((EDIT: Monsters disguised as humans are welcome to join. One of the purposes of this club is to be a vehicle for monsters to lure students away for a more 'personal' reading. No attacks may take place in this thread or forum. But an initial meeting may take place followed by a thread in the appropriate IC forum.))

Bala adjusted the small stack of books on the desk; checked her laptop power; straightened the stack of memory cards, each containing over a dozen electronic versions of books; and she straightened several chairs at the students' desks. She looked up at the clock and saw that the meeting wasn't supposed to start for another four minutes and thirty-seven seconds.

It was first thing this morning that Bala learned that all her pleading, demanding, cajoling, and plain old begging had borne fruit. The administration told her she could start the book club today. (And someone in the admin's office said that she had a secret benefactor to thank. Bala imagined that it must be someone who loved books as much as Bala.) Bala had spent a good portion of the morning getting the posters made and putting them up around the campus and dorms. She'd even skipped a class to do it.

Bala hoped to get a good turnout this evening. She had heard several girls around school talking about joining a book club. But she hadn't been able to contact them. Hopefully they saw the posters and were available to show up for the meeting. Truth be told, Bala would be happy if one other student showed.

Bala straightened her yellow sweater nervously. She made sure the poster said "casual attire, uniforms ok". She hoped to put the attendees at ease with her own casual clothes. She glanced at the clock again, hoping someone would come.

(Our secret "benefactor" is Nightbringer as my way to "give some love" to him as Katya's post suggests. Nightbringer can decide for himself if he actually had anything to do with this in character or if it is just a rumour.)

A familiar blue haired person sticks her head into the door, she checks to her notes to make sure she is the right place. Is this the book club. She had hoped this was the right place, she had hoped through the club she would find some information on occult books as well as few of the romance novels.

A look of recognition appears on her face as she sees the young woman in the yellow sweater. Oh Hello, Bala. Are you running the club? Do you have any openings? Ishtar tries to per hands together in attempt to perform the anjali mudra being careful to bow her head while maintaining eye contact.

Bala smiles broadly when she sees her newest friend walk in. Not only has someone showed up, a friend has. She returns the anjali mudra with bow. "That's very good. You don't have to have your elbows so high. But otherwise perfect."

Bala leaned back on the teacher's desk. "Well, I intend to have the members run it. But I am the one who sets up meetings and reserves the rooms." Bala reached over and absently straightened the small pile of books again. "I just hope we have fun and manage to learn something at the same time."

There is a gentle knock on the door. Probably too gentle, because no one can even hear it at first. A blonde girl with glasses looks in. She seems a bit unsure of herself.
"Eh. Uh. Hi!.. Is this the book club? It is the book club, isn't it?", she says, with a very slight touch of accent.

She steps in, and makes a nervous little smile.
"Oh. I better introduce myself. My name is Pia. That is Pia Marie. Hov. Pia Marie Hov. Freshman. Nice to meet you all! I am here to apply for membership. This is the right place, correct?"

Gosh. I am sounding like such an idiot!

Unsure how to proceed, Pia makes a slight curtsy.

Shortly after Pia had enter the book club room I had followed tripping over my own foot I had accidently pushed Pia into Bala, as I fell I took out a pile of books with me. “Ohhh! Im sorry please forgive me, ill clean it up right away.” I hurry and get up and start to pick up the mess I had created, blushing with embarrassment I look up as im picking the books up at Bala.

Biting my lower lip as I muster up the courage to speak. “I’m Pia.. No wait im Komiko, Komiko Takayama pleased to meet you.” as I finished stacking the last book on top of another looking like a badly made tower that look as if it was about to fall over with the slightest breeze.

Getting up off of all fours I stand before Bala thinking she was the one in charge of this club and offer my hand, my face still red from embarrassment then I hear the books fall over and I drop my hand as well as my head and sigh. “Ill leave.” I say in a defeated mouse like voice as I turn to the door of the room.

(OOC: Umm Did this thread end? )

((Sorry. I didn't get a notification on your first post. I don't know what happened there. I sure hope this thread's still going.))


Bala had gotten up to greet Pia when Komiko entered the room. When Komiko fell into Pia, Bala grabbed the falling Pia to keep her from from hitting the floor. While Komiko was stacking the books, Bala makes sure Pia is alright and that everyone was steady and upright. Bala then went to take the hand Komiko offered when the stack of books fell yet again. She felt bad when her fellow student hung her head and began to slink off.

"No! It's alright! Really it is", Bala tried to reassure the girl. She quickly moved to stand next to Komiko and gave her a hug from the side. "Accidents happen. Don't worry about it." Several of the other students in the room joined in saying that it was ok. "Come in and join us. This is Pia" Bala indicates the girl Komiko fell into. "and Ishtar, and" Bala continued to introduce the rest of the club. "We're just here to have fun and hopefully learn something. Please don't go. With you, we'll have an even dozen"


((Right now the Book Club consists of four PC students; Bala, Ishtar, Pia, Komiko; and eight NPC students; <pick eight random girls' names>. Most, if not all, of the NPC students have never been, nor will ever be, attacked by monsters. We can assume that the number will change as interest waxes and wanes in the club.))

Ryu was about knocking on the door, just when she heard something like someone stumbling over a pile of books, dropping them to the ground. She wasn't quite sure about it, but it is the book club, right? She heard voices inside, at least two other students, so she nodded, knocked once and entered. Didn't expecting a dozen of people inside, she looked quite surprised, she restrained herself not to run out of the room immediately.

The red-head moved inside slowly, closing the door mildly, not making any sound at all. Most likely standing in front of the door, her look must've been slightly too convenient. Wearing her long winter camouflage trousers, almost overlapping her shoes completely. Her shoes, black with white laces, seemed way more appropriate than nice to look at. At least her t-shirt was completely white containing a small, red heart on every shoulder.

