The Two-Dollar Shelf

Every Thursday, Rashid looks at the clearance shelf at Ridley's Used Books on Halsted Street. Everything on that shelf is two dollars. The shelf stands next to the door, and when somebody comes in, the door hits it and a book or two falls on the floor.

This Thursday, the book that falls is dark green with gold letters. Rashid picks it up and opens it. Inside, on the first page, it says: First printing, 1953.

He knows this book. The fancy shop on the corner has the same one in the window, and it costs four hundred dollars.

Rashid stands there with it for a long time. Two dollars. Nobody is watching him. It's almost free.

Then he carries it to the counter. “I think this one's in the wrong place,” he says. “It's a first printing. It's worth a lot of money.”

The cashier turns the book over in her hands. “Yeah, I know,” she says. “Page two hundred is missing. Somebody cut it out. That's why it's on that shelf.”

“Oh,” Rashid says.

“Still a good story,” she says. “You want it?”

He pays his two dollars. On the bus home he reads sixty pages, and he doesn't find the missing one yet.