The Day of the Iguana (11 page)

KATHERINE LAID TWENTY-THREE eggs in all. We sat around in a semicircle that we made with our dining room chairs and watched as nineteen iguanas hatched that night. Nineteen tiny little lizards poking their snouts into the world. I wish you could have been there.

I guess the last four weren't in such a hurry to come into the world. They must have been so comfortable inside their eggs. All warm and snuggly. Maybe their cable boxes were working, and they were just waiting for their favorite show to end.

My mom came home from the deli in time to see all but the first two being born. She wanted to name every single one of them Spencer, which is what she wanted to name me before I was born only my dad wouldn't let her. She invited Tom to stay for dinner. It turns out he's not only an iggie expert but also a vegetarian who really loved her cauliflower casserole with mock tuna. It's a good thing he ate it, because the rest of us were looking for a place to toss it. Even Cheerio turned up his nose at it.

My dad did take me into my room for “the talk,” in between when Dexter and Barbara were born. He told me that I was going to have to pay back everyone for the cable box, but he didn't ground me. He went easy on me because although I made a mistake, I did it in the name of science.

Ashley, Frankie, and Robert had to go home after the first nineteen were born. It was almost midnight, and we had school the next day. My dad went to bed too, and took Emily's guide book on
Raising Your Iguana
with him. I don't know why he was reading it now—we had already given birth to nineteen healthy reptiles. What more did you need to know?

Emily had fallen asleep in my mom's lap. Maybe it was the miracle of birth that was making me feel all gooey, but she looked very sweet.

Tom and I sat by the potted palm tree. We just watched in silence for a while as one of the four remaining eggs started to roll around a little.

“Here comes another one,” Tom said. “Shouldn't be long now.”

“Should I wake Emily up?”

“Let her sleep,” whispered my mom. I guess once you've seen nineteen iguanas born, the twentieth is pretty much ... like ... you know ... the nineteenth. Or the eighteenth, for that matter.

We watched in silence some more. The iguana's snout was showing itself, but he was taking a rest before busting all the way out of the egg. It's hard work, getting born.

“So tell me, Hank,” Tom said. “Why did you take the cable box apart in the first place?”

I told him the whole story about how I tried to tape the movie for Frankie and how I screwed up.

“What movie was it?” he asked.

“
The Mutant Moth That Ate Toledo
.”

“Oh man, that's a classic,” he said.

“So they say,” I said. “It's not out on video, and they only play it on TV once a year. My best friend has been waiting to see it his whole life. Now he'll have to wait three hundred and sixty-three more days, thanks to me.”

“Hank, look at me,” Tom said. “What do you see?”

“A guy.” I shrugged.

“A guy who what?”

“A guy who knows a lot about iguanas,” I said.

“And?”

“And who works for a cable company.”

“Bingo,” said Tom. “Hank, I am a cable guy. We carried
The Mutant Moth That Ate Toledo
on our system. Which means I can get you a tape.”

I jumped out of my seat, almost out of my skin.

“That is unbelievable,” I screamed. I shouted so loud that I scared the little iguana back into its egg.

“Sorry, fella,” I said, “but you don't know how exciting this is.” I went back to my whispering voice. “You can really get me a copy?”

“Sure,” Tom said.

“But I can't pay you,” I said. “I only get four dollars and fifty cents a week allowance, and I have to pay everyone back for the new cable box.”

“I have a better idea,” Tom said. “I'll make you a trade.”

“What do I have that you would want?” I said. I thought about it. “Oh, I do have a triple size cat's-eye marble. That's pretty cool.”

Tom looked down at the little iguana popping out of the egg. “I wouldn't mind having him.”

“Would that be okay, Mom?” I asked.

“It certainly would be,” she answered. “We have twenty-two other iguanas to find homes for. I think little Spencer there would be happy to go with Tom.”

“Actually, Mrs. Zipzer, I was thinking of naming him Sylvester,” said Tom.

I got a washcloth from the bathroom to wrap little Sylvester up in so he'd be comfortable on the way to his new home. It was a Spider-Man washcloth, which I thought Sylvester would like. Tom picked him up and wrapped him gently in it. That little iggie seemed happy as a bug in a rug.

Sylvester was going to get the best home an iguana could have. And I was going to get a personal copy of the best horror movie ever made.

A mutant moth for a baby iguana. That's what I call a good trade.

TOM BROUGHT ME THE TAPE, and I invited Frankie to sleep over on the weekend. I didn't mention the movie.

I was so excited! I could hardly wait for Saturday night. I put the tape in a secret place to make sure Frankie didn't see it. I hid it in my third drawer, under my Mets sweatshirt. Then I got worried that I'd forget where the secret place was, so I wrote notes to myself on Post-Its. But I had to write them in code so Frankie wouldn't figure out what I'd planned for him.

I drew a baseball bat and wrote “Mets Rule” on all the notes. I put one on my clock radio, and one on the mirror in the bathroom, and one on the chart above my desk. When Frankie came over, he looked around and said, “What's with all the Mets stuff?”

“They're reminders,” I said.

“Of what? That the Mets suck?”

“No, of where I hid ...”

“Hid what?” Frankie wanted to know.

I bit my lip really hard. That secret wanted to come out so bad. I was dying to tell him, but that would ruin the surprise.

Somehow, I made it until Saturday. My parents were going out and Papa Pete was staying with us. He and I put together a great plan.

