Rapunzel

“I hate winter,” Trixie muttered to herself as she cleared mounds of cold, brittle snow off her car for what felt like the 3,487th time that season.

“Can't stand it,” she grunted as she lifted the handle of the driver's side door and yanked.  And yanked.  And yanked again.  Putting her body weight into it, she finally managed to break the seal of ice on the door, sending her sprawling backwards into the snowbank.

“Little old for a snow angel, aren't you, Trixie?“

Brushing off the snow, Trixie gave Bobby her sternest older sister glare as he walked by carrying his snowboard.  She then turned the look on Larry and Terry as they snickered at the comment.  Luckily, although the three boys were getting older and more ornery, the look still worked fairly well.  They shut up and continued trudging their way towards the little hill they used as a slope.

At least someone is enjoying the snow, she thought.  She looked longingly back at the cozy warm house, but unfortunately, she had a research paper due for her American History on Monday and her instructor had insisted that they not use the Internet for their research.  Instead, they had to use actual books at an actual library.

Honey and Diana had completed their papers last weekend, but Trixie had been a bit distracted helping out Karen, one of her classmates.  Karen's house had been broken into and all the valuables stolen.  Despite the protests of Sergeant Molinson, Trixie became involved and with help from the other Bob-Whites, she solved the theft.  For a change, she had even managed not to get her or her friends in any danger.

But it had caused her to get behind on her studies.  That's why, on a cold Saturday morning, she was heading out to the Sleepyside Public Library instead of joining the rest of the Sleepyside Bob-Whites, who were helping Karen put her house back in order.  Brian was unable to help, since he was out-of-state for a research project, and Jim had remained back at college to work on schoolwork.

After warming up the car for what felt like hours, Trixie pulled out of the driveway and navigated her way down Glen Road towards Sleepyside.  Carefully navigating across town, she pulled into the parking lot, avoiding the piles of plowed snow.  Grabbing her backpack and purse, she gingerly walked across the icy parking lot into the building.

She shrugged off her coat onto a chair and let her backpack fall to the floor, earning a “shh” from the librarian.  Trixie turned around to hide the roll of her eyes and wandered off to the computer to look up the location information for her subject.  Typing in “Revolutionary War,” she jotted down the numbers for several promising-sounding books and wandered over to the correct section... to find that section empty.

“No way!” she exclaimed, earning another “shh” from the librarian.  Trixie looked around for a while, figuring the books had been placed in the wrong location.  When that hunt was unsuccessful, she walked around the library, looking at the books left on the tables, hoping against hope that someone had just read them and left them on the table.  When that search also proved futile, she wandered over to the disapproving librarian.

“Excuse me,” Trixie began.  Then, before the librarian could fire off another shush, she dropped her voice to a whisper.  “I'm looking for these books.”  She passed her paper to the woman and watched as she looked them up on the computer.

“They are all out on loan,” she whispered to Trixie. “To a Mr. Tad Webster.  They're due back this Thursday.”

“Shoot.  That's not going to help, since the paper is due Monday.”

The librarian gave another disapproving look.  “Well, you'll have to try another library.  You might want to try Sommers.  They have a fairly large selection of books on the various wars.  Evidently some of their residents are interested in war history.”

Trixie resigned herself to a long, tedious drive and trudged out of the library.  Sitting in the car, she sat shivering as the car warmed up, staring at the dark gray sky and trying to come up with a better solution.

Inspiration struck.

After all, their library is even bigger.  And since I'll be using more main roads, I can even say that I was choosing a safer route.  She smiled to herself, turned up the music, and put the car in gear.

Forty-five minutes later, she turned onto University Boulevard.  However, she drove right past the library and headed towards one particular dorm.  Once again grabbing her bookbag and her purse out of the car, she contemplated whether she should call and give warning about her arrival, or if she should just let her visit be a surprise.

Deciding on surprise, she walked up to the dorm.  She only had to wait a few seconds before someone walked out of the dorm and she could let herself in without buzzing anyone.  A short elevator ride later, she was knocking on the door.  She thought she'd end up surprising him, but ended up just as surprised when the door opened.

“Trixie!”

Trixie stared at Jim's bare chest.  She was used to him wearing slacks and button-up shirts; seeing him in sweatpants and no shirt was a total change. And a nice change at that.

She quickly hugged him, enjoying the feeling of bare skin.

“What are you doing here, Trix? I thought you had a paper to write this weekend.”

Trixie had the sense to look abashed. “Well, I do, but I have to do research.  And since all the books on my topic were checked out of the Sleepyside Library, I, umm…came here.”

Jim arched one ginger eyebrow.  “And this was the closest library you could find?”

“Well, perhaps not, but I knew that it was bound to have a huge amounts of books available.  I figured the amount of time I'd save finding books would more that make up for the longer drive.”

Jim laughed.  “You know, sweetheart, I'm not even buying this.  There's no way in hell your parents will.”

“Hopefully, they won't even have to know.  I'll just head down to the library now and get the information I need.  Then I can head back to Sleepyside with them none the wiser.”

“ I guess, but you should tell them.  Anyway, I need to go do some research as well, so let me just throw on a shirt and I'll be ready to go.”

Trixie couldn't help but stare as Jim put on a sweatshirt, his muscles flexing as he positioned the thick cotton fleece over his head.  She was disappointed when Jim pulled it all the way down and then turned red as she realized Jim was now staring at her with a bemused expression on his face.

She tried to recover.  “Umm…nice sweatshirt?”  Luckily, Jim didn't push the issue and just smiled at her as he put on his boots for the hike over to the library.

To be continued...

Author's notes: I promise to finish this story once I'm down to only working one job instead of three.  So thanks for your patience.

And thanks, as always to CathyP for starting Jix and providing a place to post and read wonderful fan fic stories. Thanks to admin team as well, for keeping this wonderful place running.