This post is part of StoryADay May (https://storyaday.org/) #StoryADay #StoryADayMay @storyadaymay #freeshortstory @HollyJahangiri

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A Librarian At The Races Part 3

“I have a good idea,” Holly said, “Who’s behind this.” She asked the rural, “Where’s the highest-class inn or boarding house in the area?”

The pratty rancher scratched his head in the universal sign for, “Hold on, lemme think about that for a minnit.”

“Reckon that’d be the Meadow Lick over to Falls City. There where they do be having that Flapdoodle racetrack.”

“Racetrack, eh?” said Darzin, intercepting the knowing elbow his wife had aimed at him and giving it a jiggle that said he realized what that meant.

“Aye,” said the farmer. “They race them skinny barloes they breed up for it. Nasty little nekkidy things the size of a family-sized loaf with six legs and a feather tail.”

“We know what barloes are,” said Holly, for a librarian knows many things, and anything a librarian knows, her husband knows, too.

“Gray they are,” said the pratty-man. “And some black and some green. I even seen a yeller one, a couple of times.”

“Yes,” said Darzin, “we know.”

“Some’s this size,” said the farmer, holding his hands a certain distance apart, “an’ some –“

Holly gasped and pointed over the farmer’s shoulder. When he turned to look, she and Darzin made their escape.

When they were out of sight and sound of the loquacious informant and had got their breath back, Darzin said, “Pratty semi-rustlers.”

Holly nodded. “They load some pratties onto a transport, take them to the Flapdoodle, race them to exhaustion, and bring them back. The farmer has to feed them and tend to their troubles. If they’re ruined, it’s the farmer’s expense. Meanwhile, somebody is making krelp hand over fist.”

“You said you had some idea who it is,” Darzin reminded her, hoping she hadn’t been fabulating.

She nodded. “Let’s get back to the inn and change clothes. Then we’ll rent that pedal car — and hire a pedalboy — and head over to Falls City to take a look at Meadow Lick and Flapdoodle racetrack.”

They hooked elbows and stepped lively toward their destination.

TO BE CONTINUED….

For those who don’t know, years and years ago, I wrote a novel (currently out of print) set on Llannonn, a planet where courtesy is literally the law. When I went on a blog book tour for the novel, I ran a contest for naming a character in a short story set in the same world. Fellow writer Holly Jahangiri (the real one) was such a determined contestant, I named a character after her, too. That character commandeered the story, and I’ve been writing about her ever since.
I write a Holly story on the Sundays of Story A Day May.
Holly Jahangiri (the fictional one) becomes, is, and retires as a Librarian at a library for living books. It seems that somebody on Llannonn read Fahrenheit 451 and decided a library of people who recite books they’ve memorized was a great idea. Typically for Llannonn, they officialized it. Becoming a living book is now a respectable career, provided you can get a gig in a library.

MY PROMPT FOR TODAY: Holly Jahangiri and the recent Kentucky Derby

MA