Fiction
Salamander - full text
Kelly watched from her bedroom window as Charlie and Frank rode their bikes up and down Hamilton Way. It was hot. Middle of July. They rode without shirts—just a pair of cut-off denims covered their bodies. Bare feet hung over the pedals. Kelly thought it was silly, how boys could go around without shirts and girls couldn’t. Her mother had explained to Kelly about breasts and puberty, and teachers had shown films about differences between boys and girls. Even so, Kelly’s eleven-year-old thinking brought her to one startling conclusion: something in this puberty picture seemed unfair.
Just moments earlier, Kelly had been out there with Charlie and Frank, but Charlie kept teasing Kelly: “You’re just a girl, why don’t you go inside and play with a doll or something.” Kelly had never heard such nonsense, especially from Charlie. Charlie used to be her very best friend. Charlie and Kelly went everywhere together—especially on “expeditions” (that’s what Charlie called them) into the prairie, just across the street and over the wooden bridge. The prairie stretched out for miles, filled with treasures like horned toads and frogs and hidden ponds-even a junkyard and what might be a haunted house. Lately, though, Charlie was always hanging out with Frank, and somehow, Charlie changed. Suddenly he was calling Kelly a girl and saying she couldn’t do the same things boys did.
Charlie and Frank said they had planned an “expedition” to the old junkyard. “Yeah,” Charlie said, “we might even sneak inside that old haunted house.” It would have been just the kind of adventure Kelly and Charlie would have done together. Now, Charlie planned to leave her out in favor of Frank. Kelly said, “I want to go, too.”
“No way.” Frank insisted. “Adventures are for boys.”
“That’s just stupid,” Kelly said. After all, last summer, she and Charlie had captured a bunch of tadpoles together, put them in a big bowl with sand and water, and watched them become frogs in Kelly’s backyard. Another time, they found an injured horned toad, built a shoebox home for it, named it Bulldog, and cared for it. Together, they carried it out by the junkyard and set it free. Kelly had participated in these adventures, and many more, in the very same prairie where Charlie and Frank said she didn’t belong.
As she watched Charlie and Frank skid down the street toward the prairie, Kelly knew she had to go, too. She would take the shortcut, get there before them—just because she was a girl didn’t mean she couldn’t make discoveries, too.
Kelly steered her bike from her backyard and coasted down the street to the plank that covered the ditch. Once across, she rode her wide-tired bike through the dirt, making a slalom course out of prickly pears and sage brush.
She got to the junkyard fast, just in time to hide her bike behind an old stove and crouch down there to watch as Frank and Charlie pulled up. Lots of junk littered what appeared to be the prairie yard of a run-down house surrounded by a weathered picket fence. One story went that the house was haunted by some tobacco chewing ogre who used stoves and refrigerators as fast as most people used paper napkins. Why else would so many appliances fill a yard? Another story went that a blizzard-wind carried all that stuff here. As anyone who lives in Wyoming knows, those winds can be plenty fierce.
Some people said that no one lived there at all—it was just an abandoned house that had become a convenient junkyard site. But Kelly and Charlie knew better. They had seen the shoveled paths in winter and the drawn curtains at twilight. Someone cared for that house.
Kelly watched as Charlie and Frank began poking around the junk; they were trying to pull a rusted handle off some old refrigerator door. Suddenly, the rustle of someone behind her startled Kelly. She turned around to see an old woman holding a great big net.
Kelly was about to scream, but the woman put a finger to her mouth and whispered, “Shhh—those boys’ll hear you.” Then she squatted down next to Kelly, behind the stove.
Kelly caught her breath.
“Name’s Sadie. What’s the matter, cat got your tongue? What’s your name?”
“I’m . . . Kelly, but—”
“Nice to meet you, Kelly. I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?”
“I don’t know—I—”
“I’m the ogre that lives in the junkyard house.”
“I—”
“You scared of me?”
“Are you gonna catch me in your net?”
Sadie laughed, under her breath, to keep the boys from hearing. “Come with me,” she whispered. “Let’s get out of their earshot.”
