SUSAN LOESCH

After waiting patiently while Shadow was on the job for several times Barney finally got his  chance.

When we got out of the car, his friend Trinity met us and carried him up to the Library. The last time Barney was here was last June. It’s been a long time!

The kids wasted no time getting reacquainted with Barn! Mary soon joined us, and Barney started the day with pets and treats. After a couple of good morning “Rahrrs,” Barney settled in like he’d never been away.

He stretched out on the counter, got some pets from Trinity, and she showed him the new sign with our library rules.

Our sign says: “Shadow says, ‘Rule #1 is Books Before Cats!’” “Barney says, ‘Rule #2 is Feed Library Cats lots of Treats!’”

I’m pretty sure I heard Barney tell Trin that he liked Rule #2 the best.

Our first group of the day was the preschool class, the 4-year-olds. They stopped to pet Barney when they came in for their story, and when we went to the bean bags Barney came along.

Thinking the kids would pay better attention without Barney, he went to spend a while in my office. We heard his “Rahrr” for a while!

After the story he got more treats.

One of the preschoolers exclaimed, “He is eating from my hand; it feels like he’s LICKING me!”

Soon came our littlest students, the 3-year-olds, to meet Barney for the first time and to select books.

I sat down on the floor with them, Barney in my lap. Soon four sets of little hands all had hold of his tail! Then three held his tail while the fourth petted him – tail to head!

That Barney was so good. He did look at me a few times like he was wondering how long it would last, but he patiently stayed in my lap.

Our kids have been taking ATAAP tests this week, so I have had extra secondary students in the library when they aren’t testing.

Barney helped one of my seniors at the computer for a while before he settled down in his bed. He has always been good about offering his help.

In late morning he decided on a wardrobe change and replaced his light blue and white bandana with a royal blue and white one. He was then ready for the sixth graders, who have spent the week testing.

Boy, were they excited to be finished! They came in wearing their “We Survived ACTAAP” shirts, and we decided to just have “cat time.” The kids had certainly earned it.

They petted Barney, and Brandon fed him way lots of treats. One student showed Barney a picture out of Cat Fancy magazine, and Brianna looked through a stack of new books and showed them to him.

Barney was more excited about the treats than he was about hearing the new book titles … biographies of Selena Gomez, Taylor Lautner, Justin Bieber. Brianna was excited enough for them both.

Barney had gone all day without knocking things over, but while the 6th graders were there he stretched out on the desk and four pictures of Big Footsie and Alex went crashing to the floor.

Right on cue the whole group hanging out at the desk yelled, “Good job, Barney!” He’d saved his performance for a big audience.

During the last period of the day I had a library-full of juniors and seniors. Barney was lying on the floor, and when he jumped up on the counter he surprised Ray, another student I’ve had since kindergarten.

“Oh,” Ray said, “I didn’t know there was a cat here.”

“This is Barney,” I told him.

“Well, hi, dinosaur,” he said to Barn, and then began to sing the Barney song as others joined in.

Barney just took it all in stride.

Barney’s first day back at school was a busy one.

As we went to the car I heard a few Rahrrs from Barn, but they weren’t grumpy ones.

I think he knew he made a whole lot of kids happy today, and for a cat that’s a good day’s work.