Libeary (A bear in the Library)

What would a Grizzly Bear do at the library?

Once there was a library. It was a nice library, with self-check out, computers, books, all sorts of library stuff.

The librarians were very nice, and very quiet. Everything, as far as libraries go, was going great.

One day, suddenly, there was a loud noise at the front door that startled everyone. It was the sound of a large Grizzly Bear smashing through the front doors.

He was huge, and was making quite a loud roar. Children went running, librarians hid under their desks and mothers grabbed their children and ran as far away from the bear as they could. One of the librarians used her mobile phone to call the police.

"There's a bear in the library!" she yelled.

The Grizzly smashed his way through the library, toppling shelves and tables. He jumped high onto a Non-Fiction shelf and looked around with a loud roar, then jumped halfway across the library to the Reference section.

He tore at the books there, throwing many off the shelf, making a huge mess.

Then almost as noisily as he arrived, with a stack of books under his arm, he ran out the front door, smashing the water fountain on the way out.

There was a strange silence once the bear was gone. A little girl was crying.

"Is everyone OK?" asked a librarian.

Seemed everyone was OK, just shaken.

During the next few days, they cleaned up the mess and replaced the books. They all wondered why he took certain books and not others.

The library hired a Park Ranger to come in with a tranquilizer gun, and hang out just in case the bear came back.

Well, a week went by and the bear didn't come back, so the Park Ranger left.

The very next day, the bear was back, growling and roaring and smashing everything in sight.

He jumped up onto the Children's Picture Book shelves and looked around with a loud roar, throwing his arms up, swatting down some of the ceiling tiles.

Then, suddenly, he jumped off the shelves, toward the Periodicals, knocking over the Picture Book shelves and the Audio Books.

He rifled through the shelves, throwing most of them onto the floor, but held some of them under his arm.

Then almost as noisily as he had arrived, he was gone, this time barely missing the water fountain.

Everyone was OK. The librarians seemed to have gotten over it quicker this time. They began picking up the mess.

The next morning, when the book drop was checked for returned books, they found a pile of books that were bent, scratched, bitten, folded and dirty. They tried to check the books back in, but none of them had been checked out. They were all very confused.

This time, the library hired two Park Rangers with tranquilizer guns to hang out in case the bear came again.

One day, one of the Park Rangers was taking a break, snacking on a little bag of trail mix just outside the front door, when he heard something moving around the corner. It sounded like someone was putting books into the book drop. He decided to check anyway.

As he rounded the corner, expecting to see a mother or father putting books into the book drop, he was startled by what looked like a Grizzly Bear, putting books in the Book Drop.

The Park Ranger froze, but accidentally dropped his unfinished bag of trail mix.

This alerted the bear, which turned quickly toward the Park Ranger. He roared so loudly, that the Park Ranger fainted into some shrubs.

The Grizzly threw in the rest of the books and stormed into the library. This time, he didn't slam into the door, and he didn't slam into the tables and shelves. It was almost as if he was being careful. He didn't roar so loudly. He still jumped onto the Adult Large Print shelves to look around, though, and they did fall over, but later on, as they were cleaning up, one librarian commented that she thought the bear might have said "oops".

"In a "bear” sort of way." she said. No one believed her.

The bear had this time taken books from the Children's Non-Fiction section, and as it turns out, the books that were missing had to do with Manners and Politeness.

This was all very strange.

The other Park Ranger just happened to be in the bathroom at the time of all the commotion, and couldn't get out in time to shoot the bear with a tranquilizer gun.

When he did come out, he ran outside to see what happened to his partner. Fearing the worst, he looked everywhere. Some rustling in the shrubbery made him pull out his gun, and in haste, accidentally shot his partner in the leg with a tranquilizer dart.

He rushed over to him, apologizing profusely. As he was helping him out of the shrubs, he noticed he was trying to say something.

"Book Drop." he whispered as he fell into a tranquilizer sleep.

