She tucks her book away when it's clear the girl isn't going anywhere; she knows a lot of fun things to add to marble runs.

I'm Dusk, she says, after a while.

The little girl looks up at her with very wide eyes, then returns her attention to the car.

That's fine, she's not going to push.

She might run out of marble run ideas before the girl's grownup comes looking for her, but it's not very likely. (This time, the car releases a tiny balloon, which is caught in a net, and a lever attached to the net pulls a cord that lights up a picture of a unicorn, just as the car goes over a xylophone section to play 'ta-da!' about it.)

The girl's grownups fetch her when they are done eating, with her burger packed in a container for later. She goes with them readily enough.

People really aren't very friendly around here, are they.

She rearranges the run back to something that works with marbles and gets her book out again.

Nobody else comes up to her.

Well, okay.

Next time she's at the library, she asks: How do people meet people around here, anyway?

"Oh, there's clubs and meetups and events and such, and school of course, and people introduce each other to their friends."

Is there a list of events someplace?

"Lots of them get posted on that bulletin board over there by the bathroom."

Thanks!

And what does the bulletin board have for her?

- bridge club
- knitting circle
- mixed instruments jam session
- woodworking and woodburning lessons
- auditions for the Apple Tree Singers, "especially tenors"
- scrapbooking
- scavenger hunt!
- swap meet
- Russian novels book club
- Toastmasters
- "interfaith dialogue"
- debate club

Woodworking might be fun. Knitting isn't much her thing but she'd meet people, anyway, and same with the scavenger hunt. She notes down days and times and places, emails May to let her know she won't be around then, and shows up to the next one.

The next one is the woodworking one. The guy running it, a moose totem, asks her how old she is.

Thirteen.

"Not supposed to hand you a woodburner or a knife without your parents' say-so. Have a note?"

Nope. Is there stuff she can do anyway?

"Yeah, you can have a file and sandpaper," he says. He hands her some pine and a file, gestures at the various sandpapers. "If you come back a second time there's a material fee but first one's free."

Other people are whittling or woodburning merrily away.

That seems pretty boring, actually. Is it okay if she just hangs around and watches?

"Suit yourself," he says, putting the file back in the file box and the wood back in its stack.

She hangs around and watches. Anybody doing anything interesting? (Lessons are interesting, probably. It is supposed to be a class, after all.)

Moose totem guy is teaching a peryton how to do relief carving; he's working on a flower.

Neat, but a bit advanced. She'll watch one of the whittlers instead.

This winged lion is whittling a bunny.

That's neat. She likes how he did the ears.