Dewey's Nine Lives

She didn’t return the affection. She wasn’t a bad cat; she just wasn’t much of a . . . Snuggles. Some people have preconceived notions about cats: They are aloof and arrogant; they are self-centered; they are loners. Unfortunately, Snuggles fit the stereotype. It wasn’t that she was mean. She never scratched or hissed. She just wasn’t a social animal. She didn’t want to play; she didn’t want to be touched; she wasn’t emotionally invested in Lynda and Jennifer and, quite frankly, didn’t care whether they were home or away. Snuggles preferred her own space.

Jennifer was disappointed. Adults may appreciate the refined dignity (and quiet!) of a cat staring motionless out a sunny window, completely ignoring the world around them, but what kind of child wants a cat like that?

“I want to go to the baby orphanage!” she told her mother.

“We can go,” Lynda told her, “but you can’t bring anything home. We are already blessed with Snuggles.”

Tight-lipped consideration—is it worth protesting?—and then, “Okay, okay, okay, Mommy. We won’t bring anything home.”

The baby orphanage was the North Shore Animal League, the nation’s largest no-kill animal shelter. Located in Port Washington, New York, in the western section of Long Island, the sanctuary was only six miles from the Caira home in Bayside. Three or four times a year, Lynda and Jennifer would drive out to the sanctuary to ooh and aah over the baby kittens. They were cute, so playful and full of energy, but Lynda always managed to usher Jennifer from the building after an hour without adoption papers in her hand or a kitten in tow.

Until August 31, 1990. Just another summer day in outer Queens. Just another mother-daughter visit to the “baby orphanage” they so enjoyed. Jennifer was twelve that summer, so the two of them had visited the North Shore Animal League for seven years without giving in to the staring eyes, pink noses, and batting paws of the needy animals. But this time . . . a kitten meowed.

Immediately. As soon as they walked in the door. And she wasn’t just meowing. This kitten was stretching her front leg through the bars and screaming for attention. She was gray and black tiger-striped, with a white chest, a mostly white face, and huge bat ears that made her head seem tiny underneath them. She was undeniably cute, so cute, in fact, that Lynda made an effort to ignore her. But Jennifer was captivated.

“Oh, Mommy, look at this one,” she said.

Lynda kept walking, putting her finger into a few cages to play with the kittens.

“Oh, please come back and look at this baby,” Jennifer pleaded. “Please, Mommy. Look how she’s screaming. She really wants me to hold her.”

Lynda turned back and stared at the thin little kitten trying desperately to escape her big cage. A card on the front said: COOKIE. FEMALE. DOMESTIC SHORTHAIR.

“Okay,” Lynda said to the volunteer. “Take her out. Jennifer, you can hold her. For a minute. Then back she goes.”

Cookie had something else in mind. As soon as she was out of the cage, she leapt from Jennifer’s hands to Lynda’s shirt and, after a desperate scramble, wrapped her arms tightly around Lynda’s neck. Then she leaned back, peered up with her big green eyes, and howled into Lynda’s face. A volunteer came over to help, but the kitten clasped its paws together and wouldn’t let go. She was begging and pleading—for attention? For love? For a home? Whatever it was, the kitten was adamant. She knew what she wanted, and she wanted Lynda. It took two volunteers to pry the two-pound cat off her chest.

“Oh, Mommy,” Jennifer pleaded. “We have to take her home. We have to.”

“No, Jennifer,” Lynda said. “We are not taking her home. We have Snuggles. We cannot have another cat.” She wasn’t really worried about Snuggles. Snuggles didn’t care about anything, so why would she care about another kitten in the house? But their town house was small. It just didn’t seem big enough for another pet.

She was turning to tell the volunteers to put the kitten back in its cage when she noticed that it had on several colorful collars, each with a few tags.

“Why is she wearing all those?” Lynda asked.

“Those are for her medications,” the volunteer said. And then he told her the story of Cookie.