The Receipt Under the Books

Farah had spread all the exhibition labels across the counter. Among them were a photograph of a ticket punch and a list of names Noor didn’t know. The round reading table was half full now. Sami tried to carry a stack of old magazines to the other table, but they kept slipping.

‘You’re allowed to make two trips,’ Farah said.

He put half back. Noor took the top three. One cover showed a windmill that seemed to have far more sails than theirs. She laid it on the other pile.

Bente was finding a place for their caption among the labels. Noor went to the counter. She straightened a box of paperclips. Then a rubber stamp. Farah stopped sorting.

‘What are you looking for?’

‘Nothing. I want to say something.’

Noor let go of the stamp. A blue line marked the edge of her thumb.

‘This morning I said Bente hadn’t tied the string properly.’

Bente looked up. Noor looked at Farah.

‘But I wasn’t there. I don’t know who tied what. I shouldn’t have blamed Bente.’

Farah put the labels down. ‘Now I know that too.’

‘Could you not put it like that in the caption?’

‘I wasn’t planning to. I only wanted to say when the boat came loose.’

Noor nodded. She would have liked to sit behind the magazines. She turned to Bente.

‘Sorry.’

Bente still held their caption. One corner had curled beneath her thumb.

‘I was telling you,’ she said.

‘I know.’

Someone pushed a pram past the window. Noor followed the wheels until it vanished. Bente hadn’t said it was all right. Noor wasn’t going to ask her to.

‘What can we put with the picture?’ she asked. ‘Apart from who built it.’

Bente looked at the board and pointed to the river. ‘That we tested it there. At the library landing stage.’

Wim came over with the tub of glue. ‘And that we didn’t check the string.’

‘I put it round the post,’ Bente said.

‘Yes. And I was standing there. I looked at the light, then went to fetch my hook.’ He put the glue down. ‘Either of us could have given the boat a tug to see if it held.’

Noor wrote the sentences on scrap paper. Bente read them and underlined library landing stage with her pencil. She didn’t want a whole story about the string.

‘We’ll leave that out, then,’ Farah said. ‘The photograph shows what you’ve made.’

Bente handed the rough draft back. ‘Just the first bit. And how long it is.’

Noor made a fresh label. It was one short sentence. On the rough version she had needed so many words to explain what she didn’t know. She put it under her map, where visitors wouldn’t see it.

Farah asked them to move the last magazines. They needed a table for coffee and squash. Sami took a smaller stack. Bente cleared space on the shelf below. Noor put her bag on a chair, but the books stuck out and pushed against her map.

She took them out. The otter book slid over the one about space. Underneath the pile was a folded piece of white paper with a jagged edge.

Her receipt.

Noor held it to the light. The buckle had left an impression, but she could still see the yellow circle. The shop’s printing on the front had nothing to do with boats. She unfolded her drawing.

‘This is from yesterday,’ she said.

‘I know,’ Sami said, putting down the last magazines.

‘Look at the arrow.’

To the left of the circle was a crooked windmill sail. She had drawn it quickly at the kitchen table, with a blunt pencil. It looked like half a spoon. The little arrow pointed towards it.

She laid the receipt beside her neat map. The big arrow towards the lock was much clearer. Anyone could see it, even without Noor there to explain. But she had only thought of that one later.

‘This is where I saw it,’ she said. ‘That’s why I put the windmill in.’

Bente came to stand beside her, keeping her hands behind her back so she wouldn’t get glue on the paper.

‘Why did you go to the lock, then?’

Noor traced the thick arrow. ‘Because the water went that way. And the arrow was there already.’

Sami looked through the window. Above the rooftops they could see the windmill flag. Sometimes it hung limp, then stretched out towards the left again.

‘My sandwich bag went that way too,’ he said.

‘When?’ Bente asked.

‘Yesterday. Out here. It blew out of my pannier when I went to get my sandwiches. Right over to that bench.’

He pointed to a bench on the windmill side of the library. Noor had seen him walking with his sandwiches yesterday. She had mostly been looking at the otter book.

‘Were the sandwiches still in it?’

‘Yes. I ate them quickly after that. No more sandwiches to blow away.’

Wim leant towards the window. The flag stretched out again, its narrow end pointing away from the bridge, towards the west.

Noor felt a draught on her cheek. The outside door was open while Farah carried an empty box in. Leaves rustled in the street. Noor looked back at the photograph on the table. The high white roof rose above the little windows.

Sami tapped the print. ‘Could it work like my bag?’

Bente held her arm above the photograph. ‘It’s not made of paper.’

‘No. But the roof sticks up.’

Noor picked up her pencil, then stopped before drawing another thick arrow.

‘Could we try it with something?’

Wim looked at the two photographs of the boat being built, then the stack of plastic tubs beside the counter.

‘Not with your books next to it,’ he said.

Noor moved them straight onto the dry chair and put the receipt on top. This time it couldn’t disappear under anything.