When they checked the book drop, they found another pile of books. There were the books that were missing from the last time the bear had visited. This time, a little less torn and scratched and bitten.

Well, all the librarians were very intrigued. They put all the damaged books that had been returned on the floor and organized them in different ways; by size, by subject, even alphabetically by author, but nothing seemed to fit.

There was one about fashion, one about restaurants, one about history, one about libraries and even one about learning to go potty. The only one that seemed to make any sense was one about a teddy bear.

The books were studied for hours and days. Then someone noticed that there was a page missing out of every book.

They found duplicate copies of every book that was missing, and examined all the pages that were missing.

This started a new rash of speculating, and the whole town got involved. People were coming up with crazy ideas about what the bear was doing. Television news teams were parked outside the library waiting for the bear to appear. Newspaper reporters from all over the country were coming in daily, crowding the library parking lot and asking the librarians all sorts of questions.

One man with crazy hair said to the television crew,

"I have calculated that by adding all the page numbers from the missing pages, and then dividing that by the number of times the bear visited the library, multiplying that by how many Tuesdays since my birthday, and have come up with 470.88."

No one knew what that meant.

"I believe he's built a laboratory in the forest," said another, "and he's developing a new kind of hat that changes color depending on how much food you have in your belly."

"I think he's just trying to confuse us so that he can eat us when we least expect it," said one of the librarians.

Everyone got quiet, but no one agreed.

A team of scientists arrived one day with all sorts of gear strapped to their backs. They had night vision goggles and special ropes and colored tape and compasses and, well, all sorts of gadgets attached to their clothes.

"What do you expect to find in there?" asked one reporter.

"Well," said one of the scientists, "There's a bear in there with what seems to be a higher than average intelligence. We have come here from our university looking for an answer to the question."

"What is the question?" darted back the reporter.

"That's what we're going to find out." said the scientist.

Wow, everyone was really impressed. They watched them sneak into the forest. One of the scientists picked up a handful of dirt, smelled it, then tasted it and then motioned to the others.

They were gone for a while.

When they came back, one of them was holding a plastic bag, and in it was a page from a book. On closer examination, there were words highlighted, circled, notes taken in the margin. It was amazing.

Everyone thought it was a miracle. The news reporters started reporting and the photographers began photographing, everyone was wild with amazement.

“What words are highlighted?” said one.

“Does he want something from us?” said another.

“Is there a special message from the bear?” came yet another.

Everyone was so distracted, that no one noticed the large Grizzly Bear walking upright on his back legs toward the Book Drop.

No one paid any attention when he dropped each book, one by one, into the receptacle.

No one even noticed when he held the door open for the old lady carrying a bag of groceries.

The librarian thought nothing of his strange deep voice or his seemingly foreign accent when he asked to be issued a library card.

If she had been paying attention, she would have noticed that the driver’s license that he handed her was actually just a bunch of words from books he had cut out and glued to the back cover of a hardback book. And the picture was of a teddy bear, with no likeness to the Grizzly.

No one said anything when he sat down at the computer to look up a book in the system.

In fact, no one noticed him at all. And he didn't mind. He thought everything was normal. This is what normally happens, he thought.

He checked out his book, and left the library, stopping only to get a drink from the water fountain on his way out.

He watched some of the news reporters reporting, and avoided the photographers with cameras (he didn't like getting his picture taken).

He didn’t know what they were doing, and he lost interest quickly. It looked like they were waiting for something.

So, he walked around the corner and slipped into the forest and went home.

After a couple of weeks, the TV crews and reporters and photographers and scientists and most everyone had gone.

The only people who were left were the ones who wanted to borrow books from the library.

The Grizzly soon became very good at not ripping or scratching or dirtying the books. He would visit the library every week or so, and no one even thought any different.

Except for the day he wore that silly hat he had found in the dumpster. People were laughing at the hat, but it made him very self-conscious, so he never wore it again.

The End