GREENWOOD – When Tigger moved to Twitchell Pond in 1998, she had a bad case of cabin fever.

Alone at the camp with her owner, Debara C. Scherer, she longed to go outside and play. But Scherer wouldn’t let the curious kitten leave the house.

“I wouldn’t let her go outside, she would watch me feed the animals,” Scherer said. “I just came up with the idea, (to write a book) she was so curious about everything.”

“She is a silver and black mackerel tabby with blue eyes. Well sometimes her eyes look gray, it just depends on the way the light is reflected in them.”

Now, at age 9, a mature Tigger roams the house with her tail waving in the air proudly. She’s famous. She’s “The Cat with the Question Mark Tail,” the featured character in Scherer’s first published book.

When Scherer moved here from Nantucket, Mass., in 1998 with her husband, Fred, she was someone who enjoyed writing, but had never been published.

Tigger’s Maine adventures spurred her on.

“Tigger is happy to have all these little creatures to watch, but she is also curious about how their life is beyond the feeders. She is also sad she can’t go out to make friends with these cute little creatures who share her yard.”

In 2005, Franklin Printers in Farmington published her book, featuring watercolors by Joan Kintz.

“I talked to two or three different artists, and I met Joanie,” Scherer said. “We were just chatting, and she said she always wanted to illustrate a children’s book.”

Each page is accompanied by a full-page watercolor illustration of the cat and the various woodland critters she encounters.

“Then one bright sunny day in late August her chance came. Someone who came to visit held the door open a few seconds too long and out she ran.”

In August of last year Scherer watched as her book was run off the presses.

“It was awesome, I was about to cry,” Scherer said.

She had 2,500 copies of the book printed, and has several hundred left.

Marketing her book has been its own kind of adventure.

As it turned out, her first marketing attempt at the Oxford County Fair last year, actually led her to write a second book while she sat there.

This one features a pig who comes to the fair hoping to win a blue ribbon, but instead winds up in the pig scramble. As a result, the pig runs all over the grounds. She’s looking for someone to illustrate her new book, she said.

Currently, Scherer sells “The Cat with the Question Mark Tail,” out of her home, at craft fairs and in local bookstores. She said she is constantly looking for more places to sell the book.

She also does book signings at libraries and book stores, and visits to schools.

“I’m trying to get the book into areas where I don’t have it now,” she said.

Meanwhile, Tigger reigns supreme in Scherer’s house, getting along nicely with her two dogs. Other cats are another matter, Scherer said.

Her book sends along an important moral for kids:

“Tigger thought to herself, ‘I had all my questions answered and the most important thing I learned is, there is no place like home. A place that is safe and warm.”