Prologue
Charlotte Kent
Everyone has a favorite place; a special spot to spend the day; somewhere to go when you’re feeling sad or stressed or angry. A place that always gives you a wonderfully content feeling. You know that feeling, and you know that place. You’re thinking about it right now. Maybe it’s the park, or the forrest, or a garden. Perhaps it’s the mall or the beach. Or is it just your house, your room, your bed?
My favorite place happens to be a bookstore; a vast bookstore that seems to hold an infinite number of books. A bookstore called Park Lane Bookworks. I could spend weeks in this store poring through volume after volume of history books, storybooks, textbooks, anthologies. I could quite literally live there, seeing as they have an in-store café and a bathroom. A few of the employees even know me by name.
So maybe I’m not a typical fifteen-year-old, but I don’t mind being different from almost everyone else. The other kids like to throw parties, get drunk, and shoot drugs. Personally, I don’t see the fun in that. What do you gain from such an experience other than bad grades and criminal records? How does that help you in life?
But we weren’t talking about how other teenagers waste their days, were we? No, we were talking about Park Lane Bookworks, which from now on will simply be referred to as “my bookstore”.
You know, the strangest things happen at these favorite places of ours. Strange and wonderful. It was at this very place that I met Henry.
Henry Doyle
Chapter I
The summer had gone by so fast. June and July had come and gone in an instant, and it was already mid August. I thought to myself how unfair it was. We only have three months out of twelve without homework, and those months decide to be the quickest.
I knew my logic was flawed, but that didn’t stop me from thinking of how unfair the summer months could be on my way to the bookstore. My mood was already sullen because of this trip I had to make. Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t have minded a trip to the bookstore, but I was going to get my books for school, which was rather depressing at the time. It was not school that I dreaded so much as the excessive amount of homework that I knew would be coming my way. I didn’t mind the classes; I liked learning. It wasn’t even the work itself. It was simply the fact that the teachers felt the need to assign us piles and piles of homework each night so that I had almost no life outside of studying on school days. That was the cause of my gloomy disposition.
I pushed open the door to Park Lane Bookworks, strode purposefully over to the science books, scanned the spines, and quickly found my book on physics. I tugged it out and, without so much as a glance at the cover, walked straight to the math section, where I found my Algebra II book. By the same process I located my history book and my French book.
As I made my way over to the English department, I passed the drama section. A girl who looked to be about my age with wavy, light blonde hair was standing on the tips of her toes trying to reach a book on the top shelf. She stretched her long fingers as high as they would go, but to no avail. Without thinking twice about it, I placed my stack of heavy textbooks on the floor and walked over to the girl. Standing on my toes, I gently pulled the book that she had been reaching for from the shelf and held it out to her.
“They should really have ladders, or stools or something. It’s difficult to reach the books at the top.” I smiled awkwardly and then mentally kicked myself for pointing out the obvious. But she smiled back sweetly, “You’re right,” she said, taking the book from me, “they should.” She bent over to pick up the stack of books on the floor next to her and straightened up with some difficulty. “Thank you for helping me, by the way,” she said before turning and walking away. I paused, staring in the direction she had left.
“You’re welcome,” I replied, but she was out of earshot.
I had some trouble finding my English book after that. I kept forgetting the title and would search the rows of the books over and over again, always skipping right over the one copy that I needed. When I finally found it, I walked straight to the check-out to find a long line of people waiting to pay for their books. I grew impatient, wanting to end this dismal back-to-school shopping.
I looked behind me for a clock to see how long I had been at the bookstore, only to find the same blonde haired girl from before standing directing behind me. She smiled when she recognized me, and I forgot all about the line.
“Hey, it’s you again! Thanks again for helping me out earlier.”
“Oh, it was no problem. It was my pleasure, actually.”
Still smiling, she shifted her stack of books to free her right hand before offering it to me, “I’m Charlotte, by the way. Charlotte Kent.”
“Henry Doyle,” I said, shaking hands.
“It’s very nice to meet you, Henry Doyle,” she said. I glanced down at her stack of books. They were all formatted the same way, as far as I could tell from the spines, although they were different sizes. As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing, The Tempest, The Taming of the Shrew; they were all Shakespeare.
“Do you have a class?” I asked, motioning to the books.
“No.”
“So you’re just reading those for fun, then?”
“Yes, I am. I like reading plays,” she replied, a bit defensively.
“I see. Have you read Shakespeare before?”
“Yes. Actually, I’ve read all of these plays already, but I got them from the library, you see, and I’d like to own them.” She looked down at her books lovingly, like a mother might look upon an infant child. Talking about them seemed to bring her joy. “Oh, well except for one. I haven’t read As You Like It, but I’ve heard it’s very good.”
“What’s it about?”
“I don’t know yet. I’ll let you know when I finish it.”
By this time, the people in front of me had disappeared and I was already at the front of the line. The woman at the check-out counter called, “I’ll take the next customer here, please.”
“I have to go pay for my books,” I said, nodding towards the counter, “It was nice meeting you.”
“It was nice meeting you too,” she said, still smiling. I wondered if I amused her or if she was just a very happy person. I was hoping it was the former.
(This is my first non-historical fiction piece, so please let me know if it's not realistic. I feel like the dialogue is off, somehow. Also, I've never written from the point of view of a boy, and I would love some suggestions. Thanks so much!)
