Issue Three: Resistance Isn’t Futile

'What are you reading today?' she asked. 'The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire!'

'Another library book,' said Veejay, pinioning her with another glare. 'A reminder for you. We all rise and fall, including the Sask Party.'

'Ah ... yes,' said Holly, retreating to her desk, where she aimed for a neutral expression. 

The office door opened a second time, welcoming a late April gust of prairie wind as a young woman with vivid blue hair maneuvered a stroller through the gap. 

'Whew!' she gasped as she unzipped her windbreaker. 'That wind almost blew me down the street!' Nodding to Holly, she wheeled the stroller over to an armchair, lifted out a toddler, and set him in her lap. 'Hey, my little man,' she crooned, nuzzling him. 'You want me to read you your favourite library book?'

Today was Courtney Bitternose’s third visit to the office this week. It was also the third time she was sporting a royal purple I LOVE LIBRARIES t-shirt. 

'Three sugars in your coffee, Courtney?' sighed Holly, heading for the coffee maker.

'Three sugars exactly!' beamed Courtney, then leaned down and plucked a children’s book out of the stroller. 'Here we are, Laremy – Captain Underpants, your hero!'

Laremy guffawed and grabbed for the beat-up-looking book, just as the door opened again and two men entered. Courtney’s coffee in hand, Holly turned to greet the newcomers and her face lit up. 

'Reverend! How nice to see you. How can I help you?'

The portly Reverend Bill McStoots slid a thick paperback from under his arm. 

'Just here to do a little reading,' he commented, holding up The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. 'My son is ahead of me in the series, but he’s not allowed to destroy my reading pleasure by telling me what’s coming. If he opens his big mouth, do me a favour and shove one of those sugar cubes into the black hole, okay, Holly?' Shucking his coat, he sat down to Veejay’s right. 'You’re not sitting near me with that book opened,' he warned his son. 'My eyes wander.'

With a grimace, Ross McStoots dropped down beside the stroller, his back to the wall, and pulled a small package of jujubes from his jacket pocket. 

'Can he have one?' he asked Courtney, who smiled down at him from her armchair and nodded. At fourteen, Ross was gangly and acne-ridden, but awkwardly willing to take on the adventures of adolescence. When he had packed both of Laremy’s chubby fists with jujubes, he cracked open The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest and retreated into violence and mayhem. Holly, coming to a halt before Courtney, handed over her coffee, then glanced down at the sprawled teenager.

'There are empty chairs,' she said.

Ross looked up, his gaze vague as he made the mental shift back to the real world. 

'Uh, that’s okay. Other people will come in and use them.'

Holly winced. 'No doubt,' she muttered and crossed to her desk, where she tapped a number into her phone. 

'So how’s it going at your office?' she asked in low tones, staring out the window at a windy, rural Saskatchewan main street. 'It’s not ten yet and I’ve already got four—five if you count the Captain Underpants fan ... Nine! Where are you putting them all, Stan? It’s fine for Drinkwater— he’s off at the Leg and doesn’t have to deal with any of this directly—' 

The door opened and a tall, lean man in his twenties entered, carrying a large black case and a folded-up music stand. Dressed in a Tragically Hip t-shirt, jeans, cowboy boots and a black fedora, he ambled over to an empty chair, set up his music stand and opened the case. 

'It’s a trombone,' he said apologetically, as his audience of readers observed the proceedings over their books. 'I signed this book of music out of the library, so I figure it’s legit.' He held up a large, soft-covered book titled Trombone Thrills for the Beginner.

'The more the merrier,' Bill assured him.

'Can you play ‘Colonel Bogey’?' asked Veejay.

A shy grin crept across the man’s face. 'I’m just learning. I can’t take requests yet.'

'How about ‘Happy Birthday’?' asked Courtney. 'It’s my son’s favourite song.'

'It’s everyone’s favourite song,' affirmed Bill, setting down The Girl With The Dragon

Tattoo.

The man with the tentative-trombone complex lifted the instrument to his lips, and sound farted from the bell. Flushed to the eyebrows, he lowered it. 

