Lord Fauntleroy is missing. Part 1 of 3

Arthur was an unusual reader for his time. The whole of the civilised world now relied on computers for most situations in life, but Arthur read books. Not on his computer like every one else, but real paper books.

He belonged to a reading club where all the members were of like mind. The club consisted of roughly 1000 readers and they took pride in running the premises just like an old fashioned library. Members could browse among the books on the shelves and one day he found a copy of ‘Little Lord Fauntleroy’.

When Arthur was a child, his Grandmother used to read ‘Little Lord Fauntleroy.’ to him, The hero was a little boy, who when his father died unexpectedly, used to call his mother ‘dearest’ so that she wouldn’t miss her husband too much.

The club’s one condescension to modern practice was the way the books were taken in and out of the building. Members were not too keen on giving up their leisure time to stamping books in and out the old fashioned way, so Arthur placed Little Lord Fauntleroy on the sensitised plate at the ‘Out’ desk and went home to read his find.

Now that he’d grown up he found that he didn’t agree with his grandma’s choice. The book was an impossibly slushy sentimental piece to his mind and he replaced it at the first opportunity.

That day he’d been in a bit of a hurry and just slammed the book down on the ‘Return’ plate, not noticing that the light hadn’t turned green, as he hurried off about his business without choosing another read.

A month later he received an email to the effect that the Lord Fauntleroy book was now overdue and he was to be fined 2 credits for its non return.

Arthur set off at once, he didn’t want to be fined for such a silly thing, but in his hurry he’d forgotten that the ‘library’ only opened one day a week and of course when he got there it was closed.

That was a pity, the next day he was off on a months’ holiday and wouldn’t be able to pay until he got back. Never mind, the interest on the couple of credits he owed wouldn’t be too much.