Page 187 - The Midnight Library

www.urdukutabkhanapk.blogspot.com
www.urdukutabkhanapk.blogspot.com

who had been there a while apparently. When they played catch, Nora

discovered his reflexes were good, his mouth catching the ball almost ever y
time. She liked this life – or more precisely, she liked the version of herself in
this life. She could tell the kind of person she was from the way people spoke
to her. It felt nice – comforting, solidifying – to be a good person.

Her mind felt different here. She thought a lot in this life, but her thoughts
were gentle.
‘Compassion is the basis of morality,’ the philosopher Arthur
Schopenhauer had written, in one of his soer moments. Maybe it was the

basis of life too.
ere was one man who worked there called Dylan, who had a natural
way with all the dogs. He was about her age, maybe younger. He had a kind,
gentle, sad look about him. His long surf-dude hair golden as a ret riever. He

came and sat next to Nora on a bench at lunch, overlooking the field.
‘What are you having today?’ he asked, sweet ly, nodding to Nora’s
lunchbox.
She honestly didn’t know – she had found it already prep ared when she’d

opened her magnet- and calendar-cluttered fridge that morning. She peeled
off the lid to find a cheese and Marmite sandwich and a packet of salt and
vinegar crisps. e sky darkened and the wind picked up.
‘Oh crap,’ Nora said. ‘It’s going to rain.’

‘Maybe, but the dogs are all still in their cages.’
‘Sorr y?’
‘Dogs can smell when rain is coming, so they oen head indoors if they
think it’s going to happen. Isn’t that cool? at they can predict the future

with their nose?’
‘Yes,’ said Nora. ‘Way cool.’
Nora bit into her cheese sandwich. And then Dylan put his arm around
her.

Nora jumped up.
‘—the hell?’ she said.
Dylan looked deeply apologetic. And a little horrified at himself. ‘I’m
sorr y. Did I hurt your shoulder?’

‘No . . . I just . . . I . . . No. No. It’s fine.’
She discovered that Dylan was her boyfriend and that he had gone to the
same secondar y school as her. Hazeldene Comp. And that he was two years