Lizard Music (6 page)

I spent a long time thinking about people I knew—pod or not pod. Most of them were. The late movie was the one about the guy in the marines who is a coward all through boot camp, and then he has a talk with the old sergeant, who turns out to be his father or something, and he’s a hero in the war. Just as well—I couldn’t have enjoyed anything good. I was waiting up for the lizards and my phone call to the Chicken Man.

The lizards came on right after the late movie. The music was great. I flipped the knob, and sure enough, they were on every channel, just as I thought. It was hard to tear myself away from the set and dial the number. When the receiver picked up on the other end, I could hear lizard music coming through the phone. It sounded good. For some reason I thought of hot soup.

“Fergussen’s Confectionery,” I heard.

“Mr. Fergussen, this is Victor,” I said. “Is the Chicken Man there?”

“Never heard of him,” Shane Fergussen said. “Hold the line.” I held.

Then a voice, “Milo Schtunk, here. To whom am I addressed?”

“This is Victor,” I said. “Is this the Chicken Man?”

“How should I know?” the voice said. “You just said it was Victor.”

“I mean, am
I
talking
to
the Chicken Man?” I shouted.

“You are talking to Pieter Breughel the Elder, known to some as the C.M.,” the voice said.

“I’m Victor, the kid you’ve been following around,” I said.

“My man! Victor, how are you?”

“Mixed up, sort of,” I said. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you. I want to make an appointment.”

“Fine. Come to my office tomorrow,” said Pieter Breughel the Elder, also known as Milo Schtunk, a.k.a. Charles Swan, Hubert Van Eyck, Matthias Grunewald, Lucas Cranach, Jr., Herr Doktor Professor Horace Kupeckie, Plt.D.

“Where’s that,” I said.

“Umm, what’s tomorrow, Wednesday? Try the Reptile House, Hogboro Zoo, in the late
A.M.
”

“I’ll be there,” I said. “By the way, how much do you charge?”

“That depends on what you want done.”

“I want some things explained,” I said.

“No charge for explanations,” the Chicken Man said. “However, there is a charge for guiding. I’m a licensed guide.”

“What?” I said.
Buzzzz
—he had hung up.

I finally got to see the end of the lizard show. They just finished playing and left—packed up their instruments and walked off, carrying the little black musical instrument cases. Then the camera showed the empty chairs for a long time.

I guessed it was time to go to bed. I had a lot to do in the
A.M.
, as the Chicken Man said.

“It’s time to play You Bet Your Duck!” a voice said. I jumped. It was coming from the TV set. The picture was still the empty chairs. “Yes, friends, You Bet Your Duck, the exciting lizard quiz!” The picture had changed. There was a lizard wearing a Donald Duck mask! “And here’s your old friend, the genial quizmaster, the Inept Eft!” the lizard announcer in the duck mask said. Another lizard in a duck mask came onto the screen. He was smoking a cigar through the mask. “Welcome, welcome to ‘You Bet Your Duck,’ ” the Inept Eft said, “and now, let’s meet our first two contestants.” Two more lizards wearing duck masks came out. The Inept Eft asked them their names.

“Jim and Linda Lacerta,” they said. It was interesting listening to lizards talk. They sounded perfectly normal. Up to now, I had only heard them play musical instruments.

“As you know, every correct answer is worth 75,000 Agama Dollars,” the Inept Eft said. “Twelve wrong answers in a row, and you lose the game.” I wondered what an Agama Dollar was. “And now it’s time to play You Bet Your Duck,” the quizmaster said. “The first question is, Who invented the telephone?”

Jim and Linda Lacerta sort of whispered to each other. Then they turned to the Inept Eft. “Was it Salamander Graham Bell?”

“Correct, for 75,000 Agama Dollars!” the Eft shouted. “Next question. Name a famous Spanish painter who was a lizard.”

Jim and Linda whispered again. They were still whispering when the bell rang.

“I’m sorry, there goes the bell,” the Eft said. “The correct answer is El Gecko. Remember, eleven more wrong answers in a row, and you lose the game. The next question is, Name the lizard who conquered the ancient world.”

