At the end of an hour
of lizard-watching
and note-taking,
Minn catches the lizard
and puts her (him?)
back into the peanut butter jar.
They take the lizard back
to the Screep
and set her (him?) free.
∼
Sitting on the Big Arrow Rock,
Minn asks Jake,
You’re not afraid—are you—
of the things Vik and Henry said?
What things?
Jake says, but the way he is picking nervously
at his shoes,
Minn knows he knows what things.
That revenge stuff, you know.
You’re not afraid of those lizards
who lost their tails,
are you?
Because, if you’re worried,
I know a way
to make sure nothing bad will happen
to you.
Jake says,
Do I have to touch any more lizards?
Minn says,
No, and if we do it right,
the lizards will never bother you.
We’d make an offering,
to please the Lizard Gods.
Are you willing to give it a try?
20 / The Lizard Gods
Jake feels dumb.
And he feels like someone is watching him.
Creepy.
Have you done this before, Minn?
Sure, many times.
Many times?
At least twice, as a human.
As a human?
Well, I know this might sound kind of strange,
but have you heard of reincarnation?
In another life, I was a lizard.
I’m sure of it.
Either a lizard or—
Minn, don’t tell me—
a giant squid?
Incredible!
How’d you know?
∼
Minn and Jake are at the Screep
searching the rocks
for the six lizard tails that fell off,
the six lizard tails that Jake pulled off
yesterday.
Minn finds one and picks it up.
The tail doesn’t look quite the same.
It is not fat and straight anymore.
It looks a little dried up,
and curly.
Like a dead tail would,
I suppose.
∼
Think of them as fingernails, or hair,
Minn says.
Those lizards will grow new tails.
You did them a favor, really.
These are nasty old tails,
don’t you think?
Now they can grow nice sleek new ones.
Minn is holding a handful of tails.
Jake can’t stand the idea
of touching them,
so if he sees one, he calls for Minn
to come and pick it up.
They are missing just one.
The last one probably fell in a crack
between the rocks,
Minn says.
Let’s get started with what we have.
∼
Minn makes a circle
with the five tails,
a circle with the fat part of the tail
pointing in,
and the pointy part of the tail
pointing out.
This is looking very voodoo to Jake,
and he does not like the looks of it
at all.
Next, Minn reaches
into her back pocket
and pulls out a plastic pillbox.
She opens it and dumps the contents
in the middle of the circle.
Mealworms for the Lizard Gods,
she says.
The Lizard Gods?
Jake asks.
Minn explains.
The Lizard Gods watch over all the lizards.
If you offend the gods,
you need to make an offering.
Mealworms are best.
If you don’t have any mealworms handy,
dead mosquitoes work.
French fries.
Even dried boogers.
I think they like the salty taste.
∼
Minn grabs Jake’s right hand
and rubs mud on it.
Hey! Jake pulls his hand back.
Why did you do that?
We have to read your future.
The lines in your hand tell the future.
Give me your hand.
Minn grabs it.
Look, your wilderness line is very long.
See that?
It looks weak here, in the beginning,
but then there’s a little split, see—
That was when you lived in Los Angeles,
and here is now, in Santa Brunella.
You have a lot of wilderness
in your future, Jake,
so you’d better make peace
with the Lizard Gods.
∼
Minn starts to sing
a chanty nothing-kind-of-song.
You stand on that side
of the mealworm offering, Jake,
and I’ll stand on this side.
Sing like this.
Not a real song,
but kind of a breathy song.
You pretend you’re a hot lizard.
Stick your tongue out like this,
and put your arms back,
and now
make short grunty exhales like this—
do it, Jake!
This will take away all your bad luck!
∼
Minn and Jake are singing
the Breathy Song
with their short lizard arms pulled in
and their mouths open
and their dry tongues out—
when all of a sudden
two heads
pop up
out of the rocks below—
two heads
watching.
21 / Jake’s Lizard Dream
That night
in Jake’s dream
two heads pop up
out of the rocks below—
lizard heads.
The lizards creep forward.
Lizards without tails.
Suddenly
Jake hears thunder,
sees lightning crack a cloud in half—
a cloud that looks like a lizard,
a giant smoky-gray lizard.
