There was a library in the Pond, in a dry room behind the bread cart, and it was run by a heron who did not say much.
You could take a book home. You left a shell on the desk first.
When you brought the book back, you took your shell back, and that was the whole arrangement.
"Why do you need the shell?" said Bao. "I am going to bring it back."
"You are," said the heron. "So is everybody."
Bao took a book about boats and left a shell. She brought the book back four days later and took her shell, and the heron pushed it across the desk without looking up, and Bao thought that was the end of it.
The second book was about the sea, and it was much longer, and she kept it.
She kept it past the day it was due. She kept it for eleven days past the day it was due.
When she brought it back the heron gave her most of her shell.
"Where is the rest?"
"You had the book and nobody else did. Eleven days of that." The heron put the book back on the shelf. "A little each day. It was written on the desk."
It was written on the desk. It had been written on the desk the whole time, under the place where everybody put their shells, which is possibly the worst place in the world to write something.
"And if I had never brought it back?"
"Then I keep the shell and I buy another copy and I am not cross with you," said the heron. "I would rather have the book. But I am not left with nothing, and that is the point of the shell."
Bao thought about that for a while.
"You are not cross with Nutsy either."
"Nutsy has four books and three shells on this desk and he has been late every time," said the heron. "No, I am not cross with him. The desk is not for being cross on."
Bao still borrows books.
She looks at the date before she leaves, and again when she gets home, and she has learned that the shell is not a punishment and the days are not a punishment either.
They are just what it costs to have the thing before you have earned it.
Margin Note: You can have it now if you leave something behind, and you pay for every day you keep it.
The Honest Bit: This is borrowing and lending. You leave something worth more than what you take, which is called collateral, and you pay a little for each day you hold it, which is called interest. The lender is not doing you a kindness and is not punishing you either. The deposit means they are fine whatever you do, and that is the only reason a stranger will lend to you at all. On a real chain nobody even has to know your name.
The Question of the Day: The heron says she is not cross with Nutsy. Say why she can afford not to be.
Try It: Find a lending market on BNB Chain and look for two numbers: how much you must leave, and what it costs per day. Borrow nothing.
Leave Your Feedback Here: https://forms.gle/HfRNH7uixagrm1dVA