"Death in his eyes..."

Okay, so this story has been ruminating in my mind for a while, and I've really wanted to share it with y'all, but I've been unable to just sit down and write. Now I have a few minutes, hopefully enough, so here goes.

My sister has been plagued of late by a little lizzard problem. And by little, I do mean little, the thing is not more than an inch long, but from listening to her tales you might expect to spot gargantuan beasts running around in our house. The first sighting of this little critter was one evening, in the laundry room, shortly before bed. I was calmly watching TV out in the family room when my sister comes in making this high-pitched noise and babbling, "Sister, sister there's a lizzard, come and kill it sister, come, come on, you gotta come, hurry," and etc. So, being the caring individual that I am, I quickly gave in and followed her back to the laundry room. I was almost a little hesitant to see what lay behind the open door, to check would have been to shut myself alone in a room with the unknown beast that had caused my sister so much fright. But I steeled myself and pulled the door closed, to reveal a tiny gecko, almost translucent in color and with eyes bigger than it's body proportions should allow, perched neatly on the wall. Of course, I know his description only by previous observation. I was armed with my rocketship cup to trap the little guy and take him outside, but no sooner did he sense the door moving than he began scuttling away like lightning.

He first moved to the corner, losing himself in the baseboards, which are white, and form an awkward angle, but before I could even contemplate how to deal with this new challenge, he was off again, scuttling across the floor, making a mad dash for the washing machine, which he quickly secluded himself under. Though I made a show of pulling out the clothes sorter which lay next to the washing machine to appease my sister, I knew after he was under the washer that it was basically a lost cause. My sister could not rest soundly unless we both bolted out of the room and closed the door behind us and then stuffed a rug into the crack so he could not follow. Unfortunately, my mother in her unthinking selfishness, moved the rug out of the way and opened the door the next morning to go to work, thus allowing our little friend to "escape." (Heather's words.) Any conscientious mother would have obviously gone out the front door and opened the garage from the front. Honestly.

But this was not to be our last encounter with the little guy. Again, winding down before bed in the family room, my sister comes out in an even greater state of panic, babbling that when she moved a pillow away from the wall in her very bedroom, there he was, waiting on the wall above her own bed! I went into the bedroom with all due haste, fearless now, knowing my enemy. But the wall, this time, was entirely blank, no lizzard in sight. I thought I saw something down on the bit of baseboard exposed between her desk and her bed, but when I bent to check closer, he scuttled away to the tangle of cords, printer, and just plain crap in the abyss located under my sister's desk. I moved the printer, rocketship cup again in hand, but he scuttled away as quickly as ever and I lost track of him momentarily. (Keep in mind, too, that the whole time I was looking my sister was standing up on the window seat, her face looking kind of crumpled as she emitted a constant, high-pitched whine a couple octaves higher than a dog's.)I sat staring at the mess beneath the desk forlornly, when suddenly I saw the little beastie scuttle up the side underneath the desk and slip into the desk drawer. This last sighting, however, was not mentioned to my sister, as I checked the side of the desk and the drawer faithfully, but could not see hide nor hair of the creature again.

Quite a relationship, however, has sprung up between the two of them. There is reason to believe that the lizzard from the laundry room and the bedroom are the same fellow, so my sister has christened him Leonard or Lenny, for short. However, this familiarity does not increase their affection, my sister is convinced that these strikes were planned and aimed towards achieving an ever increasing proximity to the target, namely, her. "You should have seen the way he looked at me when I found him behind those pillows," she says from time to time with a terror-glazed look, "There was death in his eyes!" Fortunately there has not been a repeat incident since the offense in the bedroom, and I have told her that I recieved a note from Lenny, informing us of his plans to move to Germany to pursue his plans of racing on the Autobahn. Whether or not you are willing to believe that I did recieve such a note, well, that's up to you.

Good luck, Lenny, wherever you are.
S.