and is going to be teased something awful
for being short
(and she knows how bad it feels to be teased,
especially for something
you can’t do anything about,
like your height),
Minn will take one day—today—
to teach Jake to catch a lizard.
∼
It is Saturday morning
and the sun is shining
but the air is cold,
which makes the lizards want
to sit longer in the sun.
This is the perfect kind of day
for lizard-catching.
So Minn calls Jake up on the phone,
and in one very long breath says,
Hello Jake this is Minn speaking
would you like
me to finish your
lizard-catching lesson
now
on this very most perfect
lizard-catching day?
And Soup says,
Minn, the Bucking Bronco!
No, I can’t play. Sorry!
I’m swimming today.
Bye!
And Soup hangs up.
13 / An Invitation (Part Two)
This time
when Minn calls,
she asks
to speak with Jake.
When Jake gets on the phone,
Minn makes her offer.
She is smiling while she is talking, even,
because she cannot believe
what a good person
she is being right now.
And Minn wants to be good to Jake
because not only will Jake get teased
for being so short,
he will also get teased something awful
for being afraid of lizards,
which everyone is talking about
because Minn made a big mistake
and told Sabina yesterday
about Jake’s lizard-lips adventure
and Sabina told Henry
who told Vik
who told Lola
who told half the fifth grade.
∼
So anyway,
Minn says to Jake on the phone,
Why don’t you come over today
for a lizard-catching lesson?
No thank you, Minn.
See you Monday.
Wait. Are you busy?
No.
You’re sick. Are you sick?
No.
Then why can’t you come over, Jake?
Won’t your mother let you come over?
She probably would.
So?
Are you going swimming with Soup?
No.
Let’s catch lizards, then!
It’s a perfect day—
I don’t want to, Jake says.
See you Monday.
And Jake hangs up.
14 / An Invitation (Part Three)
It is not for nothing
that Minn earned the nickname Mad Minn
in first grade,
which became Mighty Mad Minn
in second grade,
which became Minn the Maniac
in third grade,
which became the Minnster last year.
Minn is mad,
mighty mad,
maniacally mad,
monstrously mad at Jake.
And she is also mad at herself
for telling Sabina
that Jake is afraid of lizards.
So Minn will not give up.
She will fix Jake’s reputation as a coward
and teach him how to catch a lizard
whether he wants to learn
or not.
∼
Minn asks her mother to call Jake’s mother
and ask if he can come over to play.
Jake’s mother asks,
Will there be any other kids there?
I mean, any other boys?
It would be nice
if there are some other boys there,
you know?
Minn’s mother does not know.
But she says,
That is a very good idea.
So as soon as I hang up,
I will call to invite Henry and Vik.
Jake will like Henry and Vik!
15 / The Lizard Lesson
Minn has three students arriving
for the Lizard Lesson
in half an hour.
Because even though Henry and Vik
and every fifth grader in Santa Brunella
know how to catch a lizard,
no one can do it like Minn.
∼
Minn is rehearsing her speech
in the mirror:
Stand facing the sun,
so your shadow will stay behind you.
Don’t run up to the lizard.
Creep low and slow.
Don’t talk.
Hold your breath.
The breath part is really important,
especially for you, Vik,
because red licorice is not a normal smell
in the wild.
Pretend you are a tree.
Your hand is a branch
reaching over,
being blown by the wind.
Now—
seize the belly
and don’t let go
when you feel the squirming
inside your hand.
That’s how you catch a lizard.
∼
Vik and Henry arrive at Minn’s house together
five minutes early.
Vik has a handful of lilacs with him.
Minn sneezes. Achooo!
Vik laughs. He loves to make Minn sneeze.
Henry has an armful of empty peanut butter jars.
Henry dumps them into Minn’s arms and says,
My mother washed them out for you.
Minn stuffs them in her backpack.
∼
Jake comes to Minn’s house ten minutes late.
By this time, Minn and Vik and Henry
are shooting baskets in the driveway.
Jake’s mother says out loud,
loud enough for everyone to hear,
Look, Jake!
You had nothing to be afraid of—
they’re not catching lizards, see?