The Cloud Lizard is doing the Breathy Song!
Bow down before Chameleus,
King of the Lizard Gods!
And now
hundreds of tail-less lizards are rising up,
twisting upwards in the sky,
floating into the cloud—
where—zap!—
their tails are fastened back,
and they rocket down to the ground,
headfirst,
tails straight as arrows,
headed straight for
Jake’s mouth—
AAAAAAAARRRRGGGH!
22 / Minn’s Lizard Dream
That night
in Minn’s dream
two heads pop up
out of the rocks below—
boy heads.
Henry and Vik!
They are cackling,
The Lizard Gods!
Ha!
What a liar—
and Jake believes her!
They have seen the whole thing,
the circle of tails,
the mealworm offering,
the singing of Breathy Song!
Vik is holding
his arms in close to his sides,
doing the Breathy Song.
And Henry is laughing,
pointing at Minn,
and holding
the lost last lizard tai
l.
23 / Two Heads
Two heads pop up
out of the rocks—
one! two!—
two
sleek
smooth
grayish-brown—
what do you think?—
gophers.
24 / Sharing Time
Monday morning is Sharing Time,
or Show-and-Tell,
in Mrs. Moss’s fifth-grade class.
Some teachers
think fifth graders are too old
for Sharing Time,
but this is Mrs. Moss’s fifth graders’
favorite part of the week.
Each week has a theme.
Last week’s theme
was Foods from Nature.
One Sunday
(two Sundays ago,
when Minn and Sabina were still best friends),
they worked the whole day
making acorn muffins.
They gathered acorns
under the oaks on the fire trail
and blanched them in boiling water
to take away the bitterness.
Then they roasted them in the oven
and peeled them
and mashed the nuts into a paste.
They mixed the paste with cornmeal
and egg
and oil
and honey
and a tablespoon of baking powder
and a pinch of salt—
their own recipe.
It tastes awful, Sabina said.
You don’t eat it alone, Minn said.
We need beef jerky and dried berries.
We need chocolate chips, Sabina said.
∼
When Minn wasn’t looking,
Sabina put a whole bag of chocolate chips in,
which definitely gave the acorn muffins
an unusual taste.
Minn and Sabina won a gold star
for Most Unnatural Food from Nature.
∼
This week’s theme
is Animals of the Wild.
Sabina has a small plastic crate
with something furry in it.
A chinchilla is a wild animal? Vik says.
Sabina throws three grapes into the cage.
See? Wild animal!
∼
Minn has hauled her terrarium to school.
There is a lizard inside.
This one is small and fast
and likes to run around
and hide in the cave.
Vik has a fat cocoon
in a jar stuffed with leaves.
He plucked it off a tree
last week
and he is predicting
it will turn into a moth
before the end of this week.
No one else thinks it will.
Henry has a two-inch fish
he caught with a plastic bag
in the stream
in the Gulch.
It is in a jar
full of dirty brown water.
And Jake has a box of dirt.
What a loser! Henry says
when he sees Jake’s box.
A box of dirt!
∼
But Jake doesn’t feel like a loser.
Jake feels like a winner.
He doesn’t care what Henry thinks.
He can’t wait to surprise Minn.
Because inside this box,
buried in the dark black dirt,
are worms for Minn!
Henry says,
Hey, Jake, Foods from Nature
was last week—
but I dare you to eat one now.
Or are you afraid of worms,
like you’re afraid of lizards?
I’m not afraid, Jake says, and reaches in.
He digs down at the bottom of the box
and fishes around a bit,
and winces,
then pulls a clear fat yellowish-brown worm
from the dirt.
And before anyone can even yell EEEUUUW
he pops the worm in his mouth
and holds it there a second
with his eyes bugging out.
Then he chews,
making a face like it tastes something awful,
chews
and swallows.
But doesn’t run to vomit
in the bushes.
BURP!
Jake reaches in for one more.
This time
he hands the big fat slimy wriggling thing
to Henry, saying,
You’re not afraid of worms,
are you, Henry?
25 / My Gummy Valentine
Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day.