Jim and Linda went back to whispering.

“Come on, now, this should be easy after the first question,” the Eft said.

“Salamander the Great!” they both shouted at once.

“Right, for 150,000 Agama Dollars!” the Eft shouted. The audience was clapping. I wondered why they all wore duck masks. I was getting a little bored—and tired. Except that everyone was a lizard wearing a duck mask, and speaking English, it was just a regular quiz show.

“‘Red Scales in the Sunset’ is correct for 225,000 Agama Dollars!” the Eft was shouting. I wondered how many lizard programs were on late at night. I was starting to doze off with my chin on my fist. Every now and then it would slip off, and I would wake up suddenly.

“I’m sorry, you should have known that. The answer is Newt Rockne,” the Eft said. My eyes were burning. My head was nodding.

“She said, ‘Iguana be alone,’ ” Jim and Linda said.

“Kee-rect, for 375,000 Agama Dollars!” the Eft said. I got to my feet. I felt as though I were walking on the bottom of a lake. My feet were like lead.

“I’m sorry, it’s the Emperor Max Chameleon—
Click!
” I turned off the set and dragged myself to my room. I hadn’t slept in my bed for two nights, and it felt great when I got in. I could still sort of hear the Inept Eft in my head. “Elizardbeth Taylor is right for a half million Agama Dollars!” I was asleep in five seconds.

“Victor, wake up!” It was my mother. “Wake up! It’s ten o’clock!” What was she doing here? I was having a hard time waking up. I was holding something heavy and hard in my hand—the telephone! I had answered the telephone in my sleep. “Victor! Victor! Are you all right? You were saying something about ducks.”

I was trying to get myself together. “Everything’s fine, Mom,” I said. “Leslie let me stay up and watch the late movie, and I overslept.” I felt myself getting things back under control.

“A fine thing,” my mother said, “letting a ten-year-old boy—”

“Eleven,” I said.

“—an eleven-year-old boy stay up till all hours. I’m going to call her at the office and give her a good talking to.”

I imagined that horn that goes off in submarine movies just before they make an emergency dive.
HONK HONK DIVE! DIVE!
I had to think fast. “Well, you see there was this boy here—someone Leslie knows—and he’s sort of like a hippie, and Leslie told me she didn’t want me to go to bed until he went home.”

“Oh, well—” Mom was thinking. “What’s this boy’s name?”

“Hubert Van Eyck,” I said.

“Is he a nice boy?”

“No, he’s dumb. Leslie didn’t like him. She said that she never gets to go on a date, and when someone finally asks her, he turns out to be a creep. She’s in a bad mood.”

“Oh, I see,” Mom said. I liked the way she said it. She had heard this routine from Leslie plenty of times, and it always went on for hours with Leslie whining and repeating herself over and over. I was just about certain she wasn’t going to risk calling Leslie for a few days, and certainly not at the office. Leslie would have gone into her act at work without a second thought. She doesn’t care where she is when she makes a scene.

“Well, is everything okay?” Depth bomb attack over. I told Mom how everything was fine and asked how they were enjoying their vacation. As I suspected, Mom went on about scenery for a while. I told her it sounded fine. Then she went guilty, and started in on how there wasn’t all that much to do, and she hadn’t seen any kids my age, and how I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed it. I told her I thought so too and I had to go meet a friend.

I got dressed fast, grabbed a Twinkie to eat on the way, and ran for the bus. It was lucky my mother had called. As it was, I was afraid I was going to be too late and miss the Chicken Man. For a few seconds, before I woke all the way up, I was sort of scared that my mother had come back from her trip, or that she’d never gone, and it had all been a dream—the lizards and the Chicken Man and everything. I realized that I was enjoying all this very much. Even if the planet had been invaded by the pods, maybe there was something I could do about it, like that guy in the movie who was going to save the world. I would have hated it if it all turned out to be a dream. I was having a great adventure. I munched on my Twinkie, and felt good about everything.