We set up sleeping bags in the living room, right in front of the TV. Emily was in her room making little cots out of construction paper and toothpicks for all twenty-two baby iguanas. She had come up with a way to make pillows out of cotton balls. That would keep her busy all night. Besides, horror movies were not her cup of chocolate milk.

When Frankie got there, Papa Pete made us pastrami sandwiches with brown mustard on seedless rye. Put a crunchy pickle next to that and you can't beat it.

After dinner, it was time for the main event.

“You boys get comfortable in your sleeping bags, and I'll put on a movie,” Papa Pete said. “I picked out something that I'm comfortable with you watching while I'm on duty.” He winked at me.

He handed me a videotape box. I slid the tape out, and handed the cover to Frankie.

“The Parent Trap?”
Frankie said. “You've got to be kidding me!”

It was all I could do to keep from bursting out laughing.

“Try it,” Papa Pete said.

“I'll hate it,” groaned Frankie.

“For years, I wouldn't eat raisins,” said Papa Pete. “I thought anything that looks that bad has got to taste bad, too. Then one day, I put some on my cereal. And now, I wouldn't think of starting my day without them.”

“Papa Pete,” said Frankie. “That's raisins. We're talking about a movie that eight-year-old girls love. How can you compare the two?”

“I watched
The Parent Trap
with Emily a couple weeks ago,” I said, trying as hard as I could to keep a straight face. “The part where the parents kiss is pretty interesting.”

“Zip, I think your brains have fallen out and turned into marshmallows,” Frankie said.

“Just put the tape in,” said Papa Pete. “No violence, no naked ladies, good family fun.”

“I'm going to be sick,” Frankie said. “Correction. I
am
sick.”

“Enjoy yourselves, gentlemen,” Papa Pete said and he went into the kitchen.

I couldn't look at Frankie. Slowly, I moved my finger toward the PLAY button and pressed it. Then I hurled myself across the room onto my sleeping bag. I tried to watch the screen, but I kept one eye on Frankie to see his reaction.

The music came up and the picture came on. It was a deserted cabin in the wilderness. A window was broken and the night was dark. Too dark.

“Hey, this doesn't look like
The Parent Trap,”
Frankie said.

All of a sudden, a giant moth came flying out of the shattered window of the cabin and filled the screen. Its eyes glowed red. It spread its wings and the title came up across them. THE MUTANT MOTH THAT ATE TOLEDO.

Frankie sat straight up in his sleeping bag.

“No way!” he said. “No way!”

This was truly one of the happiest moments of my life.

“Zip!” Frankie said. He was so excited he couldn't even put together a sentence. “You ... moth ... here ... now ... No way! NO WAY!”

Papa Pete had opened the kitchen door a slice. He was smiling. I was smiling. Frankie was smiling.

“How did you do this, Zipola?” Frankie asked.

“I made a promise to you, and I messed up. I had to fix it.”

“Well, you can mess up as much as you want if this is the way it ends up,” Frankie said. “This is so cool I don't know what to say!”

“That's good,” I said. “Because you're not supposed to talk during a movie.”

Papa Pete pushed the door all the way open and brought in a bowl filled with an assortment of ice cream bars. He sat down on the couch and the three of us spent the next two hours screaming our heads off, enjoying The Mutant
Moth That Ate Toledo.

THERE'S A LESSON IN THIS STORY, which is: you never know where a great science project is going to come from. You start off with the tummy sliding habits of penguins. Then you're discovering the wonders inside the cable box. And you wind up observing and recording the reproductive cycle of the apartment-dwelling iguana in modern day Manhattan.

My science project turned out great. Thank goodness my disposable camera still had 27 shots left from our trip to Niagara Falls. I got some really good pictures of those eensy teensy iguanas eating their way out of their eggs.

I would've gotten an A on it. I was so close I could taste it. But Ms. Adolf took points off because of my concluding sentence. It said: “I think baby iguanas are the most lovable creatures in the world.” Ms. Adolf didn't think that was scientific enough.

I got a B, though, which is great for me. I don't get a lot of Bs. The really important thing is I got an A in friendship. Frankie and I are back to being best friends-better than ever.

Listen, I've got to go. One of the twenty-two baby iguanas has gotten in my drawer. I think it's Max. Or it could be Sneezy. Or maybe it's Charlotte. It's so hard to tell the difference.

Hey, I've got to take care of this. I'll see you all later.

H
ENRY WINKLER is an actor, producer, and director, and he speaks publicly all over the world. In addition, he has a star on Hollywood Boulevard, was knighted by the government of France, and the jacket he wore as the Fonz hangs in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C. But if you ask him what he is proudest of, he would say, “Writing the Hank Zipzer books with my partner, Lin Oliver.”

He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Stacey. They have three children named Jed, Zoe, and Max, and two dogs named Monty and Charlotte. Charlotte catches a ball so well that she could definitely play outfield for the New York Mets.

 

L
IN OLIVER is a writer and producer of movies, books, and television series for children and families. She has written over one hundred episodes of television and produced four movies, many of which are based on children's books. She is cofounder and executive director of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, an international organization of twenty thousand authors and illustrators of children's books.

 

She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Alan. They have three sons named Theo, Ollie, and Cole. She loves tuna melts, curious kids, any sport that involves a racket, and children's book writers everywhere.