Steggy the Stegosaurus loved the Great Dino Library more than anything in the whole wide world. She loved the smell of old pages, the creak of the wooden shelves, and most of all — her reading nook. A purple beanbag. A mushroom lamp. And one perfect shelf, arranged by colour, red to violet. Stomp, stomp, stomp. Every evening, Steggy arrived at exactly the same time.
But tonight, something was wrong. The yellow section of her shelf had a gap in it — a dark, hollow gap, like a missing tooth. And right where "The Tale of the Tiny Thunder Lizard" should have been, there was a muddy footprint the size of a dinner plate. Steggy stared at it. She blinked. She stared again. She grabbed her beanbag with her tail — because Steggy refused, absolutely refused, to read standing up — and she set off into the library. Stomp, stomp, stomp. The beanbag bounced along behind her, bumping over the flagstones.
The tall bookshelves rose up on either side, dark and shadowy, their tops disappearing into the ceiling like a forest of paper trees. Somewhere high above, a moth fluttered between the rafters. Steggy's plates rattled with determination. She found Terrence the Triceratops in the Fern Section, looking extremely sheepish. He was holding a very squashed flower between two careful claws. "I borrowed your book," he said in a small voice, "to press it. Violets go very flat between hardcovers. The thing is — I can't quite remember which shelf I put it back on." He held up the squashed violet. It was, at least, beautifully flat.
Steggy sighed through her nostrils — a long, slow, whistling sigh. But Terrence's horns drooped so sadly that she nudged him with one of her plates. "Come on then," she said. "You can help look." Stomp, stomp, stomp. Terrence clip-clopped along behind her, still holding his flower. They searched the blue shelves. They searched the orange shelves. They peered behind the Encyclopedia of Ancient Ferns — nothing. Then, from somewhere near the great big atlas on the bottom shelf, they heard a sound. A tiny sound. A sound like a pea snoring.
Steggy pressed her ear to the gap behind the atlas. There it was again — a small, soft, buzzing snore, coming from somewhere inside her book. Terrence's eyes went very wide. His horn tapped the shelf accidentally. The snoring stopped. Steggy very gently, very carefully, tipped the book upside down over the floor. Out tumbled Pip the Compsognathus — all ruffled feathers, squinting eyes, and a page crease across her cheek. She had crawled inside to look at the pictures close up, and had fallen fast asleep between pages four and five. "The pictures are very good," Pip said, by way of explanation. She yawned, showing all her tiny teeth.
Steggy picked up her book. She checked every page. She smoothed down the corners. Then she tucked it under her arm, and the three of them trundled back through the library together — stomp, stomp, stomp and clip-clop and the tiniest of pitter-pats — all the way back to the reading nook. Steggy settled into her purple beanbag. Terrence curled up on the left, his flower tucked behind one horn. Pip nestled on the right, already blinking slowly. The mushroom lamp hummed on, soft and amber. Steggy opened to page one and began to read in her best rumbly voice. The words rolled out like thunder. Terrence's eyes grew heavier. Pip's head drooped onto Steggy's side. By page three, the only sounds in the Great Dino Library were one low, rumbling voice, and two small, steady breaths, and the faintest hum of a mushroom lamp glowing gold.
