I have no idea what’s happened.
One talent I have acquired since the explosion is the ability to just be quiet and listen and watch. So as the day goes on, I learn enough to realize that whatever has happened, it has something to do with Mr. Belle, Aurora’s father.
I watch Jessup with Aurora at lunch. Something has changed between them. Whereas before I could see that he relentlessly pursued her while she resisted, now it is as though she is leaning on him. When she doesn’t eat any of her lunch, Jessup goes up to the cafeteria line and waits patiently—it is a very long line—to get a carton of chocolate milk to try to tempt her. When Celia sits down in the place Jessup has vacated—meaning that now Aurora is flanked by Celia and Deanie, leaving no place beside Aurora for Jessup when he returns, so he will have to sit on the other side of Celia—Jessup tells her to move. He makes his request politely, but it’s obvious that it is more of a command. The look on Celia’s face? It’s clear to me at least that she expected something different from him. I am puzzled: Did she really think that for some insane reason Jessup would stop liking Aurora and would turn his attentions to her instead? Why would he? I am sure Celia has her share of attractions, for some—most people do, with the possible exception of me—but why would any guy turn from the possibility of Aurora to that of any other girl?
Aurora, still not eating, excuses herself from the others. I watch as she goes over to the cafeteria monitor and I assume she asks for a pass to go to the library or study hall. Well, perhaps not the library. It would probably be too sad for her there now without Mr. Belle.
Her shoulders are slumped as she exits the cafeteria. She looks so sad. And even though she slapped me, even though she has turned her back on me, this impresses me as wrong. Yes, there are plenty enough bad things that go on in this life—enough sadness in the world to make a person cry if he thought about it too much, or to make him want to blow up something—but it is not right that Aurora should feel so sad. It makes me want to fix it for her.
People may say, as they have often, that there is something broken in me. But I want to fix what’s broken in her.
It’s only after the door closes behind Aurora that I start paying attention to the conversation at Jessup’s table again. It’s only after she’s safely gone that I hear Jessup say to the others in a smirking tone of voice:
“I always knew that librarian was crazy.”
Then he drinks the rest of Aurora’s chocolate milk, crushes the empty carton within his fist, and tosses it in the direction of the garbage pail.
It is with some satisfaction I note that he misses, and by a rather wide margin.
Still, I cannot believe what I have just heard.
I know crazy and—believe it or not—I do know normal. And I’ve met Mr. Belle, spoken to him in his home.
Mr. Belle isn’t crazy.
Mr. Belle is the most normal human being I’ve ever met.