The Wandering Library: A Series

Part 21: The Incident at Little Wiggleton Market

(I painted this in Procreate using the Scopus and Kombu brushes. - Chaiga T. Cheska)
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Being an account of three women, one corridor of mirrors, and a situation that required the Library to run away

Compiled by Bramwell Corin, who is still baffled to be finding bits of jam and feathers in his hair

Preface

The Wandering Library parked itself at the edge of Little Wiggleton market on a Wednesday morning, which was unfortunate timing, as Wednesdays in Little Wiggleton are market days, and market days in Little Wiggleton are occasions of considerable social momentum. The Library, having arrived the previous evening in what I can only describe as a mood of quiet self-satisfaction, had no notion of what Wednesdays in Little Wiggleton would involve.

I was at my desk. Pip was reshelving the upper east corridor. Everything was orderly. Everything was calm and peaceful.

Then, from somewhere beyond the reading room windows, came a sound.

The Library heard it first. I know this because the card catalogue gave a small, interested shiver, and three books about human social behaviour migrated, of their own accord, to the front desk.

I looked at the books, and I looked at the window, and I could hear, distantly, three women all talking at once, each on a completely different subject.

Getting closer.

I put my pen down.