Splendiferous Skinks

Dragons make wonderful pets for the home and kids

Like drops of gold paint, they splashed our house with metallic slivers. Their bodies no longer than three inches, these reptiles appeared as the sun climbed the brick wall above the wild roses and holly garden. Aligned with the slightest indentations, they dissolved into a microscopic world that reflected and magnified their perfections.

It took us a while, but we eventually understood that splendiferous skinks come with every property in West Virginia. These vestigial descendants of mythical dragons constitute just another element of a fantastic reality born of mountains, mists and superlative wildlife. Too small to threaten danger, nonetheless they could supposedly inflict a painful bite. We watched them from a cautious distance. They observed their new neighbors with no particular interest.

Among blossoms, they assumed their place as if they occupied it forever, storming our castle too quickly to be intercepted by the naked human eye. Every scale, though, on their glinting surface flashed as we walked by. "Hello," we said. Squirt, and they were gone. Turn around -- they doubled their numbers in what seemed like no time. The dogs ignored them. The cats pretended to catch the birds, instead. Who cares about antique sculptures?

Their invasion of our house, however, opened a new front in the war between Humankind and Nature. The first one took a shortcut to Grandma's -- through our dryer hose. We never saw him, only heard him scrambling like a gerbil caught in a plastic tube. He left no calling card, but what else could it be?

It took him a day to reconnoiter means to escape his indoor escarpment. The appliance showed no wear, and he was free.

The second startled us by turning up among the bookshelves. He appeared to sleep for three hours, clinging to the vertical backing. This addition considerably improved our interior decoration. His disappearance, though, meant he remained at large -- inside the house, not outside, where lizards do not lack for suitable company. Where would he materialize next? The chandelier? The ceiling ducts? Our eyes turned everywhere.

Sleep eluded us the first time this creature pulled such a prank. Finally, we accepted the obvious: He'd leave when he wanted to. Hamlet stood right there on the shelf. If he could read, he didn't need our help. If he couldn't, why had he preferred the bookcase? Mr. Skink found his own way in; that must mean he could find his way out. He enjoyed easy access to our home and knew the escape routes better than we did!

The third skink ran ahead of our son down into the laundry room. At least, the boy maintained that something (again, what else could it be?) zipped around the corner, just as he had headed for the cellar. Back to the dryer? Did this Mr. Skink know the other one, who transformed our facilities into a gymnasium?

Was the entire Skink clan sending their kids to our house, just to get them out of their scales? Their blue tails certainly suggested costume dressers, even teenagers, in colorful trappings. Their unusual ability, too, to cast these appendages off prompted particular caution. How many Skink tails does any human family need?

Before we could intervene, the boy slammed the laundry room door, and barricaded himself inside.

From within, the ten-year-old issued reports of intermittent sightings: "Under the washer! No, behind the furnace!"

From the hall, the adults, too, issued warnings: "They can bite! Be careful! Remember, don't grab him by the tail!"

Unfortunately, I read him Le Morte d'Arthur, by Sir Thomas Malory, at the age of three. This confrontation loomed as an unforeseen opportunity to capture a dragon LIVE. No entreaties would bring him forth without the creature by his side. Even in the womb, the child heard me extolling the virtues of King Arthur and his mighty crew, who transcended time, surviving in glorious legends.

Negotiations began because all of us required sleep sometime -- even skinks, I imagine.

"A box!" the child demanded. "Quick, a tissue box!"

The troops scavenged the grounds -- and, lo, Merlin himself never found a better one. We opened the door just enough to slide it to the knight. How he would lure the reptile to walk inside beggared our imagination. But after an hour and a half siege, he suddenly yelped: "I got him!"

The door opened at last to reveal the knight with the requested apparatus levered to a detergent box. Beyond vision once again, the dragon probably napped, secure and happy. The boy slid it open just far enough for us to glimpse the baby curled on a paper towel -- the famous cobalt blue tail as intact as Excalibur.

Our son returned the creature to his magical kingdom -- the great outdoors of West Virginia. His eyes twinkled impishly as he also surrendered his gilded plastic armor, since it proved useless in a desperate conflict. After all, who resolved the crisis -- and became an environmental lawyer?

The dragon learned his lesson, too: He never returned to explore our human warren when the forested hills ran ahead of him like a green sea. Overhead, clouds passed, skating purple monsters across the face of the moon. Night birds whirred away as silver splashed under a leaf.

Meg Curtis

Meg Curtis leads a triple life as a creative writer, a college professor and a medievalist. From western New York, she gained insights into wildlife and spiritualism. In Appalachia, she learned to love America's oldest mountains. She has settled happily, with three southern cats and a basset hound named Mr. Willoughby, in Freemansburg, Pennsylvania.