The Sweetgum Knit Lit Society

Chapter One Over the top of her reading glasses, Eugenie Pierce eyed the teenage girl sprawled across two chairs at the long table in the Sweetgum Public Library's reading area. Late afternoon sunlight spilled through the tall windows and fell like a spotlight on the youthful offender. The city council could make noises about forcing Eugenie to retire in six months' time, but that didn't mean she would neglect her library in the interim. Not that it was her library personally. It belonged to the good citizens of Sweetgum, Tennessee. But the library had been in her care for almost forty years, and no teenager since the Nixon administration had put his or her feet anywhere but on the floor, where they belonged. Eugenie moved a step closer to the girl and continued to stare. Usually her narrowed gaze moved mountainsor at least wayward adolescent limbs. But this child was not so easily motivated. Another two steps, sensible pumps tapping against the tile floor, and now Eugenie stood within three feet of the girl. "Ahem." She resorted to clearing her throat. Still the girl did not respond. Eugenie moved closer. She tapped the table in front of the girl and cleared her throat again. "What?" The girl looked up, rolled her eyes, and slumped even lower. She had those white wires hanging from her ears, which meant she wasn't reading but listening to that awful rap music. The girl finally pulled one of the buds from her ear. "I said, 'What?' " "Please take your feet off the chair," Eugenie replied, snipping each word. She lowered her glasses to the tip of her nose and looked pointedly at the girl's cheap plastic flip-flops and black-lacquered toenails. True, none of the furniture in the Sweetgum Public Library was anywhere near new, but every stick of it was in pristine condition. "I'm not hurting anything." The girl spoke too loudly because of the remaining bud wedged in her right ear. "Shh. You're disturbing the other patrons." Granted, the only other people in the library at the moment were Mr. and Mrs. Hornbuckle, who couldn't hear a train wreck between them, but it was the principle of the thing that mattered. A library was a holy place, like church, and you wouldn't find people sitting in a house of worship with their feet on the pews and headphones jammed in their ears. At least not in Sweetgum. The girl looked around, saw the Hornbuckles, and laughed. "You'd have to shoot off a cannon to disturb them." Eugenie sighed. She wasn't up for this. Maybe Homer Flint and his cronies were right. Maybe it truly was time for her to retire. She'd had the same conversation with four decades' worth of teenagers. Her track record, of course, spoke for itself. She'd steered any number of wayward youth onto the straight and narrow, although lately not as many as she used to. "Library patrons do not put their feet in the chairs. And please turn down the volume on your CD player. Others may not share your taste in music." The girl bristled. "It's an iPod." "A what?" "An iPod. Not a CD player." The scorn in her voice shouldn't have bothered Eugenie. But she was tired of people who treated her as if she was an ignorant civil servant instead of a well-educated woman with a master's degree in library science. And then she saw the book lying on the table in front of the girl. Knitting for Beginners.Eugenie eyed the girl again. "Do you knit?" she asked in a slightly kinder tone. Eugenie wasPattillo, Beth is the author of 'The Sweetgum Knit Lit Society' with ISBN 9781400073948 and ISBN 1400073944.