Minn and Jake Read online

  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