us. To use an example:

"She held the book over the flame and the hairs went up in smoke. It smelled horrible, but at least nopony would... Then the glue caught fire! The whole book cover erupted in flames!
In panic, Twilight tossed the burning book into the wastebasket, which immediately erupted in flames too!
There was a lot of smoke and fire and Twilight galloped across the room to get the fire extinguisher. She then filled the whole basket with foam and sprayed some of it on the carpet too."

In my opinion, there needs to be more description to add to the humor. You're largely just reciting what happens here. There's only a couple of lines that aren't straight recital of "This is what happened." I'm writing off the cuff, so this won't be as good an example as it could be, but I imagine writing it something like this:

"Carefully, hooves shaking, Twilight moved the book over the flames. Not breathing, she watched as the hairs caught fire and began to burn. Removing the book from the flames, she smiled in triumph, only to notice the book was heating up. Looking at it again, the glue had caught fire and was beginning to spread! She quickly glanced left and right, then began hitting the book with her hooves, but the fire refused to go out. She blew on it, but that was like trying to stop Pinkie going after cupcakes with a piece of string and a prayer.

Looking desperately for any way out of her predicament, she spied a wastebasket. Salvation! Rushing over to it, she tossed the book into the wastebasket, hoping to smother the flames under the book's own weight. The book landed with a thump, and the fire died down. She let out a sigh of relief, only to notice that the entire wastebasket was now catching alight. Twilight swore and ran for the fire extinguisher. Ripping it from the wall with her magic, she levitated it over to the basket as quickly as she could, and let loose.

She immediately began to lose control of the fire extinguisher. Twilight grabbed it with hooves and magic both, forcing the fire extinguisher to stay more or less on target as she dumped the foam into the wastebasket and it's surrounding environment. Finally, the fire extinguisher went out, and she gazed at the results of her work."

This kind of method is more effective than just saying "This happened next." If it's done right, we should feel the suspense and bated breath that Twilight's under in the first paragraph, and wince at Twilight's continual misfortune in the other paragraphs. I probably haven't done that well, but you get the idea.

The idea is good though. If it hadn't been, I wouldn't have bothered to write all this. Best of luck!

[The_Swedish_Horror]

Thanks :) Yes, it looks much better that way. I'll try to keep that in mind when I write my next fanfic.

[nomore]

Could you possibly do an other chapter which shows Celestia's reaction?

[The_Swedish_Horror]

Hmm... Maybe I could :) Writing about Twilight's plight was quite fun.