Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched The World

The Dewey treatment was met with resistance at first, especially by the business and political groups that often met in the Round Room, but after a few months even the salesmen treated it as a highlight. The genealogy club treated it almost like a game, since every month Dewey picked someone different to spend the meeting with. They would laugh and try to coax him into their laps, almost like the children at Story Hour.

“Dewey’s distracted these days,” I told them. “Ever since Tony started painting the library, he’s been off his routine. But I’m sure once he realizes you’re here . . .”

And as if on cue, Dewey walked in the door, jumped on the table, and started his rounds.

“Let us know if you need anything,” I told them, turning back to the main part of the library. Nobody said anything; they were too busy focusing on Dewey. “No fair, Esther,” I heard as the sound of the meeting faded into the distance, “you must have tuna in your pocket.”

When Tony finished the painting three weeks later, Dewey was a changed cat. Maybe he thought he really was Duke, because suddenly he wasn’t content with just naps and laps. He wanted to explore. And climb. And most important, explore new places to climb. We called this Dewey’s Edmund Hillary phase, after the famous mountain climber. Dewey didn’t want to stop climbing until he’d reached the top of his personal Mount Everest, which he managed to do not more than a month later.

“Any sign of Dewey this morning?” I asked Audrey Wheeler, who was working at the circulation desk. “He didn’t come for breakfast.”

“I haven’t seen him.”

“Let me know if you do. I want to make sure he’s not sick.”

Five minutes later I heard Audrey utter what around here was a surprising profanity: “Oh, my goodness!”

She was standing in the middle of the library, looking straight up. And there, on top of the lights, looking straight down, was Dewey.

When he saw us looking, Dewey pulled his head back. He was instantly invisible. As we watched, Dewey’s head reappeared a few feet down the light. Then it disappeared again, only to appear a few feet farther on. The lights run in hundred-foot strips, and he had clearly been up there for hours, watching us.

“How are we going to get him down?”

“Maybe we should call the city,” someone suggested. “They’ll send someone with a ladder.”

“Let’s just wait him out,” I said. “He’s not doing any harm up there, and he’ll have to come down for food eventually.”

An hour later Dewey trotted into my office, licking his lips from a late breakfast, and jumped into my lap for a pet. He was clearly keyed up about this new game, but didn’t want to overplay his hand. I knew he was dying to ask, What do you think of that?

“I’m not even going to mention it, Dewey.”

He cocked his head at me.

“I’m serious.”

Okay then, I’ll nap. Exciting morning, you know.

I asked around, but nobody had seen him come down. It took us a few weeks of constant surveillance to figure out his method of getting up. First Dewey jumped on the empty computer desk. Then he jumped on a filing cabinet, which gave him a long jump to the top of the temporary wall around the staff area, where he could hide behind a huge quilt of Spencer history. From there, it was only four feet to the light.

Sure, we could have rearranged the furniture, but once he became ceiling fixated we knew there wasn’t much, except old age and creaky bones, that could stop Dewey from walking the lights. When cats don’t know something exists, it’s easy to keep them away. If they can’t get to something and it’s something they’ve made up their minds they want, it’s almost impossible. Cats aren’t lazy; they’ll put in the work to thwart even the best-laid plans.

Besides, Dewey loved being up on the lights. He loved walking back and forth from end to end until he found an interesting spot. Then he would lie down, drape his head over the side, and watch. The patrons loved it, too. Sometimes when Dewey was pacing you could see them craning up at the ceiling, their heads going back and forth like the pendulum on a clock. They talked to him. When Dewey was pointed out to the children, his head just peaking over the edge of the lights, they screamed with excitement. They had so many questions.

“What’s he doing?”

“How’d he get up there?”

“Why is he up there?”

“Will he get burned?”

“What if he falls off? Will he die?”

“What if he falls on somebody? Will they die?”

When the children found out they couldn’t join him on the ceiling, they begged him to come down. “Dewey likes it up there,” we explained. “He’s playing.” Eventually even the children understood that when Dewey was on the lights, he was coming down only on his terms. He had discovered his own little seventh heaven up there.