"Do you think it's true?" came a thick, hesitant voice as if the owner of it had a snuffly cold.

"What?" a more brittle response, sharpened a little by impatience. Victoria Sponge was reading a novel and had just reached the point when the heroine leapt from a window with her most prized possession, a unique silk bonnet, to save it from attackers, and she was not best pleased to be interrupted in the narrative flow.

"It says here," continued the snuffly voice, "to stop bookworms from eating their way through a three volume novel, place the second volume on the other side of the third so that when it begins with the first and finds no second volume to continue with it just gives up."

Victoria pondered this a moment.

"Why not place the first volume between the second and third so that the bookworm on discovering no first volume at all, it being shielded by the others, gives up entirely," she eventually said, satisfied with this and the fact the heroine in her own story had managed to bounce off a passing plot device onto a bale of hay dexterously without damaging the all important bonnet and then scampered away from her pursuers to the relative safety of the next chapter.

"What if," the snuffly one pursued in her own way, "the bookworm started on the first volume in the middle, realised the second volume wasn't where expected, but then in doubling back found it on the immediate other side? Then two volumes would have been damaged instead of only one." There was a triumphant snort at this conclusion.

"Sophelia Smog, what exactly are you reading?"

The girl thus named, pulled herself upright from her bed where she had been half submerged in a pillow, hence the snuffliness of her voice, and showed her tablet. Upon its screen was a brightly coloured magazine called Spine Ticklers, or the Guide to High Librarianism. The highlighted article displayed tips on book care.

"I assume that's an exceedingly old back issue of a defunct periodical which ceased publication before you were born?"

"Yes," Sophelia nodded simply. Her answers were sometimes simplistic but always polite and the other girls in Dorm Amaze quickly got used to the quaintness of her manner. She had thick dark curly hair that massed around an olive face sprinkled with freckles, which of itself was nothing unusual. However her take on the school uniform was something else. She wore her skirt much longer than required and with what appeared to be frilly white leggings underneath. Her blazer, though in the school colours of sky blue and yellow, was tailored to her figure, shorter in length with wide lapels, puffed shoulders and seriously big buttons. Her straw boater always had various flowers in the hatband and she carried a parasol in a jaunty way when out among the amble walks upon the slopes of Mount Syzywyg, where Miss Plazenby's Extremely Exclusive Seminary for Girls was situated.

This old-fashioned creature even went so far as to employ a long suffering lady's maid, who of course was not allowed to stay at the school. Whenever Sophelia wandered inadvertently into Cherryball Flats, the nearest settlement to the school, her maid would be there waiting for her so that she would not be unaccompanied in her shopping or walking trips. She was effectively her guardian to keep her from all sorts of polluting influences, especially modernity. The tablet, linked to the school learning grid, was the only concession regarding this.

Her friend in the dorm, Victoria Sponge, was vastly different in appearance. Where the other was dark, she was pale, so much so she had acquired the nickname of the Ghost. Her long straight hair was of such a shimmering whiteness she had dyed strands in pastel pink and pale blue just so that she could be seen and prevent people bumping into her in corridors, thinking she was some kind of mirage or virtua being created by the grid. It did not help that an elderly professor at the school generally appeared thus. Being too frail to attend classes himself he would send a digital version of himself to teach lessons every now and then. Gliding a paper plane right between his eyes during a lecture scored extra marks among the pupils, a fact his virtua and real self were both equally unaware.

"I much prefer the real thing," the old-fashioned girl began in snuffly tones again, for she had flopped back down on the bed sleepily, the evening being late and lights out almost upon them, "but there are none of these in the school library. Shame really, as old publications always smell so nice."

"Unlike old shoes," someone suggested.

"Imagine cookery books that wafted the aroma of prepared meals in your face as you flicked through them looking for a spicy fish recipe," Victoria laughed, toying with a new idea.

"I for one would never go near a volume on flowering plants if that were the case," came a comment from near the window.

"I would have thought that might be nice," came a snuffly protest.

"Pollen," was the succinct response.

"A history of dragons might be dangerous to open," added another now interested listener as the conversation became general in the room among the six girls present.

"And ones in foreign languages would simply be incomprehensible," a giggly comment was thrown into the ring from a certain bed known for giggles and lack of comprehension.

There was a stifling pause and the gong was heard for lights out. Lamps were extinguished, tablets powered down and pillows punched as if they had been naughty and deserved punishment, or at the very least guilty of being out of order.

"Which is," the precise tones of Victoria Sponge quietly sounded in the hushed room following all this settling activity, "what one might expect anyway."

It was the last word on the subject that night but not the next day as Sophelia Smog chattered away at breakfast about fragrant old books and neat printing on both sides of the paper and gilt bindings until someone flicked a grape at her and she quietened down, fearing a grapefruit might be next.

Of course her favourite school time was study periods, when she was allowed to enter the actual physical library on the top floor of the main building, the same floor as the first year dorms. Every book in the library had its digital equivalent on the school virtual grid so one could study up a tree if desired, something Bubbles Bannatyne sometimes did even in a gale, the harum scarum redhead of Dorm Flare favouring the daring over safety. Sophelia kept well clear of the spirited girl and much preferred the quiet, solitude and dignified atmosphere of the actual library itself.

Often study periods were overseen not by mistresses but prefects, fifth years who were always in an almost perpetual state of study themselves. A peaceful place it was, ideal for concentration of a higher order. An occasional lower year girl might wander in to idly flick over pages to see if it was really true printing was on both sides of a page and then to ponder the reason why, but generally the place remained empty most of the day. Thus such quietness was a perfect time to polish a thesis on Microbial Politics and the Osmosis of Opinion, or theories pertaining to the Enviromental Impact of Winking. When Sophelia entered clutching some real paper and a genuine pencil she thought at first the place was empty until a great red tropical flower bobbed into view from around a shelf and a dark-skinned intelligent face smiled at her above a pile of books steadied beneath a chin.

"Any-ng I an elp you wiv?" came a distorted query.

"Sorry?"

The books clattered to the floor like thunder.

"Oh bother. Sorry about that. I said is there anything I can help you with?"

"My toe," came a teary whimper.

"Beg pardon?"

"Vandamar's Fossil Evidence of Bad Language," and Sophelia peered more closely at the spine for further details, "Volume four. It landed on my toe just then."

"Oh bother," and the prefect gathered her study selection and tumbled them on the desk near the door. "If the injury is not too serious you can hop into any seat as you're first in today. Actually you're first in since the new year I think," and the girl chuckled.

"I was here yesterday," Sophelia declared and blinked meaningly.

"Oh bother," came a smiling curse, learned from Professor Vandamar.

"It is impolite to swear. Why do you have a big flower on your head?"

"Hoping to get watered. No, it's part of my cultural heritage." The prefect held out a hand. "I'm Ansibby Falofa from Gloriosa Winkel."

"And I am Sophelia Smog. My people reside in Deepwold," and she shook hands.

"Well I hope they dig themselves out soon."