Read Online Dewey by Vicki Myron - Free Book Online Page B

there to greet them, they often walked the library looking for him. First they searched the floor, figuring Dewey was hiding around a corner. Then they checked the top of the bookshelves.
    “Oh, how are you, Dewey? I didn’t see you there,” they would say, reaching up to pet him. Dewey would give them the top of his head to pet, but he wouldn’t follow them. The patrons always looked disappointed.
    But as soon as they forgot about him, Dewey jumped into their laps. That’s when I saw the smiles. It wasn’t just that Dewey sat with them for ten or fifteen minutes; it was that he had singled them out for special attention. By the end of his first year, dozens of patrons were telling me, “I know Dewey likes everyone, but I have a special relationship with him.”
    I smiled and nodded. “That’s right, Judy,” I thought. “You and everyone else who comes into this library.”
    Of course, if Judy Johnson (or Marcy Muckey or Pat Jones or any of Dewey’s other fans) hung around long enough, she was sure to be disappointed. Many times I had that conversation only to see the smile drop half an hour later when, leaving the library, she happened to notice Dewey sitting on someone else’s lap.
    “Oh, Dewey,” Judy would say. “I thought it was all about me.”
    She would look at him for a few seconds, but Dewey wouldn’t look up. Then she would smile. I knew what Judy was thinking. “That’s just his job. He still loves me best.”
    Then there were the children. If you wanted to understand the effect Dewey had on Spencer, all you had to do was look at the children. The smiles when they came into the library, the joy as they searched and called for him, the excitement when they found him. Behind them, their mothers were smiling, too.
    I knew families were suffering, that for many of these children times were hard. The parents never discussed their problems with me or anyone on staff. They probably didn’t discuss them with their closest friends. That’s not the way we are around here; we don’t talk about our personal circumstances, be they good, bad, or indifferent. But you could tell. One boy wore his old coat from the previous winter. His mother stopped wearing her makeup and, eventually, her jewelry. The boy loved Dewey; he clung to Dewey like a true friend; and his mother never stopped smiling when she saw them together. Then, around October, the boy and his mother stopped coming to the library. The family, I found out, had moved away.
    That wasn’t the only boy who wore an old coat that fall, and he certainly wasn’t the only child who loved Dewey. They all wanted, even craved, his attention, so much so that they learned enough control to spend Story Hour with him. Every Tuesday morning, the murmur of excited children in the Round Room, where Story Hour was held, would be suddenly punctuated by a cry of “Dewey’s here!” A mad rush would ensue as every child in the room tried to pet Dewey at the same time.
    “If you don’t settle down,” our children’s librarian, Mary Walk, would tell them, “Dewey has to go.”
    A barely contained hush would fall over the room as the children took their seats, trying their best to contain their excitement. When they were relatively calm, Dewey would begin sliding between them, rubbing against each child and making them all giggle. Soon kids were grabbing at him and whispering, “Sit with me, Dewey. Sit with me.”
    “Children, don’t make me warn you again.”
    “Yes, Mary.” The children always called Mary Walk by her first name. She never got into the habit of Miss Mary.
    Dewey, knowing he had pushed the limit, would stop wandering and curl up in the lap of one lucky child. He didn’t let a child grab him and hold him in her lap; he
chose
to spend time with her. And every week it was a different child.
    Once he had chosen a lap, Dewey usually sat quietly for the whole hour. Unless a movie was being shown. Then he would jump on a table, curl his legs under