Fill: Challenge #9

[shivver]

The campus, however, hadn’t impressed upon Peri the full weight of its grandeur until she entered the famed Harvard Yard. Back at Cal State, she would have called this the quad, but she couldn’t bring herself to give this place such a banal name. Thick leafy trees shaded the wide green lawn crisscrossed by walkways, such that though the square wasn’t more than a tenth of a mile across, she couldn’t see the opposite side through the foliage. Great buildings of red brick ringed the square, watching the students as they had for hundreds of years.

Most daunting, however, was her destination, the university library. A wide rise of steps led to entry doors dwarfed by twelve thick Corinthian columns, shining white under the gray Boston sky. The dark windows stared down at her, daring the girl from a (gasp!) state school to attempt entry into the finest library in the country. Peri bit her lip. She’d faced down maniacs on far-flung alien planets with no problem; why was this so frightening?