Kelly knew she shouldn’t go with strangers; she held back.
“Okay.” Sadie sensed Kelly’s fear. “I’ll go. You follow along if you like.”
Kelly watched Sadie walk away. She saw that Charlie and Frank had pulled handles off two refrigerator doors and were using them like radio transmitters. Their game looked fun, but she knew she wasn’t welcome there. Sadie, on the other hand, was eager for Kelly’s company. So, slowly, she went in Sadie’s direction. Just down a small hill Kelly saw Sadie’s back as she squatted by a tiny pond and ran her net through the water. Kelly knew that pond-it formed in a small valley there. Depending on how much rain fell, there was sometimes water, sometimes a muddy hole, and sometimes just cracked dirt. Kelly liked the cracked dirt best because she could pick it up in squares and put it back together, like a puzzle. Kelly watched as Sadie continued to move her net through the water. Then, it appeared as if she caught something, for she pulled the net out and said, “Got ya’!”
Kelly moved closer still.
Without turning around or skipping a beat, Sadie said, “C’mon, it won’t bite.”
Kelly peeked over Sadie’s shoulder to see a yellow and black lizard-like creature in the net. “Wow!” Kelly’s fear fell away in the excitement of this discovery. “What’s that?”
“Salamander. A six-incher at least. It’s a beaut, ain’t it?”
“It came from in there?” Kelly pointed at the water.
Sadie nodded. “Sometimes they swim-sometimes they walk on land.”
“They can do both? Like frogs?”
“That’s right,” Sadie said. “They’re what’s called ‘amphibious.’ That means land and water.”
Kelly stared into the net at the creature.
Sadie stared too. “This one’s got great colors, that’s for sure. And look at those silly little legs. Did you know that salamanders can lose their legs and grow new ones?”
“No way!”
“It’s true,” Sadie laughed. “They’re very adaptable.”
“What are you gonna do with it now that you caught it?”
“I’m gonna paint a picture of it, then I’m gonna set it free.”
Kelly followed Sadie back to the house. In fact, she walked right past Charlie and Frank’s gaping faces. Their rusted transmitters dangled from their hands, not nearly as interesting as Kelly following an old woman into the haunted house.
“Hello, boys,” Sadie said. “Kelly and I are going in now. You two should be wearing shirts. Don’t you know prairie sun can burn you to a crisp?” And with that, Kelly followed Sadie into what was anything but a haunted house. No way. It was magic, full of color. On every wall hung pictures of horned toads, lizards, prairie dogs, chipmunks, prickly pears, sage brush, and tumbleweeds.
“You’re an artist,” Kelly said.
Sadie shrugged. “My granddaddy and grandma built this house a hundred years ago. My folks raised me here. Now my home is just a junkyard on the prairie, a nuisance.” Sadie pulled a big mason jar down from the kitchen counter and put the salamander down in it.
“But it’s beautiful in here. It’s not a . . . nuisance at all.”
Sadie laughed. “Thanks, dear. But the town bought this land from my father just before he died ten years ago. It belongs to the town.”
“I don’t see how a town can own a home.”
“Yeah, it don’t make a lot of sense, but it can happen. See all these pictures I’ve been making? They’re my way of holding onto as much of this prairie as I can. I’m not sure it’ll be with us much longer.”
“The prairie’s always gonna be here,” Kelly said.
Sadie shook her head. “I used to believe, too. But it ain’t so. Best if we learn to be like this old salamander-grow new feet that can swim and walk.” Sadie busied herself collecting paper and pens and watercolors. Kelly watched as she sketched the salamander.
“You’re good,” Kelly said. She looked at the salamander’s eyes, staring back at her.
“You think it’s scared?”
“Who knows-it’s quite a compliment to be selected as an artist’s model.”
Sadie turned her attention to watercolors and made the yellow and black body come to life.
“Wow,” Kelly said, “you even made it look shiny.”
