Lizard of Oz Read online

  Mom was visiting her sister in Shaker Heights. She wasn’t supposed to come home until the weekend.

  Dad snapped a couple of photos with his phone. “Wait till she sees this. It’s beyond exciting. We’re going to be famous, you know.”

  It was great to see Dad so excited. He’d been really depressed ever since the mini-horse petting farm had to shut down.

  “Let’s move the lizard to the sandy case,” Dad said. “Freddy, you’re wearing gloves. Go ahead. You do it.”

  Freddy’s eyes widened in surprise. “Me? Really?”

  “Go ahead,” Dad said. “Be very careful. Lift him out with two fingers. Don’t squeeze too tight.” He motioned to the glass case across from us on the worktable. “Then just lower him down gently.”

  “No problem,” Freddy said. “Are you watching, Kate? Watch how an expert does it.”

  He reached a gloved hand into the warmer. Wrapped his hand around the lizard. He lifted his hand and held it in front of Dad and me.

  Then he took his other hand and smashed it into the glove. A strange grin spread over Freddy’s face as he smacked the gloves together and crushed the lizard flat.

  I started to choke. Dad stumbled back against the worktable.

  Freddy grinned at us and opened both of his gloved hands.

  Empty.

  “The lizard is still in the warmer,” he said. “I’m learning from you, Dad.” He waved his empty gloves in the air and burst out laughing.

  Dad just gawked at Freddy with his mouth hanging open.

  “You—you jerk!” I cried. “You scared me to death!”

  Freddy laughed some more. Then he rubbed his glove down my face. “Dad isn’t the only funny guy in the family.”

  Dad let out a long whoosh of air. “I think that joke will be funny in an hour or two, Freddy,” he said. “Once my heart starts beating again.”

  I shook my head. “I like a good laugh,” I said. But—”

  I stopped because Freddy was reaching into the warmer again. Dad and I both watched in silence as he carefully lifted the baby lizard out. He held it between two fingers.

  The lizard had lost most of its hair. Its skin was a light brown color. Its head turned from side to side as Freddy carried it to the worktable. Freddy lifted it over the glass case and lowered it gently onto the sandy bottom.

  All three of us froze and peered through the glass. The little creature didn’t move. Just hunched on the sand, its spindly legs splayed, its nubby body resting on the bottom.

  “Is it dead?” I asked in a tiny voice. “Why isn’t it moving?”

  “Getting used to the sandy floor,” Dad said.

  Finally, the lizard raised itself and took a few hesitant steps.

  “I’ll get it some dinner,” Dad said. He crossed the room to the supply closet. A few seconds later, he dropped a dead cricket onto the sand beside the lizard.

  The cricket was twice as tall as the lizard, but the lizard didn’t wait. It dove at the long black legs of the cricket, opened its jaws, and began to crunch away. He really went at it. It sounded like someone chopping wood.

  “This guy likes to eat!” Dad said.

  The lizard chomped noisily. He cracked and crunched and devoured two legs. Then he plunged his head into the insect’s body and began to chew even louder.

  My finger throbbed under the bandage. I suddenly wondered what the lizard would be like when he was older and bigger. Would he be as mean as a crocodile and trap his food between giant, jagged teeth?

  Dad gets carried away sometimes. He doesn’t always think things through. Had he given any thought to what this full-grown lizard would be like? Had he given any thoughts to safety precautions?

  Dad snapped photo after photo of the tiny lizard as it devoured the big, crunchy cricket.

  “I’m taking video now,” he said. “This guy is going to be famous. And he’s going to make us famous.” Dad turned to me. “Did I already say that? I’m so excited right now, I don’t remember what I’ve said and what I haven’t.”

  A few minutes later, the lizard stopped eating. It turned and hobbled to the back wall of the case and hunched down. Its body churned and pulsed, as if it was digesting its meal. One cricket leg lay in the sand, all that was left of the big insect.

  “That reminds me—I’m hungry, too!” Freddy said. “Dad, you do know it’s dinnertime, don’t you?”

