WHO: Natalie Rogers & Sam Arquette WHEN: Summer 2009, Summer 2014, Summer 2015 WHERE: Fall City Public Library times 2, & then Cool Beans SUMMARY: Friendships around books are the best kinds, or how Natalie and Sam became friends WARNINGS: None that I can think of.
Natalie Rogers was very disappointed in the selection of this library, and at ten years old, she'd been to the library often enough she knew what she was talking about. It wasn't nearly as big as the library she went to back home in Seattle, and the children's section didn't have most of her favorite books, or the kinds of chairs she liked. All she wanted to do was curl up in a big armchair with The Maltese Kitten but all they had that she knew was Basil of Baker Street and bean bags and it was not the same.
She wanted to complain, but she knew better than to whine too loudly in a library. So she let out a dramatic sigh and flopped back on the bean bag, stretching her arms up and over until her book of second-choice touched the floor on the other side.
Sam Arquette was in the library. She was frequently in the library during the summer. And even though she'd worked her way through most of the Nancy Drew books the librarians had pointed her in the direction of a few new things. She'd been returning to the children's section to return The Haunted Staircase to the shelves after she'd been rereading some of her favorite bits, when she saw the younger girl in the bean bag.
"I think you're dropping your book," she mused with a quick smile.
Nat looked up at a pair of shoes which was attached to a pair of legs which when followed up, seemed to belong to an older brown-haired girl who was probably the same girl that spoke. She was pretty old, probably a teenager. "I tried to hold on," she said, her blonde hair making a twisty fan around her head. "But it didn't grab me back. It doesn't want to be read today." And maybe also she'd read it five times already but she shouldn't have to do all the work in reading, should she?
"That sucks," Sam said instantaneously, and then wondered if she should have said it. This girl seemed quite a bit younger than her, and maybe didn't have three older sisters who said all sorts of edgy teenage things. She shrugged, oh well and her own question, and then glanced at the title. "You like mysteries?"
"All books are mysteries until you've finished the last page," Nat quoted with prompt enthusiasm, and did a sort of somersault on the bean bag to right herself. "What're you reading?" she said, suddenly interested as she peered through dishevelled hair at the older girl's book. There was a staircase, and girl with a flashlight, and she looked like she was exploring. "Is that a girl detective?" she asked, delighted.
"Yes," Sam's eyes lit up with the pleasure that comes of feeling as if you are about to introduce someone to something positively brilliant. She handed the book over.
"I was about to take it back to the shelf actually cause I had just wanted to check something quickly to be certain I had it correct, but this is Nancy Drew. And this is the second book so you should get Secret of the Old Clock first, but this one is one of my personal favorites and it is a girl detective. She's fabulous. She has her own car, and she solves all sorts of mysteries. Have you read any Nancy Drew?" She wasn't quite certain how old the younger girl was, but something told Sam she'd be old enough to enjoy Nancy.
Her own car and she solved mysteries! Nat was suitably impressed. "No, but I think I've heard of her though," she said, looking intently at the cover and trying to imagine what could possibly be at the top of those stairs. "How many of them are there?" There were only five Basils and three Sam the Cat books and she did need more to read. Especially if it was full of secret old clocks and hidden staircases!
"Oh, so many!" Sam exclaimed. "I'll show you where to find them, but also, word to the wise, the yellow ones that are hardcover are the best. The paperback ones that are later are not so good!"
She motioned for the other girl to follow her, as she headed in the direction she'd originally been intending to go, but she'd planned to put the book away. She just hoped that they had a copy of the Secret of the Old Clock, because really, while it didn't matter so much, it felt like it might be important to start with the first at least at the first.
"Here," she pointed to a row of around 70 yellow backed books, some clearly duplicates, some library bound. "This is the series."
Nat's eyes widened at the sight of all those yellow books. "Ohmygosh." The girl said she solved all kinds of mysteries but even when she'd said there were so many Nat hadn't thought she meant that many! She looked up at her new friend in awe. "Have you read all of them?"
Sam beamed. There was nothing quite like introducing someone to things that they were going to enjoy. Or at least, she had a suspicion. "Most of them, like I said, the paperbacks, the later ones, they're not as good so I lost interest, but I think I've read all of the earlier ones." There was a moment and then she added. "I'm Sam, and I don't think I've seen you around much before."
Just like the Cat Detective!! Except she wasn't a cat, and the cat was a boy. "That's because I live in Seattle! I'm just here for the summer. I've been here before though because my dad grew up here, so you probably know him or my grandparents or my aunt and uncle," she said. "I'm Natalie Rogers." And she wasn't named like anything cool.