Vik and Henry bust up laughing.
Jake scowls.
∼
Minn leads the way to the Screep,
with Vik and Henry right behind her.
Jake is a long ways back.
When they get to the Screep,
Minn gives her speech,
with one little change:
The breath part is really important,
especially for you, Vik,
because chocolate caramel
is not a normal smell
in the wild.
∼
Minn catches three lizards in five minutes,
as usual.
Henry says he has caught ten of them.
He doesn’t like to keep lizards, though,
so there’s no way of telling
if he has just caught the same one
and let it go
and caught it again
ten different times—
or really caught ten.
Henry says
that he has caught ten,
but the chance that each of his lizards
would have a limpy left foot
is very small.
∼
Vik has caught two.
They are both very fat lizards,
and slow ones.
One of them
might be the same one
who put his foot
on Jake’s lips the other day.
Vik is proud of his lizards.
It is not easy for Vik to catch lizards.
He is not very good at holding his breath.
even when he does hold his breath,
the chocolate-caramel smell
seems to sneak out his nose.
∼
Everyone is finished with lizard-catching
for today,
everyone is packed up and ready to go—
except Jake.
16 / The Lizard-Tail Trail
Jake has not caught a single lizard.
He is still trying, though,
which surprises Minn.
But whenever Jake tries to grab one,
he misses—
and after ten or fifteen misses
his knuckles are scraped up
so badly
from hitting the rocks
that they are bloody
and raw.
∼
If Jake doesn’t miss,
he catches just the lizard tail—
which then falls off in his hand.
Jake has six lizard tails behind him,
a lizard-tail trail scattered over the rocks.
∼
Jake is standing still,
looking at the lizard-tail trail.
Vik says,
Somewhere, Jake,
six stubby lizards are watching you,
mad as boiled cucumbers.
Henry says,
Sure, a lizard can grow his tail back,
but it takes a very long while, in lizard time.
It would be as if
somebody pulled your hair out
and you had to run around
bald for a whole year—
Wouldn’t that make you mad, too?
I think that would turn you into
a vicious, man-eating lizard!
Vik says,
They’re going to follow you home, Jake.
They’re going to crawl into your car
when your mom comes
and sneak into your bed at night,
and do lizard voodoo on you—
∼
Minn tells them to shut up,
but not in time.
Jake is looking
at the trail of lizard tails
scattered behind him,
and he is feeling
all those lizard eyes on him,
and he is feeling
scared.
17 / Jake Makes a Deal
Jake knows
that he may not be very brave,
or very fast,
or any good at catching lizards,
and this makes him feel crummy.
But he doesn’t feel too crummy,
because he knows that there is one thing
he is very good at:
making money.
∼
And so
on this boring Sunday morning,
Jake decides
that he is going to do something fun:
make some money.
Jake is only ten years old,
but he has already made over $523,
which he keeps hidden
in a pair of dirty socks
stuffed in a smelly old pair of too small shoes
in the back left side of his closet
behind a plastic guard dog
named Sphinx
with glow-in-the-dark eyes.
Jake doesn’t do the lemonade thing.
He doesn’t sweep patios,
or pull weeds,
or deliver newspapers,
or baby-sit—
so how did he get so much money?
Jake sells.
Jake cleans up old used stuff—
his used stuff,
his mother’s used stuff,
his neighbors’ used stuff—
and he finds a way to sell it.
Jake knows how to make a deal.
∼
Jake decides to call Minn.
And here’s the deal, Minn.
I know you like to watch your lizards,
but they don’t have room
to do anything interesting
in a peanut butter jar, really, do they?
So how would you like
to have my broken aquarium?
It’s cracked, so we can’t use it.
The whole piece of glass might break
if we put water in it.
Or the water will leak out.
But you could patch it up with a little bit of tape,
and turn it into a terrarium.
I’ll let you have it,
if you want—
∼
Minn has never imagined having a terrarium.
Jake, would you really?
Sure, he says. You could patch it up real nice.
I’ll let you have it
for—say—five dollars.
It cost us two hundred dollars
to buy a new one yesterday.