Kelly wandered the room, looking at all the prairie paintings. She noticed that one of the paintings on the wall was this house, but the land around it held no stoves or toasters or washing machines-only tall grass and occasional slopes. “Hey-there’s no junk in this painting. How come?” Kelly asked.
“This place used to look just like that picture there.” Sadie pointed with her brush. You’ve only known it as a junkyard. But that wasn’t always the case. People started dumping here about five or six years ago. I can’t even keep track. They dump at night. Stuff they don’t want. They figure, ‘Here’s a great big nowhere’-some kind of prairie trash can.”
“But it’s your yard.”
“Used to be my yard. Town owns it now. My days are numbered in this house. I heard ‘em talking the other day. The big store’s been approved. It won’t be long before they tear my house down.”
“What about all your paintings?”
“They’ll come with me. Don’t you worry.”
“But where?”
“Shoot, girl. All this talk about my house makes me sad.” Sadie added some finishing touches to her salamander painting, then signed a yellow “S” along the bottom. “Now, then, how about some iced tea while we wait for the paint to dry?”
Kelly nodded. She was thirsty.
After the tea, Sadie rolled up the salamander painting, tied a string around it, and handed it to Kelly. “You can have it,” Sadie offered.
“I can keep it?” Kelly said.
Sadie nodded. “Consider it a prairie memory—that day you had with the crazy-net-lady.”
Kelly put the rolled-up tube of paper to her eye and looked through it at the real salamander waiting patiently in the mason jar.
“Now, let’s go set Little Miss Salamander free.” Sadie lifted the jar and set out through the front door. Kelly followed. She slipped the rolled-up painting into the basket on her bike.
Back at the pond, Kelly and Sadie said goodbye to the salamander.
“There you go, little one,” Sadie said. They watched the salamander skitter along the edge of the water, then glide right in. “See that?” Sadie said. “That silly lizard knows exactly where to go.”
“Can I come back and visit?” Kelly wanted to know.
Sadie kissed Kelly on the cheek. “You can come anytime you want, but I can’t say for sure where I’ll be.”
“But your house is here.”
Sadie patted Kelly on the shoulder and squinted up at the sky. “Sometimes,” she said, “you’ve got no choice but to hold home inside you somewhere. That way, no one can take it away from you. You go on, now, while it’s still light out. I bet your mom’s calling you for dinner.”
Kelly got on her bike, and half-way home, she saw Frank and Charlie waiting for her.
“What happened?” Charlie asked.
Kelly shrugged and rode right past them. They followed along.
“Was she a monster?”
“Did she look like a monster to you?” Kelly asked.
“Did she hurt you?”
“No,” Kelly said, “she wouldn’t hurt anyone.”
“Maybe she’s a ghost,” Charlie speculated.
“Listen.” Kelly stopped her bike. “She’s my discovery.”
“Oh, so Kelly’s got a secret,” Frank teased.
“Maybe I do; maybe I don’t.” Kelly said, and she rode away. Before she did, she noticed a smile in Charlie’s eyes, and it made her miss him. As if he read her mind, he raced to catch up with her, leaving Frank in the dust.
Once home, Kelly fashioned a frame from some old cardboard, and she put the salamander painting inside. She fell asleep dreaming about how she would visit Sadie again.
But almost a month went by before Kelly could sneak away, and when she got to the junkyard, the junkyard was gone. So was the house. All she saw were piles of dirt, old wood, a great big bulldozer, some tractors, and a backhoe. A man in a helmet-hat told Kelly to back away. “It’s dangerous here, kiddo. Your parents know you’re here?”
Kelly ran to the pond where she and Sadie had let the salamander go. It had dried up, and all that remained was a muddy hole. Kelly sat there by the mud and cried. Sometimes, discoveries were no fun at all.
Then she remembered what Sadie said: “Hold home somewhere inside you. That way, no one can take it away from you.”
Kelly let her eyes wander over the prairie. She kept her gaze straight ahead, where the great big sky looked down on the sage colored land. If she tried hard enough, she could drown out the sound of those bulldozers in the background and concentrate on the whisper of wind through the tall grass.