No Offense - Meg Cabot

Chapter One

Molly

The program wasn’t going the way Molly had planned.

Oh, the children were delighted with the cookies that Island Bakery had provided. They were having fun slathering on the frosting and sticking on the different-colored candies. Most of these were going into their mouths, actually, but that was fine. That wasn’t the problem.

The problem was who else had shown up to the program besides the children and their parents.

“Boom chicka boom boom boom,” Elijah Trujos said, manipulating a gingerbread man he’d decorated to resemble an extremely well-endowed male adult-entertainment star into French kissing an equally well-endowed gingerbread woman. “Get a load of this, kiddies!”

The children, not having any idea what Elijah was doing, laughed delightedly.

The few parents who’d squeezed into the tiny child-sized chairs around the play table in the children’s section of the Little Bridge Island Public Library did not laugh. They stared in horror at the teenage boy.

“Elijah,” Molly said in a firm tone. “Could I have a word with you in private, please?”

“Not right now, Miss Molly,” Elijah said, forcing his gingerbread cookies to do something sexual that Molly was fairly certain was illegal, even in the state of Florida. “I’m busy enjoying this lovely children’s program you’ve set up.”

Gritting her teeth, Molly wished she’d listened to Phyllis Robinette, her mentor and predecessor, who’d warned her, “Never do any children’s programs involving food. They don’t end well.”

But what could possibly go wrong with cookie decorating? Molly had asked herself. The cookies she’d ordered were gluten-, dairy-, and nut-free, and so couldn’t trigger the allergies of any of her known patrons.

And the dough had been cut and baked into human shapes—completely androgynous. She’d even been careful to ask for no gingerbread women (in skirts), as that might be perceived as sexist. Her gingerbread persons were completely gender neutral.

And yet somehow Elijah Trujos had found a way to pervert even this.

She leaned over Elijah’s shoulder and said, as patiently as she could, “That’s the problem, Elijah. This is a children’s program. You’re sixteen, and so technically a young adult. Wouldn’t you be more comfortable over in the young adult section?”

“At what age does childhood end, Miss Molly?” Elijah asked, pausing the gyrations into which he’d been twisting his festively decorated cookies to give the farmyard mural on the children’s room’s ceiling a thoughtful glance. “The Jewish faith says childhood ends at thirteen, when a boy achieves adulthood through his bar mitzvah. Here in Florida, eighteen is considered the legal age of consent, at which we can also vote and join the army to sacrifice our lives for our country. But neurologists now say the human brain isn’t fully mature until the age of twenty-six. So shouldn’t the Little Bridge Island Public Library allow their patrons to remain in the children’s section until at least that age?”

Molly narrowed her eyes, and not only because of the excessive amount of cologne Elijah was wearing. She’d heard all of his speeches many times before. “You do know that if a patron engages in disruptive behavior, the librarian has the right to ask him or her to leave?”

“How am I being disruptive?” Elijah asked. “I’m following the program guidelines—decorating cookies.” He held up his obscene gingerbread man and woman. “Although I’m a little offended by the fact that you’re so offended by my humor, Miss Molly. You really need to loosen up.”

Molly restrained an urge to say something she’d regret. This was not her first tangle with Elijah Trujos in the five months since she’d taken the job as children’s media specialist at the Little Bridge Island Public Library.

But she was determined that it would be her last.

“Fine, Elijah,” she said calmly. “If that’s the way you want it.”

Then she walked back to her desk and picked up the phone.

“Ooooh,” Elijah cried, delighted. “Calling the po-po, are we? Gonna get me sent to the big house for cookie porn? Overreacting much?”

Molly hesitated. How could Elijah think she was calling the police? Did he not know her well enough by now to realize that she would never dial 911 on a minor, particularly one who wasn’t being violent, particularly him? Elijah’s mother had once confided to her how grateful she was to Molly for allowing him to hang around the children’s room, since—now that she and his father had split—he spent most of his time when he wasn’t at the library in his room, playing video games. His mother preferred him to be at the library. (Mrs. Trujos seemed unaware that the library had a

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