“Less noise, more silence,” Petey growled from behind the counter.

“Why can’t we talk?” the boy asked.  “It’s just the four of us, plus you, and it’s not like we’re in a library here.  Who’re we bugging?”

“Yer bugging me,” Petey snapped.  He tried to cower the boy with an angry glare, but it didn’t work.

“Joe, shut up before you get us all kicked out again,” murmured the tall boy.  One of his slender hands scratched a head covered with a short crop of dirty blond hair and pushed a pair of glasses back up the bridge of his nose.  The other hand flipped a page of his book.  The boy kept his eyes glued on the page as he spoke.

“Yes Mom,” Joe said, grinning.

“Why do you even bother coming in here?” the girl in the armchair grumbled.  “You never even read anything.”

“I just come here to bug you and Al, ain’t that right Al?” Joe said.  The tall boy ignored him.

Petey looked up from his cash-counting and glared at the kids.  “You know, it’s because of you numbskulls I hardly have any other customers,” he grumbled.  “You scare them away with all your loud silliness.” 

“No we don’t,” Maggie chirped.  “People don’t come in here ‘cause it’s a dump.”

“Seems good enough for you vagabonds though,” Petey growled.

“Petey, if you didn’t have us, you’d have no business at all,” Joe commented.

“Hmpf,” Petey muttered.  “You kids don’t spend a dollar in here between you—you just loiter around, read my books for free and then you leave.”  He slammed the cash register shut, and thrust his beefy fingers through his peppery hair.

“If you don’t want us to read the books,” Maggie reasoned, “you should get rid of the tables and chairs.  Then we’d have no place to sit.”

“I just might do that,” Petey threatened. 

Alistair finished the last page of his book and stood up to find another one in Petey’s meager library.  He stretched, yawned, and glanced at Joe, who was shuffling his deck of cards and smirking at the older boy.

“What are you staring at?” Alistair growled.

“Nothin’,” Joe grinned.