  Dad shook his head. “I’ve lost all track of time.”

  I started toward the supply closet. “Freddy, how many crickets would you like? Would you like fries with them?”

  “You’re not funny,” Freddy said. “I’m the funny one. Did you forget?”

  “Funny looking,” I muttered.

  “Let’s go out and get dinner,” Dad said. “How about a bucket of fried chicken? Do you want extra crispy?”

  I shuddered. “No way. It would make me think of that poor cricket in there.”

  So … we drove to Chicken Heaven and shared a bucket of chicken and a bunch of sides. And it was awesome, as always. We only went to Chicken Heaven when Mom was away.

  And guess what we talked about the whole time?

  That’s right. The Tasmanian cobra lizard. We spent a lot of time trying to think of a good name for him. I wanted to call it Liz. Short for lizard, get it? We didn’t really know if it was male or female.

  But Freddy insisted we call it Tas. And Dad thought that was a good, simple, easy-to-remember name. Tas.

  And we had a good time, especially since Dad was so happy. And I was happy, too—until we were just about to leave. And I looked at the back of my hands. And they were weird. I mean, the skin was definitely weird.

  The backs of my hands had crisscross lines on them. Like cracks in the skin. Only in a pattern. The lines formed diamond shapes on the backs of both hands.

  “Dad—” I cried. “Look. The backs of my hands … The skin is all cracked. What’s going on?”

  Freddy laughed. “You’re turning into an old lady.”

  I raised a fist. “Do you want to live to be an old man? Give me a break.”

  I shoved my hands under Dad’s nose. He grabbed them and examined the backs one by one. He rubbed the back of my right hand with his pointer finger.

  “Dry skin,” he said. “When we get home, borrow some of your mom’s hand lotion from the cabinet in her bathroom.”

  Only dry skin. I felt a lot better.

  I love using all the different lotions Mom has. I couldn’t wait to get home.

  But I didn’t get there right away. As we were driving home from Chicken Heaven, a text popped up on my phone. It was from Adele: Where are you? Did you forget?

  “Oh, wow,” I murmured. “I did forget.”

  “What’s wrong?” Dad asked, glancing at me in the rearview mirror.

  “I’m supposed to be at school,” I said. “A bunch of us are building the set for the school play. I don’t believe I forgot all about it. I was supposed to be there at seven thirty.”

  “They can probably get along really well without you,” Freddy said. Then he giggled. I was seriously getting tired of his sarcastic sense of humor. What a brat.

  “I can drop you at school,” Dad said, slowing for a stop sign.

  “Okay. Great,” I said. “I really can’t believe I forgot.”

  The backs of my hands itched. I scratched them, but it didn’t help.

  A few minutes later, I rushed into the gym at school. All the lights were on. A group of kids were down on their hands and knees painting an enormous backdrop. It was a Western scene. A blue sky over the desert, with yellow sand, dotted by big cactus plants.

  The drama club was going to perform a play called Superheroes of the West. It was an original musical play by Mr. Coatley, our drama teacher.

  “Sorry I’m late, guys,” I called. I dropped down beside Adele and picked up a paintbrush.

  “Where were you? Hatching more eggs?” she asked. “Did you bring any lizards with you?”

  Some ki
ds laughed.

  “You went home too early,” I told Adele. “You missed it. There was a lizard in that broken egg. It came out. It’s alive!”

  Adele sneered. “Don’t make up stories, Kate. I was there, remember? I saw the egg hit the floor. Nothing but yucky green egg yolk.”

  “I need a bigger brush,” a boy named DeWayne Harris said. He was at the very top of the backdrop, painting the sky. “Or maybe a roller. There’s too much sky. We’re going to be here all night.”

  DeWayne had blue paint on both of his hands. And a smear of it on his T-shirt.

  “Think we should put some clouds up there?” a girl named Alicia Wax asked. “It looks kind of weird just solid like that.”

  “Haven’t you ever heard of a blue sky?” DeWayne asked her.

  “Clouds are too hard to draw,” a boy named Ethan Sadowski said. “They’ll look like white patches we forgot to fill in.”

