A Script for The Brittle Spine of an Old Paperback

The bookshop smelt of decaying paper, leather polish, and Earl Grey tea. It was a scent Nana had cultivated over twenty years, a barricade of comforting aromas against the city's exhaust-fume reality. Sunlight, thick with floating dust, slanted through the tall front window, illuminating precarious towers of books that leaned against every available surface. In the quiet, the only sounds were the gentle creak of floorboards and the soft rustle of a page being turned.

Nana sat behind a large oak counter, her delicate hands meticulously repairing the spine of a first-edition copy of 'The Hound of the Baskervilles'. Her glasses were perched on the end of her nose, and her silver hair was tied in a neat bun. To any casual observer, she was the epitome of a gentle, scholarly woman living out her autumn years amongst her paper companions.

The bell above the door chimed, a dissonant note in the shop's quiet harmony. Three young men entered, led by one with ambition tattooed across his knuckles and swaggering in his walk. He was trying for menacing, but it came off as adolescent. This was Shiro. Nana knew his name before he'd even opened his mouth. She made it her business to know the names of all the neighbourhood's stray dogs.

Her assistant, Kenny, looked up from where he was shelving a stack of poetry anthologies in the back. He was a quiet, lanky man who seemed to be composed entirely of elbows and nervous energy, but his eyes, behind thick-rimmed glasses, missed nothing.

"Can I help you, gentlemen?" Nana asked, her voice calm and clear. She didn't look up from her work.

"Yeah, you can," Shiro said, leaning on the counter. He picked up a leather-bound book, weighing it in his hand. "Nice place you got here. Be a shame if something happened to it. A fire, maybe. Leaky pipes."

"It would be a tragedy," Nana agreed, applying a thin layer of glue to the book spine with a fine brush. "The insurance paperwork alone would be a nightmare. And the loss of knowledge... incalculable."

One of Shiro's friends snickered. Shiro shot him a glare.

"We can offer you protection," Shiro continued. "A small fee, every week, and we make sure your 'knowledge' stays safe."

"A subscription service for safety. How modern," Nana remarked, still not looking at him. "And who, precisely, would you be protecting me from?"

"From... circumstances," Shiro said vaguely.

"I see." Nana finally placed her brush down and looked up, her gaze steady and sharp. It was a look that had, in a previous life, made decorated generals question their orders. "You're Shiro. You run with the Azure Dragons, but you're looking to make a name for yourself. You think shaking down an old lady in a bookshop is your first step up the ladder. You have a tattoo of a koi fish on your left forearm that you got last month; the artist did a poor job on the fins. You favour your right leg when you walk. An old injury? Or just poor posture?"

Shiro was stunned into silence. He instinctively covered his forearm. "How do you...?"

"This is a bookshop, dear boy. Information is my trade," Nana said gently. "And you are an open book, and not a particularly well-written one. Now, please take your hands off the 1888 edition of 'Treasure Island'. Your palms are sweating."

Shiro, flustered and angry, tightened his grip on the book. "You think you're clever, old woman?"

He made to tear a page. Before his muscles could even fully tense, a hand clamped down on his wrist. It was Kenny. He'd moved from the back of the shop with no sound at all. His grip was surprisingly firm, his fingers pressing on a specific nerve in Shiro's wrist. A sudden, sharp pain shot up Shiro's arm, and his fingers went numb, the book falling from his grasp.

Kenny caught it before it hit the counter.

"Be careful," Kenny said, his voice soft but resonant. "The spine is fragile."

Shiro stared at the unassuming shop assistant who was now holding his arm in an iron grip. Kenny's other hand adjusted his glasses. "We use acid-free paper for all our repairs. We find it lasts longer."

An Unscheduled Re-shelving

Shiro tried to pull his arm away, but Kenny's grip was immovable. The other two boys took a step forward, but stopped when Kenny turned his placid gaze on them. There was no fear in his eyes. There was nothing. It was like looking at a placid lake and knowing it was a thousand feet deep.

"Let him go, Kenny," Nana said softly. "He's leaving."

Kenny released his grip. Shiro stumbled back, shaking his hand, trying to get the feeling back into it. He looked from the calm old woman back to the unnervingly strong assistant.

"This isn't over," Shiro snarled, the threat sounding hollow even to his own ears.

"Isn't it?" Nana said, picking up her brush again. "I thought we'd reached a satisfactory conclusion. You have learned that this is not a profitable venture, and I have learned that the youth of today have very little appreciation for classic literature. An educational experience for all involved."

She smiled, a sweet, grandmotherly smile that didn't reach her eyes. "The bell will chime on your way out. Do try not to slam the door. It upsets the bindings."

Shiro and his crew backed out of the shop, their bravado completely evaporated. The bell chimed. The door clicked shut.

Kenny placed the copy of 'Treasure Island' gently back on the counter. "The cover is slightly scuffed, Nana."

"I see that, Kenny. Thank you," she said, not looking up. The shop was quiet again, the sunlight once more illuminating the lazy dance of dust. But the peace felt different now, charged with a hidden current. Nana dabbed a spot of glue onto the frayed leather of Doyle's famous detective story. On the surface, everything was exactly as it had been, a sanctuary of paper and ink. But underneath, the story had changed, and a new, more dangerous chapter had just begun.