Soup says I should make you pay
more than five dollars,
since it was all your fault
that the aquarium broke,
but—
Silence. Breathing.
Well, what do you think?
Five dollars?
Minn says,
I don’t think so, Jake,
and hangs up.
18 / Minn Makes a Deal
Jake knows
Minn wants to make the deal.
This is because
he is remembering
the way Minn looked yesterday
when she was watching her lizards
and writing down what they do.
Minn was watching the lizards
as if
they were interesting,
as if they were
the most interesting creatures
on earth.
Minn really loves watching lizards.
And those lizards do nothing
in their cramped little peanut butter jars.
∼
An hour goes by.
Minn does not call.
Maybe she lost my phone number,
Jake thinks.
So Jake calls her up and asks,
Do you have my phone number?
I threw it away, Minn says.
I thought you might not have it
anymore, Jake says.
I’ll give it to you again, don’t worry.
You know what I was thinking?
If you cover the crack in the side of the glass,
the lizards won’t get cut.
You could cover it with duct tape on one side,
and a couple of postcards on the other side.
I have a cactus postcard from Arizona
and a pineapple postcard from Hawaii.
Minn says, Saguaro cactus,
the kind with the arms?
That’s the kind! Wouldn’t it be great?
When you bring lizards back from the Screep
and put them in the terrarium,
they’ll think they’re in Arizona! Or Hawaii!
What do you think, Minn?
Silence. Breathing.
How much? Minn says.
How much do you have?
Two dollars.
How about three dollars,
and I’ll give you the postcards for free.
Silence.
Are you still there, Minn?
Breathing.
What do you think, Minn?
I think I’m thinking.
I’m thinking, too.
I’m thinking
I’m sorry I said it was your fault, Jake says.
It was Soup’s fault.
Not yours.
Silence. Breathing.
That was my mother’s aquarium.
She’s had it since she was six.
Can you imagine that?
All right, Jake, three dollars,
with the postcards
and the lava rock.
Four dollars,
with the postcards,
&nb
sp; the lava rock,
and you know what?
I have a dog named Sphinx, Jake says.
He has glow-in-the-dark eyes.
Lizards
can see glow-in-the-dark
in the day,
I heard it on TV.
Well, snakes can—I think—
so lizards probably can, too.
Yours, for four dollars.
Deal, Minn says.
We’ll pick it up tomorrow
after school.
Delivery’s free, Jake says.
We’ll bring it now,
and I’ll help you build it, OK?
19 / Patching Up
Minn and Jake
clean the terrarium glass
with vinegar water,
and then they tape
Jake’s cactus postcard and pineapple postcard
over the crack in the glass.
∼
Then they go outside
to make a good mix
of dirt and sand and leaves,
tiny pea gravel and chunky rocks.
They put the rocky mix in the terrarium,
but not just flat.
They build hills and valleys
and mountains.
Minn uses sticks
to build half a cave
near the front
so the lizards will have somewhere
to hide,
but she can still
see the lizards hiding.
Between two mountains
they make a swamp with some water
and three small ferns
and five big rocks.
The plastic dog named Sphinx
makes an excellent island
in the middle of the swamp.
∼
Now it’s time to catch a lizard.
It takes just thirty seconds.
They run back home from the Screep
with the lizard inside a peanut butter jar,
and they set the open jar inside the terrarium.
∼
Minn is ready to watch and write:
Sunday, February 9, 2:00 p.m.
Weather:
sunny
much warmer than yesterday
about 75 degrees
Description of lizard:
5 inches including tail
kind of skinny
more gray than brown
(I wonder if lizards turn grayer
when they get old?)
jerks her head around a lot
(Is she nervous
because she got caught?)
found her (him?) in the Screep,
on top of the Small Arrow Rock
she likes to sit on the dirt
in the Ferny Swamp
seems afraid of the cave
or maybe
she’s just not curious about it
ate two mealworms
∼
Jake doesn’t mind lizard-watching now.
Now he thinks
it’s kind of fun actually,
as long as he doesn’t have to touch
the lizard.
He likes telling Minn what to write
and seeing her write his words down.