The feline heart of literary Park Slope is back at home.
Tiny the Usurper, the cat that's lived at Community Bookstore on Seventh Avenue and Carroll Street for the past seven years, went missing Monday night but was back at the store Tuesday evening, the store announced on its Instagram account and on the cat's personal Instagram feed.
"He's back at the store safe and sound," Community Bookstore co-owner Ezra Goldstein told DNAinfo New York.
Goldstein said news of the missing cat, "went so viral that a woman we know on First Street saw a notice on Park Slope Parents, spotted an unfamiliar cat in her backyard, and gave us a call."
It took several people 45 minutes to corral Tiny, he added.
"He seems fine," said Michael Bender, a Community Bookstore employee. "We gave him a look over to see if he had any bites or scratches, but he seems fine."
The bookstore employees realized Tiny was missing after he was last seen about 8 p.m. Monday, Goldstein said. When employees locked up the store for the night at 9 p.m., Tiny was nowhere to be found.
But Bender said the errant feline is now back in his usual spot "flopped over the keyboard" at the store.
Tiny can often be found lounging imperiously atop a stack of new hardcovers or struggling to keep his eyes open when well-known authors visit the store for readings.
He's brushed paws with literary celebrities, but his favorite book is probably a Japanese tome about street cats of New York for which he was the cover model, Goldstein said.
He's not the cuddliest of cats — he has been known to take swipes at children and earned the nickname "malo gato," or bad cat, from one young boy — but Tiny has a devoted fan base among the store's customers and online.
His Instagram account has nearly 2,000 followers. A note the shop posted on its own Instagram account Tuesday afternoon about Tiny's disappearance quickly garnered comments from well-wishers, and news that he was missing prompted a flurry of worried tweets.
“We are extremely attached to him,” Goldstein said. “He’s integral to our identity. He’s better known than any of us, that’s for sure.”
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