Rajul and Lothar pulled their horns from their belts and blew mighty blasts. The horns sounded like party favors. (In fact, we had to be careful holding parties anywhere near the library, because it invariably led to misunderstandings and embarrassment all around.)

Before long, an entire crowd of diminutive Bookwatchers had gathered around me. Most of them were pointing and laughing.

“A-haha, Son of Stan clumsy! Dropped bookcase on self!”

“Someone really ‘threw the book’ at him!”

“Oh, that good one! Ha!”

“You should heard Malthazar-woman! Gave him earful!”

I waited for them to go about getting the bookshelf off of me, but they seemed instead to be treating it as a social occasion. They even brought out barrels of grog which they were ladling into leather cups and passing around.

“This reminds me of time when Stan misfiled microfiche!”

“Uh, hey, guys, I hate to be a stick in the mud here, but aren’t you going to get this thing off of me?”

Rajul looked at the library clock. “Later. We on break now.”