"Oooh," Sam had always liked Seattle. Not that she went super often, but the buildings were tall, and there were so many people and it felt a bit like anything could happen there. "You should come Thursday morning, they do a book reader's group for kids, and even though it isn't always mysteries, it's pretty fun. I'm usually there, and it's a good way to meet other kids in Fall City too."
"Okay!" Nat said, jumping down to scan the row of books and pulling out The Secret of the Old Clock with a triumphant grin. "I'm gonna be done with at least one of these by then."
"We could do the Lord Peter Wimsey books, maybe." Sam had a finger on a rather well-worn paperback she'd picked up earlier from Wonderlust, and she was speaking quietly as she sat at a table in the back corner of the library. "I haven't started them yet. But they're supposed to be good."
Nat leaned back and steepled her fingers in her best Sherlock impersonation. "I know nothing about them at all," she said loftily. "Except that they're based in England, set in the early 20th century, and he's rich but he solves crimes for fun, and… ummm, is he ginger? I don't know." Okay, so she couldn't maintain the Cumberbatch attitude. At least she knew to say "ginger" instead of "redhead," though. That was English English.
Sam raised her eyebrows, and the smirky smile hid her amusement at this whole thing. "Okay, but also, we might need an additional rewatch of Sherlock along with the reading." (Nat grinned: she was always up for Sherlock, but especially after this last season.) She considered. "There's also Agatha Christie. I've read one Miss Marple, but I've not read all of them, and it wasn't the first. There might be a benefit to starting through in order. They're also British. And similar time period. There's also other Agatha Christie books too."
"She wrote Poyrot too didn't she?" Nat asked. She didn't know anything about him either except the name, she'd just read something on Wikipedia or Tumblr or somewhere. "I think I'd rather do Miss Marple, there aren't enough lady detectives. Although," and her eyebrows raised now, "we could also go modern and read Cuckoo's Calling. It's so good," she said in a library version of a fangirl wail, nearly flopping onto the table in her enthusiasm. "And the sequel will be out any day now and Robin is awesome, they're both amazing."
"We have the whole summer ahead of us," Sam pointed out already assuming from Nat's reaction that a Sherlock evening - or maybe a week of evenings, cause they could just do the whole series one episode a night or something - was in the works. "Why don't we do both of those things? Although I need more information about Cuckoo's Calling. I feel like I saw it at Wonderlust, but I don't remember if I picked it up."
Nat perked up: telling people about her favorite things was also one of her favorite things. "It's J.K. Rowling's detective series! And in the first one a model dies and he has to prove it's a murder when the cops messed up the investigation." It was kind of crazy how often cops screwed up investigations and had to call in someone else in stories. Not so much in real life, at least not that her dad or June would admit to. "And it's really complicated. And he's an amputee because he was a soldier and his leg got blown off. And she comes to be his assistant, and she always wanted to be a detective but she never finished college for some reason, so it's a dream come true except he can't totally afford to pay her? And… and you need to just read it, 'cause I'm gonna give it away too much if I keep talking."
"Oh! You know, I think I heard about that," Sam offered as she leaned forward. And that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to do something more modern. "Maybe we should have some sort of a schedule for the summer. And we can do different books. Although, maybe if we start a series, we should like, continue on that series - if we like it? So, we could start with Cuckoo's Calling? How many are there in that one?"
"Only two, the one coming out -- it's called The Silkworm -- is the second. I dunno how many she's gonna write, maybe as many as Harry Potters? I hope so, they're just as good and maybe better. So we could read those and then do your Marple maybe unless we can't find Silkworm anywhere. Is that it there?" She gestured at the book Sam was holding, turning her head to try and read the spine.
"Yep, take a look if you want," Sam handed it over. "I feel like this is a good place to start though, Something new and something older, and if we don't really care for the Miss Marple, then we could move on to Lord Peter Wimsey instead?"
"Sounds good to me!" Nat said, reading the back of the book. "Oh, she's old. That's pretty cool." You didn't see a lot of old lady detectives. It was a lot shorter than Cuckoo's Calling too, so it'd probably be a good break from the longer ones.
Sam nodded. "She's super old and fiesty and fun, and she knows things. I think you'll like them." She pulled out a notepad and started making notes. "Okay, one a week like normal? Or do we want to get crazy and try for two?"
