Post by Elysia O'Broin on Mar 27, 2011 10:08:56 GMT -5
Elly wasn't quite sure when her love of old books had manifested itself, seeing as from a very young age she had had them foisted upon her in the hopes of making her into something she clearly wasn't, but she knew what had helped to foster it.
A couple down the way from her house in Carraroe had been charged with what had been deemed the difficult task of taking care of her while the whole of her family was away. They'd been on the poor side, certainly not destitute, but they had never been able to afford a real--WORKING--television in all the years it had been around; instead, they relied on the radio for their news and entertainment. It had been great fun learning the songs of all the oldies, the music deemed innapropriate when they were young which just sounded corny now, and listening to old-fashioned radio shows kept her riveted and quiet for hours at a time. But it was when they had handed her her first book--had it been To Kill a Mockingbird? Or was it one of Sherlock Holmes' old yarns?--had she truly found her niche.
Books had opened up whole news worlds beyond any she could have possibly imagined at the time; fairytales from the Brother's Grimm and Hans Christen Anderson brought both joy and terror when she came to realize that the disney movies everyone else her age watched was all rubbish. Then there had been the horror; Stephen King's Carrie had had her terrified of the quiet girl in her grade school class for weeks (not to mention the nightmares about pig's blood--and an actual fear of the animal) and Dean Koontz had both bored and interested her at the same time (a real hit or miss, that one). But when it came time for the classics, well, she just ate those right up.
It had been the old man who had given her her first copy of The Idiot, a book she had been too young to understand at the time.
That copy had long ago been destroyed by her father, but she had done her best to replace it with an antiquated copy from the early nineteen hundreds; sure, the sting of losing something so dear would never go away, but at least the knowledge that such an old copy was so sought after gave her some measure of comfort. It had also been the start of her steadily increasing library, to which there would never be an end. The smell of bound leather and musty pages just seemed to call out to her alot lately.
Currently Elly was holed up on the third floor of the library, well away from any of the classmates who would seek to make fun of her for her guilty pleasure. Many of her classmates displayed no interest in learning anything of any real value and what they read was limited to what the teacher assigned, if that. None of them quite understood her secret obsession (not that they tried) so she was often forced to either hole up in her room, where no one could see her unless she wanted them to, or to hide in a nook in the library.
Which was what she was doing now, curled up in one of the plush leather chairs with a collection of Edgar Allen Poe poetry sprawled in her lap.
A couple down the way from her house in Carraroe had been charged with what had been deemed the difficult task of taking care of her while the whole of her family was away. They'd been on the poor side, certainly not destitute, but they had never been able to afford a real--WORKING--television in all the years it had been around; instead, they relied on the radio for their news and entertainment. It had been great fun learning the songs of all the oldies, the music deemed innapropriate when they were young which just sounded corny now, and listening to old-fashioned radio shows kept her riveted and quiet for hours at a time. But it was when they had handed her her first book--had it been To Kill a Mockingbird? Or was it one of Sherlock Holmes' old yarns?--had she truly found her niche.
Books had opened up whole news worlds beyond any she could have possibly imagined at the time; fairytales from the Brother's Grimm and Hans Christen Anderson brought both joy and terror when she came to realize that the disney movies everyone else her age watched was all rubbish. Then there had been the horror; Stephen King's Carrie had had her terrified of the quiet girl in her grade school class for weeks (not to mention the nightmares about pig's blood--and an actual fear of the animal) and Dean Koontz had both bored and interested her at the same time (a real hit or miss, that one). But when it came time for the classics, well, she just ate those right up.
It had been the old man who had given her her first copy of The Idiot, a book she had been too young to understand at the time.
That copy had long ago been destroyed by her father, but she had done her best to replace it with an antiquated copy from the early nineteen hundreds; sure, the sting of losing something so dear would never go away, but at least the knowledge that such an old copy was so sought after gave her some measure of comfort. It had also been the start of her steadily increasing library, to which there would never be an end. The smell of bound leather and musty pages just seemed to call out to her alot lately.
Currently Elly was holed up on the third floor of the library, well away from any of the classmates who would seek to make fun of her for her guilty pleasure. Many of her classmates displayed no interest in learning anything of any real value and what they read was limited to what the teacher assigned, if that. None of them quite understood her secret obsession (not that they tried) so she was often forced to either hole up in her room, where no one could see her unless she wanted them to, or to hide in a nook in the library.
Which was what she was doing now, curled up in one of the plush leather chairs with a collection of Edgar Allen Poe poetry sprawled in her lap.
