Free The Book Thing by Laura Lippman

T ESS M ONAGHAN wanted to love the funky little children’s bookshop that had opened just two years ago among the used bookstores that lined Twenty-Fifth Street in North Baltimore. There was so much to admire about it—the brightly painted miniature rockers and chairs on the converted sun porch, the mynah bird who said “Hi, Hon!” and “Hark, who goes there!” and—best of all—“Nevermore.”
    She coveted the huge Arnold Lobel poster opposite the front door, the one that showed a bearded man-beast happily ensconced in a tiny cottage that was being overtaken by ramshackle towers of books. She appreciated the fact that ancillary merchandise was truly a sideline here; this shop’s business was books, with only a few stuffed animals and Fancy Nancy boas thrown into the mix. Tess was grateful that gift-wrapping was free year-round and that the store did out-of-print book searches. She couldn’t wait until her own two-year-old daughter, Carla Scout, was old enough to sit quietly through the Saturday story hour, although Tess was beginning to fear that might not be until Carla Scout was a freshman in college. Most of all, she admired the counterintuitive decision to open a bookstore when so many people seemed to assume that books were doomed.
    She just thought it would be nice if the owner of The Children’s Bookstore actually liked children.
    “Be careful,” the raven-haired owner growled on this unseasonably chilly October day as Carla Scout did her Frankenstein stagger toward a low shelf of picture books. To be fair, Carla Scout’s hands weren’t exactly clean, as mother and daughter had just indulged in one of mother’s favorite vices, dark chocolate peanut clusters from Eddie’s grocery. Tess swooped in with a napkin and smiled apologetically at the owner.
    “Sorry,” she said. “She loves books to pieces. Literally, sometimes.”
    “Do you need help?” the owner asked, as if she had never seen Tess before. Tess’s credit card begged to differ.
    “Oh … no, we’re looking for a birthday gift, but I have some ideas. My aunt was a children’s librarian with the city school system.”
    Tess did not add that her aunt ran her own bookstore in another part of town and would happily order any book that Tess needed—at cost. But Tess wanted this bookstore, so much closer to her own neighborhood, to thrive. She wanted all local businesses to thrive, but it was a tricky principle to live by, as most principles were. At night, her daughter asleep, the house quiet, she couldn’t help it if her mouse clicked its way to online sellers who made everything so easy. Could she?
    “You’re one of those, I suppose,” the woman said.
    “One of—?”
    The owner pointed to the iPad sticking out of Tess’s tote. “Oh … no. I mean, sure, I buy some digital books, mainly things I don’t care about owning, but I use the reading app on this primarily for big documents. My work involves a lot of paper and it’s great to be able to import the documents and carry them with me—”
    The owner rolled her eyes. “Sure.” She pushed through the flowery chintz curtains that screened her work area from the store and retreated as if she found Tess too tiresome to talk to.
    Sorry, mouthed the store’s only employee, a young woman with bright red hair, multiple piercings and a tattoo of what appeared to be Jemima Puddleduck on her upper left arm.
    The owner swished back through the curtains, purse under her arm. “I’m going for coffee, Mona, then to the bank.” Tess waited to see if she boarded a bicycle, possibly one with a basket for errant nipping dogs. But she walked down Twenty-Fifth Street, head down against the gusty wind.
    “She’s having a rough time,” said the girl with the duck tattoo. Mona, the owner had called her. “You can imagine. And the thing that drives her mad are the people who come in with digital readers—no offense—just to pick her brain and then download the electronic versions or buy