Sub Rosa

'This place is tyrannical,' Adannaya said. 'If they won't let us have books then we should've been allowed to bring books.'

'We do get books,' Anke said.

'Only “approved” books.'

Adannaya flopped onto her bed. A girls' school was already outdated—especially one that didn't allow phones or television. But she could live without her phone and TV. They also didn’t allow any books from outside the school. When she'd been told not to bring her own, she'd complied without protest—assuming an accredited boarding school would have an extensive collection in its library. But their concept of acceptable reading material was narrowly defined, even draconian.

She could almost understand the lack of popular fiction—a boarding school was required to be a little pretentious—but even classic authors like Steinbeck, Angelou, and Orwell were considered too challenging for their growing minds.

'You didn't bring any?' Anke said. 'You didn't even sneak a magazine?'

'We were told not to, "excepting religious materials and notebooks."'

‘Some girls still sneak a few in.' Anke paused, then reached under her mattress. She pulled out a used but intact paperback. 'Jian shares hers a lot. I don't know how she sneaks them in. I got this one from her last week.'

'Why didn't you tell me you had one?'

'I mean, I didn't know how you'd react. Some girls are real suck-ups and tell the teachers everything.'

Adannaya fixated on the wrinkled cover. It was a John Grisham thriller, probably from the early 2000s, but she took it and held it with reverence. It was taped along its spine with Scotch tape to keep the cover intact, and the corners were worn down from being put away and pulled out again and thumbed through. Anke had placed a couple of Post-It notes in a few places and written the page numbers along the top of the yellow notes that poked out from between the pages.

'Just ask to go to her room and pick one. Don't carry it around with you to class or anything and you won't get caught.'

'What floor is she on?'

'This one,' Anke said. 'But it's already ten-thirty.' Visitations between the students were supposed to cease at nine pm.

Adannaya had snuck out to another dorm before, but only for a few minutes. Getting caught, book in hand, and potentially exposing the school's underground library ring would probably make her unpopular with the other bibliophiles.

'Do we have any classes with her?' she asked.

'All our morning classes.'

Adannaya bounced on her bed. 'Great! I'm going to ask her right before class tomorrow. See how many I can take.'

'One,' Anke said. 'She's not running an actual library. You take one at a time or leave a book of your own for each extra you borrow.'

'Okay, okay. What kind of selection does she have? Does she have science fiction or fantasy, or does she only have airport books? Does she have any nonfiction?'

'I can't remember. She has a variety,' Anke said. 'Just the usual stuff you'll see in a retail store.'

Talk was supposed to end at ten, and footsteps outside in the hall signaled that it was time to pretend to be asleep. Adannaya slunk under her covers.

She tried to force herself to feel tired, but the effort kept her awake. For a long portion of the night, she kept imagining all the books she'd purchased for her e-reader but hadn't got to before summer ended. She hoped some of them would be in Jian's room, under the floorboards or wherever they were hidden away. Eventually, Adannaya dozed off in time to get a few hours of sleep before her alarm clock rang the next morning.

Before class started, Anke pointed out Jian sitting at her desk and scrawling in her notebook. She wore round glasses and kept her hair tied back. Adannaya walked up to her and introduced herself. Then she nearly lost her nerve. She wasn't in a secret agent type of situation or anything, but the slightly heightened caution was deceptive. 'I wanted to borrow something—in between classes—if you have time? I'll bring it back.'

'Yeah, that's fine,' Jian said without looking up. She was sketching some clothing designs in her notebook and had a few colored pencils on hand to add some hue to the finished drawings. 'After lunch.'

The morning dragged. Adannaya mostly watched the clock or stared blankly at her work. She wouldn't be able to focus until she had reached her objective and gotten her fingers on a bundle of pages of something.

After lunch, Jian led Adannaya to her dorm room. She pulled a small footlocker from under her bed and dropped it on the perfectly straightened coverlet. 'This is what I have right now.'

The selection of discount-store and grocery-rack books was like treasure in a chest. Adannaya reached into the locker and turned over a generic Star Wars title that had probably been printed in the nineties. It was the second of a series and looking through the other books, there was no Volume One or Three in the box. A few other series were similarly numbered and incomplete. Most were standalone readers though. She struggled between choosing the second volume of a trilogy and some vampire doorstopper. Jian didn't rush her but stood fidgeting. 'If you don't like what's here right now you can ask Jen or Ade,' she said. 'They have a few books, too.'

'No, I think this is fine for now.' Adannaya slipped her choice into her bag. 'Is there a due date?'

'If you want to read another one you have to return that one.' Jian returned the footlocker under her bed. 'You can also trade it with someone else who has a book and bring that one back. I don't care that much. As long as I have roughly the number I started with at the end of the year.'

'Thanks. I'll try to be considerate though.'

Adannaya tried to stretch the book out, at least for a week, but after a couple of late nights, she'd burned through it, including all the promotional material and the author interview in the back. She learned to pace herself, but she still exchanged one book for another at least once a week.

#

'Is this good?' Maiya asked her about her latest contraband book. She was visiting from her dorm and picked up the novel from the nightstand.

'I finished it,' Adannaya said. 'You can have it. Just trade it with someone else when you're done.'

'What about you? I thought the rule was you had to return a book to get a new one?'

'My folks visited a couple of weeks ago. I bought some trades at the drug store while we were out. I'm going to put those into circulation.'

The rest of the year, anyone who wanted to lounge about with a book came to her dorm room. Sometimes they got homework done too, but mostly they wasted time reading.

It was relatively easy not to get caught with the contraband, too, even when they held reading parties. After they dispersed, they hid the books under their tops, in their binders, or at the bottom of school bags or clothing drawers.

The teachers were always listening for disturbances and suspicious talk, trying to catch them in some illicit activity. But reading books wasn't a noisy hobby. The teachers were mostly straining their ears to detect partying or other wild behavior. Girls trying to sneak out or drink in their dorms sometimes got caught. But the teachers couldn't hear the reading or see evidence of it later.

-End-