She was like all of them, treating him like some kind of weirdo. Mrs Nasty Specs was wittering away into the telephone. He glanced over his shoulder as he pulled more children’s books down from the shelves. The boy slumped down on a window seat in the children’s corner, flicking desultorily through The Sleep Book and The Sneetches, comforted by the feel of the thick book under his jumper and the naughty thrills it would deliver later when he got home. She crossed to the checkin desk and reached for the telephone. Her brow crimped with displeasure as she realised theīoy’s mother wasn’t in the library. Although only in her thirties, the severe bun of hair and vicious glasses transformed her into a middle-aged spinster. Where is Mrs Sawyer?’ The librarian glanced around peevishly. Although, then again, maybe she wouldn’t care. ‘Does your mother know you’re reading this sort of thing? I don’t think she would be very pleased. He hugged the book close as she dumped him in the children’s corner. She didn’ t notice him snatch Dracula and slide it under his jumper. ‘You’re far too young to be reading these,’ the woman barked at him, dragging the eight-year-old boy away from the adult section of the library. The rubber soles of his shoes squealed on the wood as he struggled. She slammed it back into its slot on the shelf and seized hold of his right hand, pulling him up from his cosy squatting position on the parquet flooring. The librarian snatched Frankenstein from him, holding it out so that she could examine the cover. He glanced back at the book in his hands. The librarian with her bird-like features and pointed, no-nonsense spectacles was behind him, staring down at him in rather the same awful manner as the monster on the cover. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ The shrill voice cut through his secret pleasure. This one was bound in an ancient plastic cover that depicted a monstrous figure peering between the curtains of a four-poster bed at a terrified man. He memorised the powerful words of violence, and then he reached for a third book. Utterson’s bones jumping on the street under the blows from Hyde’s cane. The text was dense and long-winded, but he still managed to find passages that excited him. Next he dragged down Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. He flicked through the yellow, well-thumbed pages in search of the scary bits. He pulled out Dracula first, a thick book with a purple cover as large as his head. Printed and bound in Great Britain by Mackays of Chatham Cover printed by Belmont Press Ltd, Northampton Luckily, the books he wanted were on the bottom shelf. Imaging by Black Sheep, copyright BBC 2001
#Sargent mike 21 series#
The moral right of the author has been asserted Original series broadcast on the BBCĭoctor Who and TARDIS are trademarks of the BBC ISBN 0 563