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always thought of Dewey when she went to the pet store for their litter
and food. One day near the end of Dewey’s first summer, she quite innocently brought in a bag of
fresh catnip. Dewey was so excited by the smell I thought he was going to climb her leg. For the
first time in his life, the cat actually begged.
    When Doris finally crumbled a few leaves
on the floor, Dewey went crazy. He started smelling them so hard I thought he was going to inhale
the floor. After a few sniffs, he started sneezing, but he didn’t slow down. Instead, he started
chewing the leaves, then alternating back and forth: chewing, sniffing, chewing, sniffing. His
muscles started to ripple, a slow cascade of tension flowing out of his bones and down his back.
When he finally shook that tension out the end of his tail, he flopped over on the ground and
rolled back and forth in the catnip. He rolled until he lost every bone in his body. Unable to
walk, he slithered on the floor, undulating as he rubbed his chin along the carpet like a snowplow
blade. I mean, the cat oozed. Then, gradually, his spine bent backward, in slow motion, until his
head was resting on his behind. He formed figure eights, zigzags, pretzels. I swear the front half
of his body wasn’t even connected to the back half. When he finally, and accidentally, ended up
flat on his tummy, he rippled his way back to the catnip and started rolling in it again. Most of
the leaves were by now stuck in his fur, but he kept sniffing and chewing. Finally he stretched
out on his back and started kicking his chin with his back legs. This lasted until, with a few
flailing kicks hanging feebly in the air, Dewey passed out right on top of the last of the catnip.
Doris and I looked at each other in amazement, then burst out laughing. My goodness, it was funny.
    Dewey never tired of catnip. He would often sniff halfheartedly at old, worn-out leaves,
but if there were fresh leaves in the library, Dewey knew it. And every time he got hold of
catnip, it was the same thing: the undulating back, the rolling, the slithering, the bending, the
kicking, and finally one very tired, very comatose cat. We called it the Dewey
Mambo.
    Dewey’s other interest—besides puppets, drawers, boxes, copiers, typewriters, and
catnip—was rubber bands. Dewey was absolutely fanatical about rubber bands. He didn’t even
need to see them; he could smell them across the library. As soon as you put a box of rubber bands
on your desk, he was there.
    “Here you go, Dewey,” I would say as I opened a new bag.
“One for you and one for me.” He would take his rubber band in his mouth and happily skip
away.
    I would find it the next morning . . . in his litter box. It looked like a worm poking
its head out of a chunk of dirt. I thought, “That can’t be good.”
    Dewey always
attended staff meetings, but fortunately he wasn’t yet able to understand what we were talking
about. A few years down the road that cat and I were able to have long philosophical
conversations, but for right now it was easy to wrap up the meeting with a simple reminder.
“Don’t give Dewey any more rubber bands. I don’t care how much he begs. He’s been eating
them, and I have a feeling rubber isn’t the healthiest food for a growing kitten.”
    The
next day, there were more rubber band worms in Dewey’s litter. And the next. And the next. At
the next staff meeting, I was more direct. “Is anyone giving Dewey rubber bands?”
    No.
No. No. No. No.
    “Then he must be stealing them. From now on, don’t leave rubber bands
lying out on your desk.”
    Easier said than done. Much, much easier said than done. You
would be amazed how many rubber bands there are in a library. We all put our rubber band holders
away, but that didn’t even dent the problem. Rubber bands apparently are sneaky critters. They
slide under computer keyboards and crawl into your pencil holder. They fall under your desk and
hide in the wires. One evening I caught Dewey