Page 60 of The Library of Second Chances
Would asking Harry outright be a good idea, or would he lie? She should at least ask him in person so she could see the look on his face, work out whether he was lying. So instead of asking him over text, she asked, Can we talk?
It took a while for him to text her back, and Chloe was taking care of the accounting sheets when her phone buzzed in her pocket.
Sounds ominous. What about?
‘Your wife’wasn’t something Chloe wanted to write in a text, so instead she wrote Nothing bad, but can you meet me tonight? My shift ends at 6.
I’ll wait for you outside. Car or no car?
No car.
Chloe was antsy for the rest of her shift. She apologised to Mrs Cook and asked her to double-check the sheet. The last thing she needed was to make a mistake because she was stressing over a man.
The first man she had had feelings for in years. That was what made all this so much worse. She wasn’t ready to be hurt again. Harry was one of the few good things about Wellbridge. If something bad happened between them, she wasn’t sure she could face continuing living in Wellbridge. She didn’t need more pain for her slowly healing heart.
Which was why she should just ask him what that strange man had meant. It would bother her no end if she didn’t.
Clementine crouched beside a shelf, keeping himself as close to the floorboards as he could. There was somethingin here. A creature, running around on tiny paws in a place where it should not have been.
Mrs Cook was in the lobby, doing some last-minute tasks before she closed the library. Animals almost never made it into the library, but there was something here. And Clementine meant to catch it.
Little feet scurried past the children’s section. Clementine moved in silence, careful not to let his bell jangle. Excitement ran across his fur. He was hardly ever able to hunt, but surely Mrs Cook wouldn’t mind if he caught something inside the library? He had never seen another non-human in here before. Not one from outside. It smelt different. He could hear a tiny heartbeat, the fast breathing of an animal much smaller than himself.
There! It was a little mouse. Its nose twitched, its ears moving this way and that as it looked around with black, beady eyes. Clementine examined the mouse with interest. He had never seen an animal wearing clothes before.
No matter. Clementine jumped after the mouse, meaning to pin it to the floor like he had with the frog.
But the mouse scurried off just in time, its tail swishing as it took refuge beneath a nearby bookcase. Clementine howled his annoyance, crouching to swipe at the little mouse underneath the shelf. There was only a tiny gap between it and the carpet, far too small for Clementine to even fit his paw through.
The mouse was wiping his face with a handkerchief, a tiny one barely bigger than one of Clementine’s claws. ‘That was a close one,’ the mouse remarked. ‘Nice try, kitty, but you have to be faster than that to catch me.’
Clementine stood straight. Had he been a human, he might have gasped. The mouse was speaking the human language. And using a handkerchief. He was like a little boy in a mouse’s body.
‘Clem?’ called Mrs Cook, coming in from the lobby and looking around for him. ‘What is it? What are you meowing at?’
Clementine didn’t take his eyes off the little creature, but the mouse didn’t seem to want to move, knowing that if it – he? – ran off, Clementine would follow. The cat meowed for her attention, and he waited until Mrs Cook was crouching beside him, her line of sight following his.
‘Oh, thank goodness. A person,’ said the mouse. ‘Please tell your cat I mean no harm. I think I came here by mistake.’
Mrs Cook’s eyebrows rose and her mouth opened in a little O. Then she shook her head and smiled, saying, ‘My goodness, you gave me a fright.’ She picked up Clementine with her gentle hands. ‘Out you come, little one. Clementine won’t hurt you, I promise.’
Clementine huffed, reluctantly withdrawing his claws. The mouse wore a white hat and a red jumper, and he cautiously crawled out from beneath the shelf and dusted himself off. He took off his hat. ‘It sure is nice to meet you, ma’am.’
‘Oh, you too,’ said Mrs Cook fondly, petting Clementine.
The librarian seemed to have taken charge of the situation. The cat lay in Mrs Cook’s arms and let the elderly woman take them to the children’s section, all the while talking with the mouse about cities and families and all kinds of things Clementine didn’t care to understand. He hadn’t been allowed to catch the mouse, though truly, he was already getting quite bored of the little creature.
Clementine wriggled out of Mrs Cook’s arms and hopped onto a bookcase, sulking as he watched her pluck a glowing book from a nearby shelf. ‘This should send you back home to your parents,’ she promised.
‘Thanks,’ said the mouse, sounding grateful.
After flipping to the back, Mrs Cook read out a passage. The mouse took off his hat and bowed to her before vanishing.
‘Clemmy, aren’t you such a good boy.’ Mrs Cook petted Clementine, stroking his face and around his ears until his bad mood evaporated and he mewed his approval. ‘You didn’t try to hurt him, did you?’ She drew back, looking around the library. ‘But that’s so strange. Who brought him out?’
Clementine hadn’t seen anybody here during his patrol. He lay his head on his paws, tail slowly swishing as he watched Mrs Cook fold her arms, frowning with her eyes closed as though she was thinking deeply about something.
‘Hmm. Well, never mind.’ She gave Clementine one last pet and kissed his head. ‘I have to be getting home. See you tomorrow, Clem.’
