s
and life cycles. Ben still wants to catch something wild and wonderful.
Like lots of city kids who haven't been in the country much, he's crazy
about nature.

We head back to the subway, walking through the woods so he can hunt. We
go down alongside the pond and kick up rocks and dead trees to see if
anything is under them.

It pays off. All of a sudden we see a tiny red tail disappearing under a
rotten log. I push the log again and Ben grabs. It's a tiny lizard, not
more than two or three inches long and brick red all over. Ben cups it in
both hands, and its throat pulses in and out, but it doesn't really try to
get away.

"Hey, I love this one!" Ben cries. "I'm going to take him home and keep
him for a pet, as well as do a report on him. You can't keep cats and dogs
in Peter Cooper, but there's nothing in the rules about lizards."

"How are you going to get him home?"

"Dump the lunch. I mean--we'll eat it, but I can stab a hole in the top of
the box and keep Redskin in it. Come on, hurry! He's getting tired in my
hand I think!"

Ben is one of those guys who is very placid most of the time, but he gets
excitable all of a sudden when he runs into something brand-new to him,
and I guess he never caught an animal to keep before. Some people's
parents are very stuffy about it.

I dump the lunch out, and he puts the lizard in and selects some
particular leaves and bits of dead log to put in with him to make him feel
at home. Without even asking me, he takes out his knife and makes holes in
the top of my lunchbox. I sit down and open up a sandwich, but Ben is
still dancing around.

"What do you suppose he is? He might be something very rare! How'm I going
to find out? You think we ought to go back and ask one of the zoo men?"

"Umm, nah," I say, chewing. "Probably find him in the encyclopedia."

Ben squats on a log, and the log rolls. As he falls over backward I see
two more lizards scuttle away. I grab one. "Hey, look! I got another. This
one's bigger and browner."

Ben is up and dancing again. "Oh, boy, oh, boy! Now I got two! Now they'll
be happy! Maybe they'll have babies, huh?"

He overlooks the fact that _I_ caught this one. Oh, well, I don't want a
lizard, anyway. Cat'd probably eat it.

Ben takes it from me and slips it in the lunchbox. "I'm going to call this
one Big Brownie."

Finally he calms down enough to eat lunch, taking peeks at his catch
between mouthfuls. As soon as he's finished eating