Phoebe clutched the twenty-dollar bill her mother had given her
in her hand. She was on pins and needles, waiting for her group to
be called. What if by the time she got there, all the good books
were gone! When it was finally her turn, it was all she could do not
to run to the racks and tables. She could have spent hours there,
handled every title, carefully considering the potential merits of
each. After all, twenty dollars didn’t go very far; she had to make
the best of it. There was one book she had seen in the catalog
that she positively had to have, and she scanned the sea of book
covers for it.