Bear Robs Library Snack Stash on Honey-Bear's 100th

At roughly the sixth bell of morning on the fifteenth, a bear allegedly walked into the Mastodon Lakes branch of the Monocle County Free Lending Halls and helped itself to the staff snack cupboard. The library bear, as the Lower City is already calling it, left with peanut butter, peach cups, cookies, and one jar of honey. It was, allegedly, the hundredth birthday of Winnowy the Honey-Bear.

Nobody at the Lending Halls is calling it a coincidence. Nobody is calling it anything else, either. "Upon entering, the bear went straight for the staff snack supply," the library wrote in a notice posted alongside a scrying-glass recording of the visit. The recording shows the animal strolling in like it held a card.

The bear browsed the shelves briefly, allegedly, the way a customer browses when they already know what they came for. Then it left under its own power. "It looked at the poetry section for a good while," said Dunstan Pell, a night baker who was eating a cold meat pie at the time. "Then it looked at me. I looked at the poetry section."

The library reports that no shelves were knocked over and no books were harmed. "Remarkably, no damage was reported," the notice said. This desk would like to note that a bear in a building is damage, allegedly, but the Lending Halls are the experts on what is in their own building.

The honey jar has not been returned. The Watch confirms it is not looking for the jar. The Watch also confirms it is not looking for the bear, since, quote, "we have met the bear." Sources close to the matter, meaning me, standing outside the library, say the cookies were the good kind.

There was a really nice brass book-return slot on the side of the building. Very shiny. Anyway.

The honey-bear in question, Winnowy, is a fictional creature of the old picture-books who is famously fond of honey, famously fond of friends, and famously stuck in doorways. Staff say the Mastodon Lakes bear did not get stuck in anything. It was allegedly more competent than its namesake, and, I am told, less polite, since Winnowy at least asks.

The Lending Halls say the staff snack supply is being restocked and moved to a higher shelf. Bears, I should mention, do not care about shelves. Pigeons have not yet commented, and I do not expect them to, because pigeons hate a bear that gets a headline.

— Skritch, on the beat (allegedly)