Excerpt: Elena and the three hets

Mildred Spike sits at the information desk hunched over reading a book. Her left hand holds and flicks the pages as she speeds through yet another novel. Her right hand cups her forehead as if shielding her eyes from the sun. The telephone rings, Mildred sighs and she lifts the receiver; the sharp pale pink nail of her index finger nearly cuts into the page of her book as it holds her place.
“Yes?” she says, almost inaudibly.
“No, you’ll have to call another library,” she whispers into the phone.
“I said ‘No, you’ll have to call another library,’” repeated, though not as quietly as before.
After a short pause, Mildred Spike, librarian, says, “I cannot help you” and hangs up the phone. She returns to her book – The Prison Guard and the Five Naughty Chiquitas.
So begins another day at the Nevada Historical Library.