Books And Covers Thereof (1.3)

         >Kitty: Practical, though in theory anything would look nice next to your sister, who's probably been wearing the same outfit for... how many months straight now?

She'd really, really rather not think about it. Attempts to get Yu bathed and in nice clothes tend to be rather Sisyphean.

>Kitty:  Carefully consider that new dress the princess got you.

Errrrrr...She’d rather not.  That...That thing is backless.  And pink.

The princess certainly has sent her a great many gifts over the years.   She’s not really sure why, honestly.  She certainly doesn’t feel worth all that effort.  And anyway, Kitty presently refused to wear anything backless or with a cleavage window, on the basis that they tended to make her very self-conscious.

>Kitty:  ...Wear that bracelet she got you, though.

...After a few moments of hesitation, she reaches for the back of the closet, pushing aside the clothes to reveal a small table with a small pile of jewelry on it.  She takes a small silver bracelet out of it, putting it on her wrist.

She smiles a little at it.

>Kitty:  Try jeans and a tiger-striped shirt.

She settles for “cute but practical,” putting on a tiger-striped sweater with a faded pair of blue jeans along with a pair of sneakers.

It’s a common fashion trend these days to wear some symbol of your own tribe, whether its a piece of jewelry, a clothing pattern, even fake ears and such for a few people.  The tiger sweater, while not necessarily the most original usage of a Tiger pattern, was certainly a warm and toasty solution.

Kitty glances towards the bedroom door, then grabs the shotgun along with it’s back-strapped holster.  Just in case...

* * *

Minutes later, in a kitchen with yellow wallpaper peeling off the walls, Kitty finished preparing breakfast.  Neither sister saw anything questionable about Kitty doing this with a shotgun strapped to her backside the entire time.

Kitty placed Yu’s share down on the table in front of her.  It was a simple breakfast, consisting of scrambled eggs and...well, mostly just more scrambled eggs.  Their food was starting to dwindle now; their older sister hadn’t been able to make a shopping trip since her payment hadn’t come in yet, and Yu hadn’t, ahem, found anything substantial enough to feed the two of them on her recent forays into the outside world.  There was, at least, enough good fruit still stored for Kitty to fill two glasses with juice.

Yu smiled wide - showing another chipped tooth, causing her sister to wince sympathetically - and began to dig in with her hands, shoveling it down her mouth.  Kitty opened her mouth to comment, but gave up after a moment; at this point lambasting Yu for a lack of manners seemed excessively futile and even petty.  She merely shuts her eyes for a moment to compose herself, then picked up her own eggs and juice.

“(Enjoy your breakfast, Yu,)” she says.  “(I’m going to head down to the front desk.)”

“(Awwww,)” pouts Yu between mouthfuls of egg, though this happened nearly every morning unless the weather was awful.  “(I put your mail on your desk!)”

“(Thank you, sister.)”  Kitty, unable to giver her a hug, settles for awkwardly resting her chin on the top of her head for a moment.  “(I’ll see you later.)”

* * *

Several old staircases later Kitty was sitting at the front desk, ready to start her day.  She  ate the eggs with a clean fork and sipped from her glass as she looked around the front hall.

Across from her were the double doors that served as the Library’s front hall.  As with all good businesses and public areas, one door was permanently locked for reasons that were never clear to anyone.  In only a few minutes, Kitty would have to make the trip from the front desk all the way over to that front door and unlock it for public consumption.  Then she would, most likely, run all the way back across the floor and dive over this large, possibly mahogany desk before anyone arrived.

A few things had been piled on the front desk, to be sorted through shortly.  Today’s newspaper was relatively untouched, folded up and placed beside the keyboard.  A fat envelope addressed to “The Cute Librarian” lay on top of it, kissed with hot pink lipstick.  A landline phone sat at the end of the desk.

On the other side of the desk was the ancient monitor for the Library’s equally ancient database, presently powered down.  Here, Kitty kept track of every book that goes in and out of the Library, as well as all the people who checked them out.  Taped to the monitor was a phone number for “AZALEA AND DAUGHTER: DETECTIVE AGENCY”.

What will she do first?