She stood up and flicked her long brown hair out of her face.Valerie had been sitting under a cherry tree reading,a favourite pastime of hers,when her friend,Evie,texted her and told her to hurry to her house quickly.Valerie and Evie were different in many ways.But what brought them closer than anything,was their love of books.Unlike most of the girls in their class,they read outside of school.Most of the girls in their class where hard pushed to read a book for school,never mind reading one outside of school.
Valerie slid her bookmark into place and set off for Evie's house,which was a short walk away.She wasn't even at the house yet,when she heard her.It was Evie. "Valerie wait there!"Evie yelled,while thundering down the street. "I thought I was going to your house?". "Change of plans.I need to take you somewhere". "Where?" "Oh,you'll see soon enough".Evie started walking back the same way she'd come and Valerie,after a moment of thought,decided to follow.They passed through the small town in a few short minutes and Valerie,who had great patience,never asked where they were going.Soon they came to a road with shops of all kinds on it.There was a shoe shop,a clothes shop,a hairdressers and a supermarket.All of these fitted in,they were well worn.The spotlight was on a different shop.A new shop.It was a bookshop.The girls came to stop outside it.They stared up at it.The golden lettering,the bright new paint,the shiny windows.The girls were in heaven.They loved it.Of course there already was a bookshop in the town.It just wasn't very good.They had a shelf dedicated to teen fiction,whereas the rest was either kiddies books,or fact books.And even at that they didn't have a very good selection of teen fiction.They had three of the same Harry Potter,the third Hunger games book and a few other books.As the girls thought of this they stayed staring at the shop. "Will we go in?"asked Valerie. "I dunno.Will we dare". "Let's dare". "Ok.On three."
"One,Two,Three"
At the same time,the girls stepped through the golden doors into the shop itself.It was even better on the inside.There were rows upon rows of books.Books stacked high,shelves in every direction and they even had a stares.The girls strayed,lost in a sea of books.They looked for almost an hour until they met up again. "What books did you get?". Evie showed her the books under her arms,"I got all the Threads books and a book that teaches you to sew"she said happily,It was Evie's dream to be a famous fashion designer one day,"What about you?". "I got my own copy of Ballet shoes,the third Skulduggery and a book called Knife",Valerie on the other hand wanted to be either an author,a ballet dancer or a dance teacher. "Will we go upstairs?"Evie asked.Valerie nodded.They linked arms,their books in the other hands and went up the stairs together.The upstairs proved to be just as successful as the downstairs.Whereas downstairs was full of fiction books,the upstairs had the biographies and true stories and things like that.There was also a windowsill.Just a little windowsill with a cushion on it,for you to read and look out over the street below.
The girls were less interested in the second floor,so they climbed the stairs to the third.The third floor did not hold any books,but a café.It was a quaint little place.The girls ordered a hot chocolate each and sat down.They knew they were both thinking the same thing,but they didn't say it.They didn't need to.They knew that they'd both love it here and visit with alarming frequency.