Mrs. Moss has three valentine rules:
1. Give a valentine to everyone, or to no one.
2. Make your valentines, don’t buy them.
3. Bittersweet dark-chocolate truffles for me!
∼
Vik and Henry are rushing
to make a valentine for Jake this morning,
because they forgot about Rule Number One.
If they don’t give a valentine to him,
they can’t give out
the ones they’ve already made
for everybody else.
And that will have been
a lot of work for nothing.
But how can you give a valentine
to someone you don’t like at all?
∼
Jake’s valentines have been ready
since Sunday night,
when he made them
with Soup and his parents.
His mother separated five dozen
Oreo cookies
and scraped the white filling off
with a butter knife.
Soup used a hammer
to pound the dark cookie halves
into a crumbly, dirtlike mess
on a cutting board
covered with wax paper.
Jake’s father
mixed Soup’s cookie dirt
with brownie dirt,
and scooped the lumpy brown stuff
into small plastic bags.
And Jake put gummy worms
into the bags,
saving the root beer ones
(which look clear and fat and yellowish-brown
and almost real)
in a bag for himself,
which he buried at the bottom
of his Show-and-Tell box
under some real dirt
and real worms,
the fattest, ugliest, slimiest worms
he could find.
26 / Jake Loves Minn
NOT!
Of course
Jake does not love Minn.
He likes Minn,
as a friend,
but not as a girlfriend.
The idea
that one day
he will have a girlfriend
who will want to smash her slimy lips
on him
is fairly repulsive to Jake,
and so
(except for the candy)
Valentine’s Day
is one of his least favorite holidays.
And today is Valentine’s Day.
The most gossipy day of the year,
when regular old likes
look a lot like love
to mischievous searching eyes.
∼
Lola whispers,
Jake loves Minn
to Vik,
who says,
Jake loves Minn, pass it on
to Henry,
who runs to Sabina and shouts,
Ja-A-ake loves Mi-I-inn!
And now everyone in the class
is looking at Jake and Minn.
He did help her make the terrarium,
after all.
And he gave her worms.
And he ate one
and didn’t
even vomit it up.
And everyone knows
that the only reason
for eating a worm
is to prove you don’t love
someone you really do.
It must be love.
27 / Lizard Revenge
Minn sees Henry’s evil smile
as he hands Jake a valentine,
and she rushes over to Jake’s desk
to try to warn him.
She doesn’t know what will be inside,
but she figures it might be worms.
She doesn’t get to Jake’s desk in time.
Jake opens the envelope.
He pulls out a piece of paper
and unfolds it
and—AAAAAAAARRRRGGGH!—
a dried-up lizard tail
falls on his hand.
∼
Jake keeps screaming
for at least three long seconds
and flaps his arms all over,
and the lizard tail goes flying up in the air
across the room—
and lands on Mrs. Moss’s desk.
But the note
inside the valentine
stays on Jake’s desk,
a dirty note with torn edges that says,
Remember me?
I know where you live.
28 / Minn Loves Jake
NOT!
Minn does not love Jake,
even if
she did make him
a huge chocolate heart
out of melted chocolate
poured in a heart shape
and frozen in the freezer overnight.
Everyone knows
that Minn is not a lovey girl
since she does not love Henry
who has had a crush on her since first grade
and eats a peanut butter sandwich
every day
so he can give her empty jars
for lizards.
And everyone knows
that Minn is not a lovey girl
since she does not love Vik
who has had a crush on her since Christmas,
and puts flowers on her desk
whenever he finds some good ones to pick
so he can make her sneeze.
Everyone knows
that Minn is not a lovey girl,
but Minn is starting to wonder
if maybe
this feeling
she is feeling inside
right now
is not just a sorry feeling,
but—could it be?—
is she getting lovey after all?
She knew it would happen sometime,
but why now?
She is feeling a strong urge
to put Jake in a headlock
and give him a noogie
on top of his spiky little head.
Why him?
Ja-A-ake loves Mi-IN-nn!
Henry says again.
Minn scowls,
glaring at her valentines—
and drops her bag of worms
on the floor.
29 / The Gulch
February is the time