She kept on running down Rose Avenue, and the answer presented itself to her: a little brown- brick building with windows warmly alight — refuge, safety, sanctuary. The library. It's open, it's open, I forgot it was open late on Saturday! Oh, thank Heaven! The sight of it gave Nita a new burst of energy. She cut across its tidy lawn, loped up the walk, took the five stairs to the porch in two jumps, bumped open the front door and closed it behind her, a little too loudly. The library had been a private home once, and it hadn't lost the look of one despite the crowding of all its rooms with bookshelves. The walls were paneled in mahogany and oak, and the place smelled warm and brown and booky. At the thump of the door Mrs. Lesser, the weekend librarian, glanced up from her desk, about to say something sharp. Then she saw who was standing there and how hard she was breathing. Mrs. Lesser frowned at Nita and then grinned. She didn't miss much. "There's no one downstairs, " she said, nodding at the door that led to the children's library in the single big basement room. "Keep quiet and I'll get rid of them. "

"Thanks, " Nita said, and went thumping down the cement stairs. As she reached the bottom, she heard the bump and squeak of the front door opening again.

Nita paused to try to hear voices and found that she couldn't. Doubting that her pursuers could hear her either, she walked on into the children's library, smiling slightly at the books and the bright posters.

She still loved the place. She loved any library, big or little; there was something about all that knowledge, all those facts waiting patiently to be found that never failed to give her a shiver.