'I play like molasses,' he confessed. 'I am insulting your ears.'

'My baby loves it!' cried Courtney. 'Look at Laremy!'

The man peered down, startled, as two small hands settled onto his knee. Open-mouthed, Laremy was ogling the trombone’s brass magnificence.

'He likes you better than Captain Underpants!' Courtney declared. 'Look, Laremy – it’s Captain Trombone!'

Ross settled The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest onto his stomach. 

'I play trumpet,' he offered. 'Sometimes it helps if someone else sings along while you play. Want us all to sing ‘Happy Birthday’?'

A loud sigh erupted from the reception desk. Captain Trombone glanced uncertainly at a slouched Holly, who appeared to be dissolving into her chair. 'Okay,' he agreed. 'But you have to sing notes I can play. Which aren’t many.'

'Middle C?' asked Ross.

'That one’s okay,' said Captain Trombone. 'Sort of.’

 'I’m a diva with middle C,' announced Veejay.

Holly pivoted her chair so her back faced the rest of the room, then plugged one ear as she held her phone to the other. 'No, that’s singing,' she hissed. '‘Happy Birthday’ is the only song Captain Trombone knows. Look, James—you’ve got to find a resolution to this mess. I’m going crazy here. All week, they’ve been coming in for these read-ins, waving their library books like they’re manna from heaven—everyone from retired professors to skateboarders with graphic novels. I’ve had to listen to head-bangingly boring plot details from Moby Dick, and there was a near fist-fight over that awful book, The God Delusion. Either I get danger pay or I’m resigning.'

The door opened yet again, introducing a short, sturdy, middle-aged woman bearing a foil-covered plate. 

'Happy Birthday!' she cried, as the small group of singers, now waving their books in the air to keep some semblance of a beat, manfully tried to keep the wobbly Captain Trombone on melody. 'Whose birthday is it?'

Trailing off mid-chorus, the singers looked momentarily nonplussed. 

'The library’s!' Ross announced, raising a clenched fist. 'Libraries forever!'

'Saskatchewan libraries forever,' the newcomer agreed, as she removed the foil wrapping from her plate. 'I can’t believe that government minister saying we don’t need libraries anymore. Here, I brought you some matrimonial cake. You need to keep up your strength—protesting is hard work. Reverend?'

Bill’s fingers gave an euphoric wriggle before extracting a date square from the heaped mound. 

'Lily Kinoshita, am I right? Thank you.'

Lily progressed around the group, then sat down on Veejay’s free side. Opening her shoulder-bag, she pulled out Keeper’n Me.

'What’s everybody reading?'

'I’ve read that!' cried Courtney, lighting up.

'Me too,' Bill chimed in.

'Everyone reads Richard Wagamese,' Veejay pronounced. 'Unless they’re in the Sask Party.' She focussed accusingly on Holly, who was observing the group from her desk. 'And you? Have you read Richard Wagamese?'

Holly blinked. 

'I’m halfway through Moby Dick,' she lied half-heartedly. 'Richard Wagamese is next on the list.'

Veejay trumpeted disbelievingly.

'The world is made up of Readers and Non-Readers! Governments who cut funding to libraries—Non-Readers, every one of them!'

Holly turned in her chair and stared helplessly out of the window. 

'Now, now,' Bill said equanimably. 'We’re here to show our support for libraries, not harass Ms. Hallie.'

Oblivious to his comment, Holly continued to stare out the window where a semi had just pulled up, hijacking the view. Moments later, a burly man pushed open the door. Disdaining a jacket, he sported a t-shirt that proclaimed LIBRARIES ARE ORGASMS. As he passed Holly’s desk, she saw that his back countered with OF THE MIND. Seating himself on the floor beside Ross, the trucker opened Monkey Beach.

'Halloooo, fellow readers,' he grinned, his gaze travelling around the group. Veejay gave him a raised eyebrow.

'This is a PG-rated read-in. There are children present. And Reverend McStoots.'

'Christians know what orgasms are,' Bill said mildly. 'My son over there is the by-product of one of my best. The wages of sin are offspring.'

