The Mammoth Book of Apocalyptic SF - Mike Ashley [124]
"Roget's. The. Saurus," Sunny read aloud.
"What's it about?" I asked.
Myko opened it and tried to read. For a moment he looked so angry I got ready to run, but then he shrugged and closed the paperback. "It's just words. Maybe it's a secret code or something. Anyway, it's mine now." He stuck it inside his doublet.
"No stealing!" said Sunny.
"If it's a dead town it's not stealing, it's salvage," I told her, just like the aunts and uncles always told us.
"But it isn't dead. There's all the old people."
"They'll die soon," said Myko. "And anyway Uncle Buck already asked permission to salvage." Which she had to admit was true, so we went on. What we didn't know then, but figured out pretty fast, was that all the other things on the shelves were actually big hard books like Uncle Des' Barlogio's Principles of Glassblowing.
But it was disappointing at first because none of the books in that aisle had stories. It was all, what do you call it, reference stuff. We came out sadly thinking we'd been gypped, and then Sunny spotted the sign with directions.
"Children's Books, Fifth Floor," she announced.
"Great! Where's the stairs?" Myko looked around. We all knew better than to ever, ever go near an elevator, because not only did they mostly not work, they could kill you. We found a staircase and climbed and climbed for what seemed forever before we came out onto the Children's Books floor.
And it was so cool. There were racks of paperbacks, of course but we stood there with our mouths open because the signs had been right - there were books here. Big, hard, solid books but not about grownup stuff. Books with bright pictures on the covers. Books for us. Even the tables and chairs up here were our size.
With a little scream, Sunny ran forward and grabbed a book from a shelf. "It's Narnia! Look! And it's got different pictures!"
"What a score," said Myko, dancing up and down. "Oh, what a score!"
I couldn't say anything. The idea was so enormous: all these were ours. This whole huge room belonged to us .. .at least, as much as we could carry away with us.
Myko whooped and ran off down one of the aisles. Sunny stayed frozen at the first shelf, staring with almost a sick expression at the other books. I went close to see.
"Look," she whispered. "There's millions. How am I supposed to choose? We need as many stories as we can get. " She was pointing at a whole row of books with colored titles: The Crimson Fairy Book. The Blue Fairy Book. The Violet Fairy Book. The Orange Fairy Book. I wasn't interested in fairies, so I just grunted and shook my head.
I picked an aisle and found shelves full of flat books with big pictures. I opened one and looked at it. It was real easy to read, with big letters and the pictures were funny but I read right through it standing there. It was about those big animals you see sometimes back up the delta country, you know, elephants. Dancing, with funny hats on. I tried to imagine Aunt Nera reading it aloud on winter nights. It wouldn't last even one night; it wouldn't last through one bedtime. It was only one story. Suddenly I saw what Sunny meant. If we were going to take books away with us, they had to be full of stories that would last. That had - what's the word I'm looking for? Substance.
Myko yelled from somewhere distant, "Here's a cool one! It's got pirates!"
It was pretty dark where I was standing, so I wandered down the aisle toward the window. The books got thicker the farther I walked. There was a bunch of books about dogs but their stories all seemed sort of the same; there were books about horses too, with the same problem. There were books to teach kids how to make useful stuff but when I looked through them they were all dumb things like how to weave potholders for your mom or build things out of popsicle sticks. I didn't even know what popsicle sticks were, much less where I could get any. There were some about what daily life was like back in olden times but I already knew about that, and anyway those books had no story.
And all the