Room to Grow

When not another book would fit in the apartment and when the radical God-folk opened a "church" just up the street, Tori decided to go house hunting. She found a single on Swatara Road, above Coalville proper and at the base of a quarter-mile hill. It is a house with lots of natural light and a big back yard that borders woodland.

In summer, Tori and Dewey stretch -- well stretchED, maybe past tense as I told know whether she will be up to laying about in the backyard -- on a swing under the canopy of a huge oak tree. Tori read and Dewey kept his eyes on and occasionally chased chipmunks, squirrels and birds.

She had converted what would have been the dining room into a library with wall-to-wall shelving, a desk and two Queen Ann chairs with matching footrests. It was the most used room in her house. Many nights she slept sitting up in her chair and when awakened, whether by noise or because her neck was stiff, she would read until she fell back to sleep. Dewey usually went to her unused bed and stretched out.

Victoria could have married any number of eligible bachelors or, at the least, had affairs with the not so available. They all looked at her. When she took over as librarian, all sorts of men who had not opened a book since the nuns forced them to do it high school, signed up for a library card. Sex must be good for literacy.

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