Miss Larkspur’s kingdom
The Library
A ladder on a rail, a smell of dust and glue, and the loudest quiet in the school.
It is a long room, and rather dark, and it smells of dust and glue and old paper, which is a smell some people never notice and others love for the whole of their lives.
There is a ladder on a rail, and it runs the length of the shelves, and it is not for girls.
And at the far end there is a case with glass doors, which holds the school’s own things: registers, and photographs gone brown, and minute books, and the letters of a woman who died a long time ago. It is not locked, exactly. It is simply understood.
Miss Larkspur sits where she can see the whole room, including the far end, which is not an accident either.