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was walking in Central Park after my morning shift at the repository when a bear came bounding toward me across the snow. I froze.
    Not a bear, I saw as it got closer, but a bear-sized shaggy dog making the frozen air echo with its barks.
    “Griffin, stay!”
    The dog skidded to a stop in front of me. I took a step back. It was wagging its tail—that was reassuring. It put its huge wet paws on my shoulders and tried to lick my face.
    “Do I know you?” I asked the dog, trying to duck away.
    “Down, Griffin! Don’t knock Elizabeth over!” said a familiar stern voice. It was Mr. Mauskopf. He snapped his long fingers at the dog.
    This, then, must be the Beast.
    The dog subsided onto its haunches, put its head to one side, turned its ears forward, and looked up at me with eyes as big as saucers. It didn’t have to look up very far; we were practically at eye level. It raised a big, hairy paw and offered it to me.
    “How do you do?” I said, shaking the paw. It felt as heavy as a sack of onions.
    The Beast took that as an invitation to put its paws on my shoulders again.
    “Down, Griffin! I said down!” barked Mr. Mauskopf. The dog subsided again. “He seems to like you.”
    “Good dog,” I said, amused. For all his famous sternness, Mr. Mauskopf didn’t seem to be too good at making his dog obey. He must be more of a softy than he let on. I patted Griffin’s lumpy, shaggy brown shoulder. He put his tongue out and wagged his entire hindquarters.
    “Nice day for a walk,” Mr. Mauskopf said.
    “At least it’s warmer than yesterday. I just finished my shift at the repository.”
    “Yes, I’ve been wanting to talk to you about that. How are things there?”
    “I love it. It’s like getting to take things out of museum display cases and actually touch them.”
    Mr. Mauskopf smiled. “I remember that excitement,” he said. “Before I started working at the repository, I never thought much about objects. To me a spoon was just a spoon. Then my supervisor put me on Stack 9, and I saw those thousands of spoons, all different sizes and shapes and patterns and uses. I realized they didn’t just appear by magic. Someone had thought about each one and decided what it should be like, what shape, what to make it out of. It was like a whole new world opening up. I think that’s when I became interested in history.”
    “I know what you mean,” I said. “Ms. Callender showed me Marie Antoinette’s wig. It makes you realize that Marie Antoinette actually existed.”
    He nodded. “And what does she have you doing? Martha Callender, I mean, not Marie Antoinette.” Wow, a joke from Mr. Mauskopf!
    “Mostly running call slips, reshelving, that sort of thing.”
    “Good, good.” A pause; Mr. Mauskopf glanced at the Beast. Griffin gave a single bark, almost as if he and Mr. Mauskopf were exchanging words. Mr. Mauskopf turned back to me. “Tell me, have you seen anything to alarm you?” he asked.
    “To alarm me? What do you mean?” Was he talking about the gigantic bird?
    “My friends at the repository tell me there’s something . . . not quite right. I wondered if you’d noticed anything that could be helpful.”
    “What’s not right? One of the pages—Anjali—she told me she’d heard about a . . .” It sounded so unlikely. Could I really tell Mr. Mauskopf? Wouldn’t he think I was an idiot to believe it?
    “A what?”
    Well, I’d started—no stopping now. “An enormous bird. It’s supposed to be following people around and stealing things.”
    To my surprise, Mr. Mauskopf nodded gravely. “Yes, I’ve heard that too. Have you seen this bird?”
    “No . . .”
    “Did the page who told you about the bird see it? Anjali was her name, right?”
    “She said she didn’t.”
    “Hm. And have you seen or heard anything else that concerns you?”
    “Well . . . I heard that there was a page who got fired.”
    Mr. Mauskopf paused, as if trying to decide how much to say. “That’s right. Dr. Rust had