True story. This week four boys came to the library and loudly announced they were bored. Uh-oh. Those two B words together are cause for alarm because bored boys usually mean trouble. Not bad trouble, but a bit of nuisance behavior combined with high energy that needs to be directed to a positive solution. They used the computers for a little while and then decided to leave. As they were heading out the door one of them shouted, “Wait a minute, I forgot my gecko.” He ran back to the computer, lifted the keyboard and grabbed the gecko. Groan! Don’t ask … I don’t know how a gecko fits under a keyboard without getting squished.

Phew, I’m so glad he remembered his pet before the library closed. I can just imagine Lena, our custodian, lifting the keyboard to dust under it and finding the gecko. She’s not a timid person, but I’m sure she’d rather not have to deal with a lizard among the computer wires.

However, this experience reminded me of library animals in my past.

I worked at a library that backed up to a strip shopping center. In the center was a small pet store – small in size, not little pets. One day the owner came to the library with a great idea. He wanted to put a 100 gallon aquarium in the library. He didn’t have room in his store and all he wanted us to do was to house the tank and the fish. He would take care of everything. We didn’t even have to feed the fish, much less clean the tank. My boss, the wonderful Miss Dorsett, was always open to suggestions and ideas and thought this to be a marvelous idea.

The Children’s Department was around the corner, out of the sight line of the service desk but, with a perfect wall for the aquarium. True to his word, the store owner built a covered platform to ensure the aquarium was enclosed and children could not drop things into the tank. He filled the tank, seasoned the water, and created a shipwreck/sunken treasure scene that was just beautiful. He brought in spectacular exotic fish including many of the clown fish in the popular movie “Finding Nemo.” Everyone who came to see the aquarium was hypnotized and the library was never so quiet. The children would pull up chairs and watch, and watch some more. Success!

The “fishman,” as he was called, would come every day, right after school, to feed the fish, and the children were fascinated when he lifted the hinged top of the enclosure and sprinkled the food. We all delighted in watching the fish dart around gobbling up dead flies and insects. When a fish died, we had a multi-denominational funeral and buried him/her in the fish cemetery that was created at the side of the library building. All went well for about 6 months … until some teenage boys thought they’d be clever …

I was just coming back to the library from visiting a school and there, creeping around the corner and across the carpet was a river of soap bubbles and dead fish, flowing toward the front door like it was trying to escape the building. I yelled for the security guard and as we rounded the corner into the department we spied two boys squeezing dish detergent into the tank while two other boys held open the lid, all of them giggling with glee at the destruction they were causing.

Now this guard was one mean dude with little tolerance of those he considered “punks.” He backed those boys into the corner and proceeded to give them what-for, while I called the police and the pet store owner. I wish I could tell you this story had a happy ending but I can’t. Dish detergent is lethal to aquariums, so the tank was rendered useless. Hundreds of dollars of fish were all dead – 53 fish to be exact – and we had a funeral for each one. The library carpet smelled fishy for weeks. The pet store owner didn’t have the money to invest in a new set-up. And ironically, those boys were sentenced to 30 hours of community service. Guess where? You got it … the library.

Then there was the library with the python … who liked white mice. Once a week feeding time was advertised on a sandwich board on the sidewalk in front of the building. Eight- and 9-year-old boys would line up five deep to see the snake “strike” the mouse, open its jaws and swallow the mouse whole. I still shiver thinking about that experience. This library also had cockatoos that NEVER shut up. Many times I wondered if this bird species could be roasted over a spit. Customers would complain about the racket and the library director would just laugh.

There are many libraries that have cats. One of those cats even wrote a book – “Dewey the Library Cat: A True Story.” It’s a cute story, if you are a cat person. I’ve been in libraries with turtles, hamsters, tarantulas and rabbits. It takes dedication to have a library pet and I am glad our young patron remembered his gecko. We just are NOT ready to be gecko parents. It’s stressful enough when we have the butterflies each year.

What kind of library pet do you think we should have?

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Molly S. Kinney is the director at the Mifflin County Library. She is currently reading “Ink and Bone,” by Lisa Unger.