  “I have proof that the lizard hatched,” I told Adele. I dropped the paintbrush and took out my phone. I found the first photos I’d taken of Tas, and I held them up to her.

  Adele squinted at the screen. Then she burst out laughing. “That’s not a lizard. That’s a dead bumblebee.”

  “Let me see,” Ethan said, grabbing the phone from my hand. He stared at it. “Did your cat cough up a hairball?”

  Everyone laughed. They passed the photo from person to person. Everyone agreed it didn’t look like a newly hatched lizard.

  “You’re wrong. It’s a very rare lizard,” I told them. “That’s what it looked like when it came out of the egg. But it’s already losing all that thick hair.”

  Adele sniffed. “Your dad is so weird. I couldn’t believe that horrible joke he played on us. How do you know the lizard isn’t another one of his jokes?”

  “It’s too important to him to joke about,” I said. “You should see how happy he is.”

  Adele was staring at my bandaged finger. “What happened to your finger?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “Just a paper cut.” No way I was going to tell her the lizard had bitten me. Adele would just sneer and say it looked like a bug bite to her.

  We went to work. Adele used a wide brush to paint the sand. I pulled a can of green paint over and began to fill in one of the cactuses.

  Down on our hands and knees, we all worked in silence for a while. The only sound was the swoosh and scrape of the paintbrushes against the huge canvas.

  After a while, I felt sweat drip down the sides of my face. “Hot in here,” I murmured.

  I had a sleeveless T-shirt under my long-sleeved top. I raised myself to my knees and pulled the top over my head. I tossed it behind me, rearranged the straps on the sleeveless T, and turned to go back to my cactuses.

  I stopped when I saw Adele staring at me.

  “What’s wrong?” I said.

  “Kate, your arms!” she exclaimed. “Did you get tattooed or something?”

  The others all stopped working and turned their gaze on me.

  I frowned at Adele. “Huh? What are you talking about?”

  “Did you paint those on?” Alicia asked.

  I lowered my eyes to my arms. And gasped. The tiny lines on my hands … The lines that formed strange diamond patterns …

  They went all the way up both arms.

  “It’s just dry skin,” I told everyone. “I have very dry skin.”

  I pulled the long-sleeved top back on. I didn’t want them staring at my arms the rest of the night.

  At home, I hurried to my mother’s bathroom and found her jars and tubes of moisturizing cream. For the next few days, I practically bathed in the skin lotion. I smoothed it up and down both arms in the morning and after dinner.

  I wished Mom would get home from Shaker Heights and help me with this skin problem. I kept checking the mirror, and it didn’t seem to be getting any better. The slender lines up and down my arms were not disappearing.

  I wanted to tell Dad about it. But he was so busy with the lizard and so tense about the press conference he had set up to tell the world about the lizard, I decided not to bother him with it.

  On Sunday, news reporters showed up just before noon. Dad kept them in the living room till everyone had arrived. They had to wait for a TV news crew to arrive.

  I counted at least a dozen reporters and almost as many photographers. Dad was right. Having a Tasmanian cobra lizard in Middle Village was really big news.

  Mom was due home that afternoon. I felt bad that she had to miss the news conference. She would have enjoyed all the excitement. I had talked to her two or three times on FaceTime, and she was just as excited about the lizard as Dad was.

  I helped pass out Cokes and iced tea to the reporters and photographers. Meanwhile, Freddy was going around the room telling them all that he had named the lizard.

  When he told them the name was Tas, they all looked disappointed. I mean, it wasn’t a very clever name. What was Freddy thinking?

  After the reporters and TV crews had all arrived, Dad led them down the hall to the lizard room.

  Of course, as soon as they entered, Screech became a macaw maniac. He made such deafening squawks and cries, Dad had to put him in his cage and cover it up. “Afraid he wants to be the star,” Dad told everyone.

  “Beautiful bird,” one of the reporters said. “Aren’t you afraid he’ll try to eat the lizard?”

  Dad stared blankly at the reporter. I could see that Dad had never even thought about that.

