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It did not take long for Camille to set the room in order. She had soon deposited the trash into a bag, swept and mopped the floor, and used her rags to polish the shelves and furniture. Since most of the items in the room were light and easy to move, she had even managed to arrange everything without having to disturb Miz Bella. Most of the tables and chairs were set up in cozy clusters so that several students could sit at a single table and help each other, just as Miz Bella had suggested she do. She had dragged a few pieces of furniture out the door and left these things to be carried off and stored in one of the small wooden sheds that sat out at the back of the yard.
Fresh from these small victories and feeling more confident than she expected, Camille went over to open the two larger crates. The boxes were overflowing with an assortment of books. Camille couldn't read most of the titles, but even by looking at the pictures she could see that they covered a variety of topics. There were beautiful books showing birds and animals in the Shire, thin books with a page for each of the alphabet letters, fat books with pictures of dragons and heroes, and still other books with lots of words but no nice pictures to tell her what was happening. Camille dumped the latter to the side and began rummaging through the others, looking over the pictures and maps. She was especially intrigued by one that showed pictures of Elves, even some that had drawings of Elven children playing games.
To tell the truth, until Camille had come to the Dragon, she had never met an Elf in her life. The ones she had met in Bywater seemed quite nice, but they still frightened her. They seemed to know everything, and Camille could not understand why they would even want to bother with a hobbit. Still, the Elf Mithalwen had smiled at her and had been especially kind to her brother, something that counted a lot with Camille.
Although she was enjoying looking at the pictures in the books, Camille reminded herself that she should starting doing what Miz Bella had told her. She quickly unpacked all the volumes and set them on the shelves so she could see the titles and then started trying to put things in order. She remembered the letters "A, B, C" but beyond that the letters disappeared into a hazy mist and things got a little jumbled. After working for about thirty minutes, she had arranged just six books, and she wasn't sure about the order of the last two. She sat in frustration, wondering what to do next, when there was a slight rapping on the door.
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