Free Dewey by Vicki Myron

his body, and watch the screen intently. When the credits rolled he feigned boredom and jumped down. Before the children could ask, “Where’s Dewey?” he was gone.
    There was only one child Dewey couldn’t win over. She was four years old when Dewey arrived, and she came to the library every week with her mother and older brother. Her brother loved Dewey. The girl hung back as far as possible, looking tense and nervous. Her mother eventually confided in me that the girl was afraid of four-legged animals, especially cats and dogs.
    What an opportunity! I knew Dewey could do for this girl what he had done for the children with cat allergies, who finally had a cat to spend time with. I suggested exposing her gently to Dewey, first by looking through the window at him and then with supervised meetings.
    “This is an ideal job for our gentle, loving Dewey,” I told her mother. I was so enthusiastic, I even researched the best books to help the girl overcome her fear.
    Her mother didn’t want to go that route, so instead of trying to change the girl’s feelings about cats, I accommodated her. When the girl came to the door and waved at the clerk on the front desk, we found Dewey and locked him in my office. Dewey hated being locked in my office, especially when patrons were in the library.
You don’t have to do this
, I could hear him howling.
I know who she is! I won’t go near her!
    I hated to lock him away, and I hated to miss the opportunity for Dewey to make this little girl’s life better, but what could I do? “Don’t force it, Vicki,” I told myself. “It will come.”
    With that in mind I planned a low-key celebration for Dewey’s first birthday: just a cake made out of cat food for Dewey, and a normal one for the patrons. We didn’t know exactly when he was born, but Dr. Esterly had estimated he was eight weeks old when we found him, so we counted back to late November and chose the eighteenth. We found Dewey on January 18, so we figured that was his lucky day.
    A week before the celebration, we put out a card for signatures. Within days there were more than a hundred. At the next Story Hour, the children colored pictures of birthday cakes. Four days before the party, we strung the pictures on a clothesline behind the circulation desk. Then the newspaper ran a story, and we started receiving birthday cards in the mail. I couldn’t believe it, people were sending birthday cards to a cat!
    By the time the party rolled around, the kids were jumping up and down with excitement. Another cat would have been frightened, no doubt, but Dewey took it all in with his usual calm. Instead of interacting with the kids, though, he kept his eyes on the prize: his cat-food cake in the shape of a mouse, covered with Jean Hollis Clark’s brand of full-fat yogurt (Dewey hated the diet stuff). As the kids smiled and giggled, I looked out at the adults gathered at the back of the crowd, most of them parents. They were smiling as much as the children. Once again I realized how special Dewey was. Not just any cat would have this kind of fan club. And I realized a few other things, too: that Dewey was having an impact; that he had been accepted as part of the community; and that although I spent all day with him I would never know all the relationships he developed and all the people he touched. Dewey didn’t play favorites; he loved everyone equally.
    But even as I say that, I know it wasn’t true. Dewey did have special relationships, and one I’ll always remember was with Crystal. For decades the library had hosted a special Story Hour every week for local elementary and middle school special education classes. Before Dewey, the kids were poorly behaved. This was their big outing for the week, and they were excited: screaming, yelling, jumping up and down. But Dewey changed that. As they got to know him, the children learned that if they were too noisy or erratic, Dewey left. They would do anything to keep Dewey with