SUSAN LOESCH

CATS IN THE STACKS

We are such an uptown library! Not only do we have resident artist Monsieur Shadeaux on the staff, now we also have Monsieur Bar-nay, artiste extraordinaire.

Barney got his chance to create Shadow Art on Monday; I guess we would call it Barney Art, though!

With a little help from his friends, he paw-painted a picture using food colors, orange, purple, pink and green, with which Mary helped him create what we think will be his specialty – starbursts.

Barney wasn’t as into art as Shadow was, but he was really good-natured about it.

All the work made him hungry, and he ate treats from the hand of Zee, our exchange student from Turkey.

“My mother would never believe this,” she told me. I am printing out pictures of Zee with the library cats so she can show her family that she really has been petting cats for the first time in her life.

Barney is a little more sedate than the other library cats; I chalk that up to his age and wisdom. He is, after all, 4 years old.

So a supervisory job suits him perfectly. He kept an eye on Chris as he helped me check in the influx of library books being returned.

“I guess it is a good thing it is Barney here today,” I said to a student.

“Yeah, if it had been Shadow or Big Footsie, books would have been all over the place,” she said with a smile.

Later in the afternoon, Barney attended a party for one of our teachers who is leaving this year.

As we were gathered in the teachers’ lounge, one of the staff members asked if Barney would eat cake. I said I thought he might lick the icing.

“Hey, everybody, if you want your cake don’t get close to Barney,” someone called.

Given the chance at the icing on Mr. Huntsman’s cake he proved us wrong. He wasn’t the least bit interested in it.

This was a fun day on the job for Barney, and he nearly missed it.

When I was ready to go to work and saw him he just KNEW what was up. He jumped on a bookcase and tried to hide behind the books.

I wonder if he is glad I caught him before he disappeared!