Lizards and Camping Trips: A Recollection from 3rd Grade

Cole Spencer

11/6/19

Writer’s Workshop

Lizards and Camping Trips: A 3rd Grade Recollection

 The air up in the mountains was crisp and fresh, the soft breeze bringing a chill through the sky. We had gone to the classic school campsite - dense clumps of tall redwoods with canvas tents, a big, open field, and some picnic tables.Our 3rd grade class loved animals, and to spark our interest in these trips, our teachers would say the same thing every time: “It’s nature! They’ll be a lot of animals!” I mean, it’s kind of a lottery, we would see animals every once in a while, so there would always be that one time there was a deer in the field or something, and everybody would just go CRAZY. 

“GUYS!!!” somebody screamed. “LOOK, A DEER!!” Everybody stampeded from their activities to gaze upon the one unfortunate deer that decided to wander into the field. But, other than that, not many animals were seen around the site, except.. THE LIZARDS. 

The lizards were intriguing animals. They slipped in and out of the tall grasses. The brown-green reptiles were very sluggish and laid back when they were moving, but never slow enough for us to get a good glimpse of them. The lizards were always such a cool animal, and we had a deep interest in these amphibians. The dream would be to catch one of them, but we knew we’d never be fast enough to even come close to that. Most of the time, we’d sit on a log, and see one of the small critters scamper along the brown, dusty gravel. We’d chase it to the dry grasses, and wade in the tall strands of beige plants to find them again.Then, we’d always get shunned by the teachers that “We’d get ticks!” (We never got ticks.)

These lizards were often a fun way to pass time during bland hikes or dull “NAtURe” activities. I mean, we loved nature, but nature was very hazardous to the school’s insurance bill when it comes to small children. I mean, to say the least, they were pretty over-protective. As in, “Don’t touch the sticks bigger than your legs” over protective. But that’s what made those few things, like chasing lizards, fun to do. 

Our schedule in camp went like this: wake up, put on like a billion layers, and trudge out to the bitterly cold mornings. It was always the worst waking up in the morning; flimsy tents don’t protect from the cold that much. As soon as I opened my eyes, I’d feel a sense of peace. The small birds whistled their songs through the crisp air, and the looming oak trees rustled in the wind. A soft smile would creep across my face as I thought, “I made it through another night.. That’s one more day closer to the trip home..” Feeling energized, I’d pull back the sleeping bag swiftly, ready to face the new day, but then promptly pull them back up. It was FREEZING. So mornings weren’t all that pleasant. The day got better later on, and it also got warmer. But the most fun part was the free time I got to toddle around in the wilderness.

It was the second day on our camping trip, and we all just got back from our afternoon hike. It had been a little rainy overnight, and the forest was still damp and humid after the tiny storm. The ground was sodden and the trees still spilt the occasional rain drop. The field was fresh and green. One of my friends had brought a bat and a wiffle ball, and he had just unsheathed it from his duffel bag. “I got a bat!” he yelled in triumph. He raised the bat up proudly and kids crowded him to spark up a game of wiffle ball. I was a bit tired, and wasn’t too interested in wiffle ball at the moment, so I decided to watch. By the field, there was this semi-circle of bricks, a makeshift nature auditorium from the campsite. I mean, they called it auditorium, but it was just a clump of sad, grey bricks. So we just called it an “auditorium” just because it doesn’t really look like anything else. I decided to take a seat on the dreary cement blocks and watch the game. 

The mid afternoon birds chirped, cutting through the air like an orchestra's triangle chime. We both spectated for a few minutes, but then got bored soon after. 2 minutes has already gone FAR past the attention span of a 9 year old. I tried profusely to enjoy the surrounding nature, but to no avail. “What should we do?” I asked him. 

“I don’t know,” he responded.

 I slumped back, bored from watching already. I let out a sigh and kicked a pebble below me. My friend flailed his legs around in boredom. We both looked at each other and let the wind blow through the air for another few minutes. But then, something amazing happened: We saw not one, but TWO lizards shimmying across the bricks on the other side of the semi circle. We both locked eyes, thinking the exact same thing: LIZARDS!

We creeped over slowly, as discreetly as possible, as to not disturb the lizards. We had successfully maneuvered into optimal viewing perimeters. We quietly observed the two lizards, who were silently absorbing heat on the warm cement to suit their cold-blooded requirements. Then, I got an idea. What if.. I could TOUCH one? I thought of the different effects that could sprout from this decision. What if they ran away? What if I hurt it? What if a teacher got mad? What if it BIT me? Obviously, I was thinking very rationally. But, you know, screw being rational. I was an ambitious child I wanted to touch that lizard. I reached my arm out slowly, approaching from the back of the lizard, to perform a sneak attack. Slowly and steadily, I brought my hand closer and closer until I was about a centimeter away from it. And then, Boop! I lightly tapped the lizard on its back. 

