Autumn Harvest Bookstore is where I call my home. Although I may only be a cat, I’m pretty observant of the people and the world around me. My name is Mocha, and I am a small brown American shorthair who always sticks her nose in other people’s business. I take the saying “Curiosity killed the cat” a little too seriously because I always wonder what everyone is doing when they’re walking around in my home.

I love people of all ages, from young children to elderly adults like Eleanor White, who is constantly in the store looking for the latest Joanne Fluke cozy murder mystery novel.

Or five-year-old George Reed, who is always looking for Curious George books to read. The variety of book preferences in my home is a testament to the richness of our community.

But my most cherished person of all is Rachel Brooks. She is not only my owner but also the one who allows me to live and work with her in the bookstore. Rachel has red hair and green eyes, and she’s my best friend. But you’re probably wondering how she found me and how I became the beloved bookstore cat I am today.

My journey began a year ago when Rachel discovered me nestled in a box of gently used books outside the bookstore. My undeniable charm won her over, and I found a permanent place in her heart and the bookstore. The rest, as they say, is history.

Although I can’t read books myself, one of my favorite things to do is curl up in the laps of children and allow them to read to me in the children’s reading corner. The reading corner is full of bean bag chairs in different colors, such as blue, yellow, pink, purple, green, and orange. One of my favorite young readers is Ella Sullivan because she always chooses to read books about cats, and I enjoy listening to them. Ella is only three, and she has the reading ability of a six-year-old, so sometimes she’s even reading me chapter books. Her mother is also her preschool teacher, so when Ella is not in school, she always practices reading with her mom, and I think that’s why she’s such an avid reader at such a young age.

Rachel has a boyfriend named Will, and occasionally, he stops into the bookstore while Rachel and I are working, which is something I think is really sweet. Rachel and Will are planning their wedding for next year, and they plan to get married next fall. Rachel and Will met when they were taking a creative writing class during their final semester of college, and the only reason they spoke was that their professor, Helen Jacobs, told them to edit one another’s papers, and the rest was history.

One of my other favorite things is taking long naps in the display window because I love feeling the sun on my back. The warmth of the sun’s rays only makes me happier than I am because what cat doesn’t love sunbathing? Sometimes, Rachel and I will clean the bookstore together in the evening, and while she’s trying to keep the bookshelves neat, I enjoy pushing them off the shelves and onto the floor so she has to put them away again.

Josiah Schultz is a fourteen-year-old boy who only comes to the bookstore to study while chewing on his pencils and listening to his music with his gigantic black headphones, which are bigger and always look bigger than his head. When he’s studying for whatever math test, he has coming up in school, I enjoy curling up in his lap because he loves petting me, and even though he doesn’t say very much to me while he’s studying, I know that he appreciates my presence.

Being a bookstore cat is the most rewarding job I could ever ask for, and I love spending my nine lives getting to know everyone who comes into the bookstore. I am so happy that Rachel has been so kind to me over the past year and that I’ve gotten to call the Autumn Harvest Bookstore my home. I can’t wait to see what else I discover in the future.

This was written by our co-founder and editor-in-chief, Hanna Perry.