The bus rolled into the terminal, and I grabbed a special zoo bus. I was still sucking a piece of Twinkie out of my teeth when I got off in front of the Hogboro Zoo. I guessed it was maybe 10:45. I really needed a big pocket watch. Shane Fergussen had some in his store for $2.98; I never knew watches were so cheap. I made a note: Buy watch. There was a big sign right inside the zoo with a map of the place and arrows pointing in all directions with animals painted on them. One had a lizard on it. I went off in the direction it pointed.

The Reptile House was another of those big brick buildings. Over the door it said Reptile House with a couple of lizards carved on both sides. I had certainly seen a lot of lizards lately. I was getting so I could tell a lizard that was good-looking from one that wasn’t—by lizard standards, I mean. The ones carved on the Reptile House were good-looking lizards. I went inside.

It was dark inside the Reptile House. There wasn’t any smell. It was quiet. There wasn’t anybody there, just a zoo guard standing near the entrance. All around the walls were glass windows with green plants behind them. It was cool—cool and dark and quiet. The windows had lights behind them shining on the plants. They looked like TV screens and the windows in the empty store where I had seen the album cover. Every now and then a little green head moved behind one of the windows. It was so quiet in the Reptile House that I could hear myself breathe. I just stood in the doorway for a while until my breathing got quiet. Then I went farther inside.

Over each window there was a little card that told about the reptiles inside. The first thing I saw was an anaconda. Anacondas are the biggest snakes in the world; they get to be over thirty feet long! The one at the Hogboro Zoo is twenty-two feet. He was just lying in his cage, doubled back on himself—folded like a hairpin. The cage wasn’t long enough for him to stretch all the way out. He wasn’t moving, just breathing. I looked at him. He looked at me. At least I think he looked at me—it was hard to tell. He looked sort of intelligent—for a snake. The anaconda lifted his head for a while, then he laid it down.

“Well, Mr. Anaconda, you may be very big, but you’re not very interesting,” I thought.

“Who cares what you think,” the anaconda said. He didn’t really say it—he just looked as though that’s what he’d say.

They have mostly snakes in the Reptile House, not so many lizards at all. One snake I liked was called the emerald tree boa. It looked a little like the anaconda, only much smaller, and was a beautiful green color. There were cobras—sort of scary. They really do spread out their hoods like they are always shown doing in jungle movies. There were black and green mambas, rattlesnakes, and copperheads—all poisonous. There are only a couple of poisonous lizards, it said on a card over the Gila monster’s cage. I felt good about that.

My favorite animal in the whole place was the chameleon. It was really a weird-looking lizard, sort of humpbacked, with a tail that curls up in a little spiral. Chameleons can change color! Not only that, but they have these great eyes. Each eye sort of sticks out at the top of a little bump, and they can rotate their eyes in all different directions, together or separately. They’re funny looking, and sort of friendly looking too. I thought that I might like to have one as a pet. It said on the card that they make good pets.

I spent a long time watching the chameleons. They changed color a couple of times—and they have this great slow-motion way of moving. I really enjoyed them. A fly got into the chameleon cage, and one of the chameleons shot out this incredibly long tongue, and just sort of zooped it right into his mouth. They have these great little hands and feet. Chameleons are terrific lizards. They have a lot of personality. Lizards in general are friendlier than snakes. Most snakes either look mean, or look like they couldn’t care less.

It occurred to me that I had been in the Reptile House for a long time. Almost nobody had come in—maybe two or three people had come in and said, “Oooo, look at the snakes,” and left after a few minutes. I must have been in the Reptile House for two hours.

Where was the Chicken Man? Had I missed him? I was getting tired of standing around in the dark, looking at reptiles. I went over to have another look at the alligators. They were in a sort of open pit at the end of the building. There wasn’t any glass in front of them. There was a little fence about four feet high, and on the other side was this pit with water in the bottom, and some rocks and plants. The alligators were just hanging around—watching me. I wondered what they’d do if I fell into the pit.