Alarmed, the lizards scrambled away from my hand and under a brick. I looked at my friend. We both burst out laughing. “I actually touched it!” I exclaimed. He nodded in excitement. “That was so cool! He’s so fast!” he added. But that wasn’t enough.I decided I was going to not just touch, but CATCH one of these miraculous creatures. So we started getting at it, lifting each brick one by one. Not much was under the bricks, except for maybe one or two bugs. Then, I heard a scream from behind me. “The lizards!” my friend yelled. They had caught him by surprise, and he accidentally dropped the brick back down. I dashed over, and slowly lifted the fallen brick, and there they were.

I hastily threw aside the brick. This was my ONE CHANCE. This was an extreme operation. At this point in time, nothing in life mattered to me except catching this lizard. Everything went into slow motion as I grabbed for the lizard. He had been frozen in fear because the brick almost crushed him on the way down. But by this point, the other one was already gone. He was all alone and he was eerily still. This was it. I was going to catch him. A shadow slowly enveloped him as I brought my hand to the last few centimeters of space before him. With extreme 9-year-old precision, I opened my hand and prepared for the grab. I quickly secured a grip around his belly with my pointer finger and thumb. I knew he was very fragile, and could feel his small ribs between my fingertips. I had done it. He was softly yet firmly secured within my grip. I sighed in relief, as my ambition and operation had came to a success. 

I slowly lifted him above the rock and placed my other hand below his tiny legs. My friend looked at me. “He’s so cute!” he cried. “What are you gonna name him?” I thought briefly for a moment with the small reptile in my hand. I looked at him up and down, glimpsing at his beady eyes as his sticky hands gripped my fingers. 

“Carl,”, I said aloud. “I’ll name him Carl!” My friend nodded in agreement. I finally did it, I had caught the fabled lizard. Carl was so adorable. He was a deep, scaly brown and had small, webbed fingers. His tail was fat and long; his tounge barely peeped out of his mouth. I caressed his head with the back of my fingernail, even though lizards probably don’t like being pet. Carl was very comatose and was relatively okay with me petting him, probably because he was frozen with fear. 

My friend took a turn petting Carl’s head. “You need to show other people!” he said. 

“Yeah, let’s go show everybody!” I replied. 

So I started parading around the still moist campsite. Carl gripped the inside of my hand as I triumphantly approached my other group of friends, who were sitting and chatting in the grass. “Look what I got, guys!” I announced. Their faces shone with amazement as I revealed my scaly friend. 

“Awwwww!” they all cried in unison. They too took turns at softly petting his head. My feet continued to crunch on the beige gravel as I made my way across the campsite, displaying Carl. 

Then I realized it was almost time to meet with our counselors again for the final activity before dinner. So I trotted my way back to the main set of picnic tables and the camp’s truck. There, another counselor paced around the truck as he waited for the rest of my classmates to finish up their free time activities. “Look!” I shouted to him. “I caught a lizard!” his face lit up. 

“You did?” he responded.

I was surprised for a moment; he hadn’t scolded me for getting my hands dirty or something. “Look,” I said, “His name is Carl!” I lifted my top hand to reveal the tiny creature. 

“Aww, cutie! Hi Carl!” he said with excitement. But then his face slowly hardened. “You’ll have to let him go, though. The activities are about to start,” he informed me. I had been expecting this. I knew I had to put him away at some point. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t gonna be hard. 

“Really?” I asked sadly. “I don’t want to let him go..” 

“Yeah, I know,” he replied.

“But he’s so cute!”

“I know, but he belongs to the wild. And we’re starting activities.”

“Okay..”

I sighed and slowly walked away, and kneeled by a patch of bushes and shrubs. I looked sadly down at Carl, but I knew his cute lizard-ness couldn’t last forever. With one last small touch on the head, I gently laid him on the ground. In obvious shock after being handled by a predator, he froze in place. I wanted to pick him back up, but I knew I needed to let him be. I slowly pulled myself away from the mesmerizing being.

I drifted back to the camp. Even though Carl was gone, I went back with a smile on my face. Although it was very sad letting him go, I was kind of okay with it. This was around the time where I learned an important lesson: no matter how fragile or short or tiny, something as simple as catching a lizard can still bring me joy today. Something miniscule and small like Carl has stuck with me through the years; it makes me happy to remember something as small and yet so amazing as a lizard. I learned that good things are fragile, and they don’t always last. And even in our long lives, the smallest things can still make me happy.