She has been reading a trilogy of books not of her choosing, but finding them interesting regardless.  One of her friends at school insisted that she simply must read this author's books.  They're geared toward the teen reading crowd, and her friend was most enthusiastic.  She hardly knew what to say when the books were brought in to school and handed over to her.  She promised she would read them.  And she meant to.  She meant to set aside the Jodi Picoult book she was currently engaged with, to transfer her attention to these books that were so generously loaned to her.

Mostly, because she was anxious to return them to her friend as soon as possible.  She usually discriminated against novels written especially for teens.  She wanted to read nothing that focused on her age group, feeling they would be written in a manner that she would feel insulting to her intelligence, patronizing.  She had to admit - to herself, if no one else - that the books were well written, and the plots beyond what she had anticipated - although she had set the anticipatory bar pretty low.

She had got through the first of the trilogy in just over a day, after finishing her homework assignments on the week-end. And she meant to complete the following two as quickly as possible.  Not only because she was intrigued by the plot line and had become emotionally, imaginatively invested in the outcome, but because she wanted to be able to return all three, with her gratitude, by Thursday.

She wrestled with her sense of appropriate exchange, told herself she really should reciprocate, and offer a few of her own treasured novels to her friend.  But she struggled with the notion, knowing it was the right thing to do, but unwilling to follow through, regardless.  She had been stung in the past, amazed at the carelessness of people handling others' possessions, receiving her books back in dreadful shape, and one of them, never returned to her.

She recoiled at the very thought of her little library of carefully stored books read, and those awaiting her delectation, being mishandled by people who did not share her respect for books.  She found it distasteful to see dog-eared pages, or pencilled-in comments.  She might just as well gird herself for the loss of any book she willingly offered to someone else to read; hand it over, and simply forget about getting it back in respectable condition, if at all.

If only...