Judging Books

      It was simple enough; all she had to do was pick up some tomes that Korundra had ordered from the library. Korundra had mentioned that the tomes might be hard to find, but the Library Faerie knew where everything was, so Zuri wasn't worried.

      Zuri flew through the city until she came to the familiar purple building. After quickly trotting up the steps, she walked inside and started going over what she was going to say.

      "'Hello, I'm Zuri, Korundra's apprentice? I'm here to pick up the tomes she wanted.' No, that's too harsh. Oh! I know, I- wait, what's that?"

      Instead of the regular lavender faerie, there was a very angry looking Dark Faerie sitting behind the librarian's desk. As Zuri was watching—trying not to stare, of course; staring is rude—she saw her threaten some Air Faeries, whom were probably just trying to check out a book, scare them off, and mutter what was most likely a nasty curse that Zuri couldn't hear.

      This was a problem. Zuri was expecting the regular faerie, not some irritable Dark Faerie! At least when the regular faerie got mad, she had a good reason; those Air Faeries looked like they didn't do anything.

      Catching a venomous look from the faerie behind the desk, Zuri quickly ran off to go find the tomes. She didn't want that faerie mad at her.

      First, Zuri decided to go through the old spell books. Korundra was always looking for new ways to mix ingredients, so that had to be where they would be. Then she realized that Korundra never told her the names of the tomes, or even what they were written about. She only said to pick up some tomes she had ordered from the Library, nothing more.

      Of course, this was an even bigger problem. Zuri had no way of finding what she came for, and she couldn't just go back to Korundra empty handed. Then Korundra would never let her do things by herself ever again. And just the thought of asking that Dark Faerie for help...

      Zuri shuddered. Maybe she should try another section of the library.

     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

      It had been hours since she came here, and Zuri was still no closer to finding the tomes. She was almost considering giving up at this point. Almost.

      Then Zuri heard muffled laughter behind her. Not harsh laughter, but, genuine. Like something funny had happened and she didn't know about it. She turned around... and there was that same Dark Faerie from before.

      "Having trouble?" the Faerie asked. Apparently she found Zuri's problem amusing. She was probably going to rub it in Zuri's face that she couldn't find Korundra's tomes if Zuri said yes.

      "No, I'm doing just fine, thank you." Turning back to the bookshelf, Zuri pretended to look for a specific book. She really was, but she had no idea how to find it.

      The faerie made a 'hmmm'ing noise. "Is that why you've been looking through these shelves for the past three hours and haven't picked out a single book?" she quipped.

      Darn. She knew. Zuri sighed. "Actually, yeah, I am in a bit of trouble. My mentor sent me here to pick up some tomes she ordered, but she didn't tell me anything about them."

      The faerie smiled and pulled out a clipboard. She started flipping through sheets and said "Name?"

      "It's Zuri. My mentor is Korundra."

      The faerie looked up from the clipboard after hearing that. "Zuri? Pretty name. Mine is Bulletin, but just call me Bullet." Going back to the pages, she seemed to have found what she was looking for, and beckoned for Zuri to follow her.

      The two walked in silence for a few minutes before Bullet asked Zuri a question. "You said these were tomes, right? Not books?"

      "There's a difference?"

      Bullet smiled again. It was a nice smile, Zuri decided. "Actually yes, there is. Tomes are old books written on parchment, usually with more than three-hundred or so pages. Whereas books can be written on any paper, be any age, and have as little as ten pages, or as many as ten-thousand."

      She must really know a lot about books, Zuri thought. Maybe she works here. Zuri asked her why she was at the library.

      "Oh, well, I applied for a job here a few months ago. Belindah, the librarian, agreed to let me manage the book check-ins until she knew me well enough to trust me with our rarer books. After all, it's not like she would willingly let a Dark Faerie near Faerieland's most valuable books." She chuckled at her own joke.

      Zuri was surprised for a bit. People really did expect the worst from Dark Faeries. For most of them, this caution paid off, but she remembered Korundra telling her many tales about the kinder Dark Faeries. Yet Bullet seemed unfazed by the harsh label that had been placed on her. But, Zuri realized, she probably has it worse than others. Bullet was blue... and only the Darkest Faeries were blue.

      Bullet stopped at a particular section of the library. She flapped her large wings, flew a few yards up along the bookcase, and removed the tomes from shelf. She smiled again and handed Zuri her prize. "I believe these are the ones Korundra ordered. C'mon, let's get these checked out."

      And they did. There were a few forms to fill out and questions to answer, but it took only a few minutes. Of course, Zuri had a question of her own to ask.

      "When I came in, I saw you drive away those Air Faeries. What did they do?"

      An angry look flashed across the older faerie's face. She motioned for Zuri to lean closer and explained. "Y'see, those girls have been coming here for the past few months checking out our most valuable books. At first we didn't think much of it. Then, on April Fool's day, a local Fire Faerie decided to cast a spell on all the books to make them look like a bunch of copies of Connect The Dots," Bullet said.

      "Now, my friend Pillisurba—Belindah felt she could trust my judgement when I recommended her for the job—was holding one of the books that the Air Faeries had returned at the time. When she undid the spell, she didn't find the Book of Sea Spells she had been holding. Nope, instead she found Fantastic Faellies."

      She began talking again in a deathly whisper."We went through their check out records, and cast a revealing spell on all the books we got back from them, and 'Lo! and behold!' all of their books turned into Fantastic Faellies. Those girls had been selling all the rare books they checked out from this library for millions of neopoints a piece, then had the nerve to replace them with cheap, disguised books."

      Zuri was shocked at what she heard. Those girls had looked so innocent... She'd always thought that Air Faeries were nice; they were even rumored to be nicer than Light Faeries. To sell library books, that was horrible! She almost couldn't believe it.

      She shook the thoughts out of her head. Then Zuri thanked Bullet for her help, promised to tell Korundra about the Air Faeries, and started flying home. On her way there, she thought of what had happened. She had learned that there were some nice Dark Faeries in Faerieland, befriended one at that, and learned that there were also some bad seeds among the 'kinder' types of faeries.

      The old saying ran through Zuri's mind, and she smiled. "I guess you really can't judge a book by its cover."

The End

My first submission to the Neopian Times, I hope it's approved. I thank Pilurb_566 for letting me include her in this story, and I thank the Neopets Team for creating this awesome world. Ciao~Bulletin