Overheard on the bus: Deathly Hallows publishing prep

The woman behind me today on the bus was talking to her friend, and I perked up at the words "...but some books have a release date, like this one does, and they don't want anything to leak... yeah the 21st, next Friday at midnight."

Could she possibly be talking about Harry Potter? Yes she could!

She went on: "and so they only gave us the files last Monday, and we're really having to rush to get it all done by then. In just two weeks. And everyone in the building had to sign, like, security forms promising not to leak anything... not that anyone would anyway, because come on, who cares?"

I care, I care...

Friend: "Like, who knows Braille anyway?"

Woman: "Well, most of our employees."

Friend: "Oh, true."

Woman: "And Scholastic has started doing bag searches, like whenever anyone, any employee, leaves the building they search their bags."

Friend: "So have you read it?"

Woman: "No, they're really trying to minimize the number of people who have contact with the files. Besides, I'm not that interested."

Friend: "I don't think Harry will die, do you?"

Woman: "No, why would she do that? I mean, she could go on to write more books about him as an adult."

Friend: "She said she's not going to. I do think that redhead might die, what's his name, Robert...... but Hermione won't, Hermione's too smart to die."

Woman: "Maybe, I don't know. Have you seen the movies?"

Friend: "Ron, that was it. Ron."

So, so, so! A simultaneous Braille release. Goddamn, if only I'd kept studying Braille when I was a kid I might have read part of Deathly Hallows by now. I bet each individual translator is only getting nonconsecutive pages or chapters, though, and that might be even more frustrating than just waiting for next Saturday like everyone else.