Nat grinned. "Definitely two, at least to start. I wanna read that sequel!"
Sam opened the door to Cool Beans with every intention of some sort of iced coffee drink to celebrate the fact that she was a graduated, college bound young woman. Not just college bound, but Europe bound, something she was super excited about, even if there were still a few months before she was going to leave. As she walked in, she saw a familiar face, and she waved across the room. "Nat!"
"Sam!" she cheered, jumping up to greet her friend with a hug. "I'm here with my family," Nat said unnecessarily, nodding back toward them. "But since I haven't seen you in a year I think they'll understand if I ditch. What's up?"
Sam returned the hug quickly, and then pulled back from the younger girl, who'd grown up a bit really in the past year. Of course she had, but when you really didn't see someone other than sometimes on Facebook or Instagram or whatever, it was easy to see the changes in person. "Well I am officially graduated from high school!" She laughed. "So that's a thing!" Also she was going to college in Europe, but she wasn't certain she wanted to lead with that when she stopped to think about it.
"Lucky!" Nat made a face. "I've got two more years still. Two more!" She said it as if this was the most surprising and worst possible fate though high school hadn't really been that bad so far. It wasn't great and she wouldn't wanna stay there, but like, she'd live. "So what're you gonna do with all your brand new freedom? Finish a book? Get published? Something something prosper?"
"My plan is to finish a book this summer," Sam laughed. "Although I don't know if it'll be ready for publication. First drafts and all that. But actually I am probably going to go to college. I got accepted into a Creative Writing program, I figure it'll be a good way to get some independence and some additional feedback."
Nat looked like the thought of anyone wanting more school after school had never occurred to her. "Oh! Cool," she said, but hesitated. "But you already write? So why don't you just, like, write?"
"Well, I will," Sam shrugged. "But this gives me an opportunity to get feedback, and let other people read some of it, and hopefully gain something from people who think about things like overarching plots and themes and character developments in a different way than I do. Plus, the school isn't even entirely the point, it's more where I'm going to go to school that I'm really excited about."
"Oh, where're you going then?" She still didn't totally get it -- you could get plenty of that stuff for free just online, couldn't you? -- but going to college meant getting out of Fall City, and Nat could at least understand that. It was fun to visit and all, but living there all your life? "Oh my god are you coming to Seattle??"
"Sadly no," Sam said, and she did mean that genuinely. She and Nat could definitely have had a good time, if Nat's dad didn't mind her doing things with an older girl in Seattle. But at the same time, UW hadn't been quite exciting enough to pull her attention. "I'm going abroad, actually. London! I've been accepted to King's College."
This was the kind of news that Nat was made to be the audience for. "No way." All possible disappointment at Sam not being closer evaporated. "Sherlock London? Strike London?? London London??"
Sam couldn't help herself, her grin gave away just how thoroughly excited she was about it. "I'm going to have my own flat, in Islington. Can you imagine. My own flat in London. And I mean, okay, It's basically one room, and I'm sharing it but still. I finalized everything last week."
All Nat knew about Islington was that it was the name of the angel in Neverwhere. Which was also set in London, because practically everything was. "Oh my god," she groaned, "I hate you. Bring me back some chocolate."
"Chocolate, or tea?" Sam's eyes twinkled. "I'll do better than that, I'll send you English boxes like once a semester or something. But I've still got an entire summer to be in over-eager anticipation and it is going to make me quite mental I'm sure."
Nat had never got as into tea but for real English tea from England she was willing to give it another try. The promise of packages was enough to take the edge off her envy too. "Least you'll be off to a good start on the accents and slang," she said, grinning.
"Everything I know I learned from Harry Potter," Sam held her hand over her chest dramatically. Granted that wasn't true, because also Doctor Who, Sherlock, Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Daphne Du Maurier, and a few other television shows and books could be blamed for her knowledge of the English, but only time would tell if it would hold up. "Speaking of. We have a whole summer before I'm gone, and I'd be very down with starting out with a marathon. Are you free this weekend?"
"Obviously I am," Nat said in her best Hermione voice. "Like I'd miss out on a Potterthon! Just gotta talk to my parents about it." But it shouldn't be a problem, especially when she told them why.
Glancing back at her family, she made a face and added, "Should do that now actually, they look done. I'll text you, okay? God, I'm so jealous," she said, giving Sam another hug for the road. "King's Cross and Baker Street and everything."
Sam returned the hug quick and stepped back, giving a quick wave in the general direction of Nat's family too. "This weekend then. Accio Potter!"