Location: Maple Court Apartments
Most people might have thought that the sheer size of the box ought to tell Summer that it wasn’t her order. But sometimes after a long shift or a night of insomnia laced tossing and turning, she lost track of how many books she’d ordered. Perhaps this was the special UK edition covers she’d been wanting, perhaps it was a book subscription box, she’d been looking at three or four of them over the past couple months. She hums along to her playlist as she pulls out her scissors and carefully opens the cardboard without bothering to check the label...instant regret floods through her. She had definitely not ordered copies of The School of Good and Evil series, The Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Book with No Pictures, a bunch of early readers and beginner chapter books.
“Oh shit. Uh oh...oh no.” Summer raced to her front door to glance out into the hallway, as if expecting the police to be on standby to arrest her for opening someone else’s package. When she calmed her racing mind she was finally able to go back to the package and look at the label she’d cut in half. “Hank. Oh shit, floor above me, okay, okay we can fix this.” It took a few moments of awkwardly taping the cardboard back together, heaving the hefty package into the little red wagon she usually kept her succulents in. And to apologize for her mistake she began to pile in some books from her shelf, copies of favorites she knew so well she didn’t need the physical copies anymore. A few Junie B. Jones, Misty of Chincateague, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH.
A few tugs of the handle told her she had more than enough weight to pull behind her, and she said a silent thank you to the elevator that awaited her down the hall. Hoping he was home, she stood outside his door and gently knocked, wondering what in the world she’d do if he wasn’t. The sound of the lock being undone dispelled with that fear and she gave an awkward wave as the door opened.
“Hi...hello...hi...I....already said that. Um, I live downstairs and I think that maybe our packages got mixed up? I’m hoping you have mine because I definitely got yours, and I’m so sorry but I opened it by accident, but I swear everything is there, you can check it, and I brought you more to say sorry, just some...some favs of mine I’ve collected over the years and was looking for someone to donate to.”
