Cat and Mouse

This afternoon, I was curled up on one of the beanbag chairs in the Young Adult section, reading a book on Anglo-Saxon grammar (having lost interest in Egyptology over the weekend, having read the DaVinci Code and the Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood and all the Harry Potter books already). I want to be able to discuss "Beowulf" intelligently if I ever meet Jimmy Carter, you know? Translations are good and all, but as one of my college professors said, "reading poetry in translation is like having a Great Dane breathe up your nose."

Huh. Now that I look at that statement all typed out like that, I'm not sure what it means. I guess English wasn't his first language.

So anyway, I'm trying to work my way through the various uses of the subjunctive when I hear the elevator ding.

Scared the crap out of me. Stuff like that has been happening ever since we got here - I told you I was hearing sounds, and my Philip K. Dick book wasn't where I left it. Seems like every day there's something like that - I hear footsteps, or there's a light turned on in a part of the building that I haven't been to for days, or I hear the plumbing running, or something. But every time I look, there's nothing there.

It makes me jumpy.

So when the elevator dinged, I jumped. I grabbed the laser rifle and darted over toward the elevator, ducking low to stay hidden by the kid-sized bookshelves. It couldn't have taken me more than 5 seconds to get over there - but when I peeked out, no one was there. It was utterly silent.

I got pretty good at sitting quietly while we were in the basement, so I just sat and waited. If someone was there, hiding, if someone had flown out of the elevator and was hiding in the stacks even faster than I'd run over here - they'd have to move eventually.

I could see the elevator from where I was. It was sitting empty and open. I couldn't see a whole lot else; bookshelves, mostly. The reference desk. A little open space. But I knew that if anyone moved, I would hear them.

No one moved.

I waited for twenty minutes. Twenty god damn minutes. When's the last time you sat still for 20 minutes? Without moving at all? Barely even breathing?

Didn't think so.

Eventually I got bored and took a deep breath. Then I stood up. My legs were kind of crampy so that might not have been as dramatic a gesture as I hoped but since ostensibly no one was looking, I didn't worry. Plus, I had a gun.

"HEY!" I yelled. "COME OUT HERE NOW. OR I'LL START SHOOTING."

Silence.

"I'M NOT KIDDING." I'd shoot the paperback romance novels first, but whoever was hiding there wouldn't know that.

Silence.

So I shot one. Fired all the way across the reference desk and took out a thick paperback. It was kind of far away but even at that distance I could see the cover heroine's heaving bosoms. The laser rifle made its usual FWAP sound and then presto, there's a smoking hole in the middle of the book. Not even a very big hole and the book's just sitting there on the shelf, smoking. It didn't even fall off. It wasn't quite as satisfying as I'd hoped.

"SEE THAT?" I yelled. "I'M A DAMN GOOD SHOT. COME OUT."

Silence.

I spent the next four hours stalking through that library shooting books.

I didn't find anyone. No one was there.

I don't know what's going on.