The Librarian of Boone's Hollow - Kim Vogel Sawyer Page 0,86
and fixed the straps so the bib didn’t hang so low. How could she look so respectable, even without a silver barrette holding her wavy hair away from her brown eyes? Probably ’cause she was tall.
Bettina stretched out her chin. “How come you didn’t fetch her already?”
“I tried, but the livery wasn’t open yet. So I came here instead.”
She must’ve got up before the sun even peeked over the mountains to reach the library so early. Tomorrow Bettina would leave at the same time as Pap. Then she’d be waiting on the stoop when Emmett opened the door.
Addie eased past Bettina, still smiling all cheerful-like, and headed up the street, walking high headed and straight shouldered. If that girl didn’t think she belonged in the movies, Bettina would put ketchup on her barrette and eat it for dinner.
But now Emmett was in there all by hisself, so it was her turn to get his attention. She sashayed through the doorway like she didn’t have a care in the world. Emmett was at the table in Miz West’s chair. Giving her head a toss to show off her silver barrette, she crossed to the table and rested her palms on its top. “Howdy, Emmett. You already workin’? My, ain’t you as busy as a bee.”
He took off his wire spectacles and laid them next to the lamp. “I’m not working yet, just glancing over what Addie gave me.”
Bettina’s heart jumped a little in her chest. “Since when’s she doing reports?”
He laughed real soft, like she’d said something funny. “It’s not a report. It’s a story.”
Bettina glared at the pages all covered over with Addie’s writing. Those letters might as well be marks left by a cricket that jumped in an inkwell and then on the paper, for all the sense they made. “ ’Bout what?”
Emmett stacked the papers and moved them to the corner of the desk. “I’m not sure she wants me to tell anyone about it yet, Bettina.”
Now he and Addie were keeping secrets? She put her hand on her hip. “Well, la-di-da. If she don’t want nobody to know, how come she showed you?”
“I guess she trusts me. Now…” He pulled Miz West’s notepad close, put his spectacles on, and picked up a pencil. He tapped the pencil on the notepad. “According to Miss West’s notes, there are seven stops on your Monday route—the Cissells, the Days, the Fromans, the McCashes, the Neelys, the Toons, and Nanny Fay Tuckett. Is that right?”
Bettina wanted to talk more about that story Addie’d wrote and was keeping secret, but she couldn’t be all testy with Emmett. She made herself use her sweet voice, the one she pulled out when Pap needed gentling. “Yes, Emmett, that’s sure right.”
He glanced at her, the corners of his lips twitching.
She tossed her head again. “But you got the order all mixed up. First I go to—”
“They’re listed alphabetically. I realize you visit them according to their location.”
If he didn’t sound just like Miz West, all highfalutin. Bettina scrunched her lips tight so she’d stay quiet.
“Because the Cissells and the McCashes take you pretty far north of the other cabins, I’m going to give those two stops to Addie instead.”
Bettina scrapped her vow to stay quiet. Or to be sweet. “But I like goin’ to the Cissells. Miz Cissell always gives me a cup o’ apple cider.” Sweetest cider on the whole mountain. Her mouth watered thinking about it. “Why not give Nanny Fay Tuckett to Addie instead? Not like she don’t see the ol’ herb woman anyway.”
Emmett put down the pencil and turned in his chair. No more sideways glances. He looked full in Bettina’s face. And he didn’t smile.
“Hey, good mornin’!” Alba and Glory came in, and Addie followed them. They all crowded close to the table, but Emmett didn’t say howdy to them or even act like he knew they was there. He kept looking right at Bettina. With those spectacles over his blue eyes, he seemed a heap older. And stern. A stern stranger.
“Bettina, Miss West left me her notes and recommendations, and I’m using them to get started. I might stick with what she suggested, and I might deviate from her suggestions over time. But either way, I’m not going to give you a lengthy explanation. The fact is I’ve been hired to direct this program. That means you and the other girls”—his eyes flicked toward them and came back—“will have to trust me to do what I think is