Monsters in the Library

There are some clever thieves in my library.

A few weeks ago my darling stuffed cow went missing. Someone suggested she "jumped over the moon" but after scouring the library I knew she was stolen.

I was using the stuffed cow for my display in the children's department on cow books. (You'd be surprised how many books about cows there are.) So my coworkers and I put the word out to get my cow back. We found a picture of it online and made up "Missing Cow" posters. We asked all the teens that came into the library "have you seen her?" After only one day a teen girl came up and said she "found the cow in the snow." Of course we didn't believe her especially after we saw the snickering of teens around the library but we played along and said "Thank you so much!" We thought that she might have learned a lesson that when she takes things it affects others. So we hugged her and gave her a box of Milk Duds as "reward."

I thought things were hunky dory until the pirate hat went missing a bit later. It was for a pirate display and it had only been up two days before it was hatnapped. A week later a little stuffed frog has mysteriously vanished. I believe the teens have figured out that if they steal something and return it they get candy. Even if they don't return it they get to keep what they stole. It's a win-win situation for them. I told my coworker I thought I had created a monster. My coworker told me the monster was already there.