  He led them all to where he had set up a specially built glass tank to show off the lizard. The tank was six feet long and covered most of the top of the worktable.

  The bottom of the tank was covered in green, leafy plants over a layer of sand. A big water bowl stood at the far end.

  The reporters began to ooh and ahh as soon as they saw Tas. The TV people eagerly began to set up their lights and ready their cameras.

  Tas stood in the middle of the tank, looking out. He had grown a lot. He was about the size of a hamster now, and his skin was different. It was green and bumpy, and with his slender smooth legs and lump of a head, he didn’t look like a bug anymore. He looked a lot like a lizard.

  His tiny black eyes had grown into wide yellow eyes. He had a purple tongue that he flicked in the air. And a few pointed teeth were poking through the gums in his jaws.

  I stood back as one of the TV reporters raised a microphone and prepared to interview my dad. She brushed back her blond hair and cleared her throat. “Ready when you are,” she told Dad.

  “Do I get to be on TV?” Freddy asked her. “I’m the one who named him.”

  “Maybe later,” she told Freddy. She motioned for him to back away.

  In the glass case, Tas strode to the far end and began to chew on a dead cricket. Cameras clicked. Someone whispered: “Mmmmm. That looks tasty.”

  “Can you tell us how big the lizard will grow?” the TV reporter asked Dad.

  “I think he’ll be pretty big,” Dad replied. “Probably three to four feet long. He should weigh at least seventy or eighty pounds.”

  “And does he eat only flies and crickets and other insects?”

  Dad nodded. “He’s a carnivore. A meat eater. But at this small size, I feel that insects are the most meat he can handle.”

  The reporter asked Dad another question, but I didn’t hear it. I felt a strong breeze. And I heard a soft buzzing sound outside the room.

  I stepped into the hall and saw two flies buzzing around each other. I felt another strong brush of wind.

  I turned and made my way toward the front of the house. I was nearly to the living room when I saw the problem. The reporters had left the front door wide open.

  It was a sunny spring day, but very windy. I hurried to the door and pushed it closed. Then I turned back toward the hall and started to return to the news conference.

  I stopped when I saw that more flies had come in through the open door. I saw a couple of fat black flies buzzing around on the mirror over the mantel
piece.

  Holding my breath, I crept up to them. I shot my hand out and caught them both. Then I stuffed them eagerly into my mouth and chewed them up.

  “Kate—what did you just do?” a voice cried.

  I spun away from the mirror and saw Freddy standing right in front of me, his face wide with confusion.

  My breath caught in my throat. He saw me.

  “Kate—” he started. He pointed at the mirror.

  My mind whirred.

  I forced myself to laugh. “Ha-ha. Did I fool you?”

  He blinked. “Huh? Fool me?”

  “You’re not the only joker in this family,” I said. I pressed my hands against my waist. “Did you really think I ate those flies?”

  “Well … yes,” he said.

  I laughed again. “I saw you standing there,” I lied. “I only did that to gross you out.”

  “That’s sick,” he said. He shoved me back against the mantel.

  “Just a joke,” I said. Meanwhile, the words repeated in my head: Kate, what did you just do? Kate, did you really eat two flies?

  “We’re missing the news conference,” Freddy said. He grinned. “I’m going to be on TV.”

  “It’s not about you,” I said. “It’s about the lizard. Everything isn’t about you.”

  He stuck his tongue out at me and took off, running down the hall back to the lizard room.

  I took a deep breath. I felt strange. A little dizzy, maybe. I could hear the voices from down the hall.

  A fat fly buzzed over the back of the couch.

  I glanced around the living room. No one around now.

  I checked down the hall. No one out there. No one watching.

  I dove for the fly, snapped my hand around it, and stuffed it into my mouth.

  Three flies. I just ate three flies.

  I started to groan—but stopped when I spotted something moving at the foot of the couch.

  I crouched down and saw it. A tiny mouse.

  Could I catch it?

  My stomach growled.

  No. No, Kate. No.

  I decided to save it for later.