All the unknown faces made her dizzy for a short amount of time, but afterwards she wanted to enter the club.
"Well, I am Ryu Tanaka, pleased to meet you all. Um... some posters told me there is a book club running here, so I thought I'd be able to join in."

Hardly trying to hide her true nature, she disliked unknown people quite a lot. On the other hand, there was nothing else to do and it sounded interesting, maybe she'd be able to set up some contacts after all. Not looking too anxious about herself, she made some steps inside.

Bala, hopefully, had convinced Komiko to stay. So she turned to welcome this newest girl. "Hello, Ryu. Please come in. This is the book club and you are just in time. We were about to get started." Bala indicated the chairs. She turned to the rest of the club and said, "if everyone would take a seat, we can get started. I have some information and some goodies to hand out. If anyone else comes, they can grab a seat and join us."

As everyone, hopefully Komiko and Ryu too, take their seats, Bala picks up a sheet of paper and a pen. She looks to her fellow club members and says, "please sign the sign in sheet. You don't have to put your dorm room information if you don't want to. It's just there to help me pass along any information I think we need. And the column for "Class" means Freshman, Sophomore, et cetera. The administration wants that information so they can do statistics on all the school clubs."

Bala sat on the front, top of the teacher's desk. She smiled pleasantly as the attendance sheet made its way around the room. She continued, "now today will likely be mostly us getting to know each other and figuring out how we're going to do this. But I do have several book ideas for everyone and a suggestion of the first book we should cover. If anyone else has a book idea, please, please tell us. I'm just here to keep things moving. I'd like to think that this club is actually run by all its members."

"Sounds good." Ryu nodded and made her way across the room, taking a seat. The book club didn't seem like any being a noisy activity after all, she leaned back and relaxed in her chair.

As one of the girls next to her poked into her side, Ryu payed attention to the attendance sheet. I don't know what to write exactly..., she thought, while grabbing the pen to start writing. She looked on the things other girls wrote already, and Ryu tried to make up some information. ...name, age, grade... Finished... Murmuring was mostly her thing when talking, so it was hard to understand. Passing both to the girl next to her, she looked around.

Her thoughts continued, mentioning to present one of her ideas to the public, but she wasn't quite sure about it. Still, she hwould have to say something in the end. "Well, I think The Catcher in the Rye is a pretty compelling book. It's quite old, but I heard it's worth reading."

"Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger I think. Yes. I've always wanted to read it. I couldn't read it before because my parents didn't want me reading something with such vulgar language until I was older." Bala picks up a notebook and writes the book title. "I don't have that one with me but I'll see if I can get it."

Bala stood up and picked up a stack of flash memory cards from the table. "The administration was kind enough to supply us with these flash cards. I've already loaded several books on them. They want me to keep a record of who gets what card. I think that's because some of the books loaded on them are still covered by copyright. Anyway, if you leave the club, you're supposed to give it back." Bala handed out the cards, writing down who was getting which card as she did.

"I had planned on recommending Moby Dick by Melville be our first book. But I am open to any other suggestion. We can even do Catcher in the Rye. But I'll have to see if I can get it.

((Memory Card Contents: at least the following books:
Jetbook site (all text files)
Project Gutenberg (mostly text or html files)
Baen Free Library (various formats. PC reading software available.)
Baen Free Library Top Level (current books covered by copyright put in library by their authors.)

I think most, if not all these books will fit on a memory card. For this thread, we'll say not only that they can, we'll say that they do. Moby Dick can be found here.

And I'm not kidding. If people actually want to read books for this, let me know your choice. I think it would be best if the book is available online for free.))

Oh wow. I cannot believe that they gave us flash cards to use, this is really cool. Ishtar picked up the card. No matter how many times she seen a flash card, she was always impressed on how much data the latest cards could hold.

I would like to at some point read Les Miserables, but it does not have to be the first thing we read. I also never got a chance to read the Catcher in the Rye. It was a bit contriversal for my old school.

Flash cards, hm... I guess I've seen the last one some years ago.

Ryu looked carefully at the card she assumed, trying to remember anything about them she was able to restore in her memory.

Well, they weren't that strict about books in my past. And well, I never heard of Les Miserables, but maybe I just need to visit the library more often.

Moby Dick didn't sound that interesting, but in a way she still wanted to read it. Ryu was glad they started with it.

I quickly headed to one of the seat and nearly missed sitting down on it, bushing as when I tried to sit down my skirt that seemed designed to flash your panties nearly did so as I sat down. I was glad I hadn’t taken out any more books on the way to my seat.

The girl by the name of Bala had passed out some flash cards and I looked at them and smiled, I had already read these books but I had found ‘Catcher in the rye.’ a bit boring, Moby Dick on the other hand was one of those book that was packed with entertainment value and had been one of my favorites of the older books. “I had thought ‘Lord of the Flies’ to be a most interesting book on what could happen when there was no true society to govern ones action.” I had said thinking maybe the author had a grasp on psychology to explain it so well.

The door opened once more. As soon as Asao stepped in and several pairs of eyes looked over at her, she realized she was That Girl. The one who showed up late. She had even managed to interrupt a conversation. Great. Just perfect.

"Ah, sorry I'm late," she offered quietly. That only seemed to draw more eyes at her, many of them disproving in their gaze. She suddenly wished she hadn't changed clothes before coming here. Not only would she have arrive on time, but people were so use to seeing the school uniform that it was almost background at this point. But a light blue summer yukata, complete with a sakura print that she was wearing? That held a few gazes.

Asao hurried over to an empty chair next to Komiko, the foot falls of her zori sandals seeming much louder than usual. She sank in her chair and proceeded to sink into it as far as she could.