This is the tale of a lizard, a fairly ordinary garden skink, just 2 or 3 inches long. The lizard had been living a quiet happy life, basking in the sunshine, chewing on the occasional millipede, doing lizardy things with his buddies. He had dreams of a long life filled with sunshine and tasty insects, but there was a problem with his plans. He chose to live out his days in a schoolyard; a schoolyard that included several precocious young children with very quick hands.
On its own this may not have been a problem, but these kids were quite young and not always as aware of their strength as they might be, especially when weighed on the scale of a lizard. One afternoon, the lizard was caught by one of RJ’s friends and as he attempted to wriggle his way to freedom he was… squeezed.
Now most parts of a lizard are probably reasonably squishy and flexible, so this might not have been a problem, except that the child had the lizard by the head. Lizard heads are typically not so squishy and they contain a lot of things that are important to a lizard’s general success in life. The end result was an ejected eyeball, a small trickle of blood, and a rather unresponsive lizard.
Most children, after identifying that the essential essence of lizard had been released, would have abandoned him then and there but, as we know, RJ can rarely be classified in the group of “most children.”
RJ, moved by the lizard’s plight, rushed to the scene with an emergency response team and attempted to resuscitate the poor creature. No effort was spared. A sock was removed, moistened in the sparkling, clean waters of a nearby drinking fountain to clean the lizards wounds. An empty lunchbox was brought forward, complete with a selection of different food scraps and a piece of bark for shelter. Gentle soothing words of comfort were spoken, but to no avail. The lizard remained unresponsive.
RJ adjusts some things in Lizzy's aquarium so he can be more comfortable. A lizard has certain needs, apparently.
Undaunted, RJ remained convinced that “Thin Lizzy” just needed some time to recover and brought him home. The afternoon was filled with constructing an appropriate habitat, clean sand, bark, rocks and a delicious assortment of insects, millipedes and other arthropods — truly a delightful lizardy nirvana. It was surely just a matter of time before Lizzy recovered. At the end of the day, RJ carefully placed Lizzy on a warm rock and left him for the night.
The first thing the next morning, RJ rushed downstairs to check his patient… and… and… It was a miracle! Lizzy had moved during the night! He was now laying on his back beside the warm rock! Triumphant, RJ declared that Lizzy would be coming to school that day to show everyone the amazing recovery. Admittedly, Lizzy was still rather “lethargic” (some would say comatose or deceased). This fact was not lost on RJ. As he carefully placed Lizzy back up on the rock he announced that “Lizzy is just playing dead. He is really VERY good at it.”
Several times during the day, Lizzy would craftily bide his time until there were no observers and then scurry off around his enclosure, only to resume his dead lizard act when others showed up. RJ’s classmates were amazed, particularly by Lizzy’s unprecedented resolve to remain motionless in the face of close-proximity screams and prods with fingers. Lizzy returned home to continue his convalescence.
For the next few days, Lizzy was an ideal pet. He didn’t require a lot of attention (or food, water or air, for that matter). He kept within his enclosure without making any attempts to escape. He wasn’t even venomous, as many of our previous pets have been. If you look past a few highly unfortunate events, Lizzy really seemed to have a long, bright future ahead of him.
Despite how well he had integrated into our daily life, Lizzy’s tenure as RJ’s own personal pet was not long lived, and it really was his own fault. Three days later as the weather warmed up a bit, Lizzy learned a new trick. Not content with an occasional leap from his warm rock, he replaced his silent contentment with a new cry for help.
A terrible, foul, stinky cry for help.
Thin Lizzy moved out that afternoon. He lives across the street at the park now. We’re sure he’s happier over there.
Besides, RJ has some new pets now…
(to be continued)