Ross rolled his eyes. 

'I’m Ross, the orgasm by-product,' he said to the trucker. 'And you are?'

'Ernesto Ferrer,' the trucker replied. 'That book you’re reading I devoured on a run to New Orleans. The whole series took me across the continent and back. But what I really like are the audio books.' He glanced significantly at Holly. 'I sign them out of the library, pop one into the CD player in my cab, and the highway is transformed into Jean Le Carre or Thomas King. A good book can really shrink a mile.'

'Matrimonial cake, Ernesto?' Lily asked approvingly.

'Thank you kindly, ma’am,' said Ernesto, taking a piece.

The group chatter subsided into synchronized breathing as the open page began to work its wiles. Lifting Laremy into her lap, Courtney read aloud quietly. The Trombone Captain dutifully worked on something that sounded like a scale. Slumped in her chair, Holly tapped another number into her phone.

'Stan,' she hissed, 'how many have you got staking out your office now? Twelve! Omigod, you must be running out of oxygen! Listen, I got a text from Deirdre at Hookey’s office, and she’s swamped too. Drinkwater told me they’d be discussing the cuts today ... Oh man, here come the Hickenloopers. They’re retired. He’s the Moby Dick fan. Every day he comes in and reads some of it to me. Then he lectures me on how it’s about the meaning of life. Come on—it’s about a man who wastes his life chasing a big fish! I dunno, Stan—readers are not normal people. Mostly they’re nice, but haven’t they heard of Net Flix? Hello!' she called brightly, nodding at the grey-haired heavyset couple who were making their way over to the remaining empty chairs. Lowering her voice, she continued, 'Oh, just a sec, Stan—I’ve got a text coming through from Drinkwater. I’ll call you back.'

Just as the Hickenloopers were settling into their chairs, a shriek cut the air. Heads pivoted to see Holly Hallie clambering atop her desk, flushed face exuberant. 

'Your attention, please!' she cried. 'I’d like to announce that the Sask Party has rescinded its proposed cuts to the operating budgets of rural libraries! Again—there will be no budget cuts to Saskatchewan rural libraries!'

Yanked from storylines about sex, violence and Captain Underpants, the readers were slow to grasp her meaning. Courtney was the first to cheer, joined quickly by Ross and Ernesto. Veejay slipped a bookmark into her thick tome and smiled smugly. Captain Trombone blasted a slippery, sleazy middle C.

'Oh, but I was so enjoying these read-ins!' said Mrs. Hickenlooper, patting the cover of

The Liar’s Club. 'It’s so much more enjoyable to read with other people. I’m going to miss this.'

Bill looked thoughtful. 'I suppose we could start a reading club at the church.'

'Or the library,' said Mr. Hickenlooper.

'I have a better idea,' Veejay announced. 'I suggest we meet here in this office, twice a week ... say Tuesday and Thursday mornings, and continue our read-ins—just to let the government know we haven’t forgotten their massive error in judgement.'

A chorus of agreement followed, wiping the exuberance from Holly’s expression. Climbing down from her desk, she looked on, disconsolate, as readers tucked books under arms and headed out the door. 'Remember – ten a.m. next Tuesday!' they called to each other.

'Spread the word!' Holly crossed the now-empty office and stood at the window, watching Ernesto swing himself up into the cab of his semi. She didn’t have a library card, hadn’t stepped inside a library since her university days. Dim, dusty memories recalled rooms of nerdy, docile people wandering around, pulling nondescript books from shelves. The Sask Party had sailed through multiple mandates without blinking at serial accusations of scandal; daily, it dissembled new twists into the labyrinth that was Saskatchewan politics. How had they done it—this ragtag of book-nosed good intentions, with their quietly sedulous read-ins?

Readers, thought Holly, are enough to drive any politician crazy.

A muffled shout sounded, followed by the slam of the semi’s cab door, and Ernesto came striding through the office entrance. With a broad smile, he placed a copy of Medicine Walk into her hands.

'To get you started,' he said, 'on the journey.' And then he was back in his cab, revving the engine and heading off into the next chapter.