The boy came running up the stairs shouting for me. I wondered what on earth was going on. Was there a fire? had someone hurt themselves?
“Come quickly. There’s a giant lizard in the pantry.” I put on the flips flops and headed downstairs and round he back of the house where a small group had gathered around a magnificent looking lizard type animal.
I felt sad to see it dead, it was really spectacular and if I had seen it in the garden I would have loved to see it move. The colours along its back and its soft grey underbelly were perfect.
It seems such a shame to kill it but I can imagine the fright it gave the person who found it in a box in the pantry. I probably would have reached for a heavy blunt instrument and smacked it on the head too.
the house boy put the thing in a box and buried it in the garden and I insisted we have a short funeral for him. We gathered around the grave and I said a few things about how beautiful it was and what a good life it had had and how it was sad that it was now dead.
That’s the second shock this month – the rat in my cupboard and now a lizard in the pantry.
I am still traumatised by that event but I think I’d rather that, than a giant lizard to surprise me when I open a box.