Salamander by Debbie Lacy (best books to read in your 20s .txt) 📕

In the dark stillness of the night, they made their way across the kitchen floor looking for that cool moist place to call home. Some found shelter underneath the baseboard in the cupboard; a few others found shelter beneath the carpet of the stair steps.

When suddenly footsteps entered the kitchen, the lights turned on and caught by the homeowner, they trampled their way across the carpet towards the fireplace in the family room. Impetuously, a shoe was thrown at them, as the pack scattered but the two larger ones were the homeowner’s main focus. Along the brick fireplace the homeowner glanced closely to try to terminate them but camouflaged within the tan colored brick they could not be seen. They displayed a lucid stillness and once there was an opportunity to get away they took it, in between the fireplace brick and the sheet rock they vanished out of sight.

“Honey, we got to get an exterminator out here! I found the kitchen floor full of those little salamanders again!” The homeowner stated.

Slowly up the stairs several small ones found their way into the little girls room. While the youngster brushed her teeth in the bathroom, one quickly trampled across the floor past her feet and hid behind the toilet. Another one ran into the closet concealed behind some boxes, a perfect place to set up a home. The other found a perfect place underneath the bed between the baseboard and the carpet.

The next day, it was a typical morning at the Rodger’s home and after the family had gone off to work and school, Mrs. Rodgers finished up her daily chores. Shortly afterward, she decided to sit in her comfortable chase to work a crossword puzzle. Each day she enjoyed her solitary peacefulness. She reached for her cup of coffee sitting on the table next to her to take a sip then placed the cup back on the table, which was right beneath the mantle of the fireplace where a little salamander was watching. Completely focalized on her crossword puzzle, the salamander leaped on the table and swiftly trampled around her coffee cup then down the leg of the table to the floor. Suddenly, the telephone rang distracted her dropping the book to the floor trapping the tiny little salamander and as she slid off the chase her feet landed on top of the book smashing the tiny amphibian.

“Hello!” She answered.

It was her girlfriend Beverly and they had a lot of catching up to do, so she never returned to her chase that day.

Later, her son Trevor was walking home from school with his friends when they decided to play a few minutes in the yard throwing rocks at one another. During Trevor's attempt to gather rocks from his mother’s flowerbed, he discovered the most amazing thing.

“Hey guys come here and look at this!” He called out.

“Wow! Look at that! Will it bite?” The boys asked.

“No!” Trevor replied.

“What is it?” One of the young boys asked him.

“It’s a salamander!” Trevor acknowledged while picking it up.

Trevor found it sitting on a leaf while looking for rocks. It’s unique colors of bright yellow and black caught his eye.

“What are you going to do with it?” The boys asked.

“I’m going to keep him. I’ll see you guys later, I’ve got to show my Mom.” Trevor stated.

“Okay, later.” The boys parted leaving the yard.

Entering the house he noticed that his mother was on the phone while piddling around in the kitchen.

“Hi Mom!” He spoke.

Holding the salamander in his hand he waited to show her but she was so heavily engaged in conversation so he decided to go upstairs with it and placed it in a box. He quickly punched holes in the box so the salamander could get air.

Shortly later, his sister Amanda arrived home from school then quickly upstairs passing her brother’s room when he called out to her to show what he had found. He opened the box to let her see and she screamed scaring him as he dropped the box on the floor and the salamander rushed across the carpet underneath his bed. His mother heard the commotion and decided to hang up the phone to come see what was going on.

“What is going on in here?” She quaked.

“Mom he had a lizard looking thing in a box trying to scare me with it!” She ranted.

“Okay Trevor where is it?” She inquired.

“I don’t have it now! It fell to the floor and I don’t know where it is!” He explained.

“You mean you brought some kind of insect in here from outside and now it running loose in here?” She concluded.

“Yeah!” Trevor declared.

“Well what was it?” She asked.

“It was just a little salamander that’s all, but she had to scream out like a manic making me drop the box. Scary cat!” He yelled.

“Well I’ll tell what, you better find it before your father gets home.” His mother demanded leaving the room.

“Now, that’s what you get!” Amanda protested running off to her room and closed the door.

Trevor searched all afternoon in his room looking for the little yellow with black striped salamander but had no luck finding it. He became angry with himself because he made the mistake of showing it to Amanda and he knew it was going to be trouble behind it.

Suddenly, he heard a car door slam outdoors when he looked out to notice that his dad had arrived home.

“Okay, now I’m going to get it!” He thought.

As he continued to look further he pondered, “I have torn up this room and maybe it’s not even in here, maybe it ran out, they can move really fast!”

So he opened his room door and looked down the hallway and there it was running across the carpet underneath Amanda’s room door. He started to make his way over to catch it but instead decided to pay Amanda back for being such a scary cat and getting him in trouble. So he chuckled and went back in his room closing the door and began to clean up again.

Later, his mother called them down for dinner and while they were eating, his mother asked him if he found the little salamander.

“Uh, no I can’t seem to find it anywhere!” Trevor spoke lightly.

“Well that’s great, that’s just one more salamander in house.” His father commented.

“What do you mean another one? You’ve seen more?” His wife queried.

“Yes! Remember I told you the other morning I found some on the kitchen floor and that we needed to get an exterminator out here.” He informed her.

“Oh, I thought you were talking about some bugs. Well, where are they coming from?” Mrs. Rodgers asked him.

“They come from outside. They seem love those bushes out in the yard. I bet that’s where you found the one you bought in, didn’t you Trevor?”

“Yes sir, I did.” He agreed.

Later that night as the family was getting ready for bed, the yellow and black stripped salamander mated with one of the other females that had already invaded the house. Mrs. Rodgers had just cleaned up the kitchen and was on her way upstairs to go to bed and just before getting into bed she felt something whisk across her feet and she shrieked quickly jumping in bed striking Mr. Rodgers in the back.

“Aw honey! What’s the matter?” He snapped.

“Ooh, I felt something run across my feet! I’m sorry but with all these little critters running around here has got me jittery!” She expressed.

The next day, after everyone was off to work and school, Mrs. Rodgers commenced to doing her daily house cleaning and in the washroom there was a pile of dirty clothes on the floor. She started the machine whilst adding detergent then one at a time putting each piece of clothing into the washer and when she reached the bottom of the pile, a couple of salamanders ran across the floor scaring her when she leaped on top of the washer machine. To her surprise there it was, the yellow and black salamander. Reluctant to get down off the washer, she took her shoe and through it trying to scare it but missed. Still quite hesitant, she eased down slowly and grabbed a bottle of detergent and through it scaring it off somewhere.

Giving a sigh of relief, all she could think about was calling the exterminator. She grabbed her shoe then eagerly reached for the broom to use as her protection avidly searching around when she became quite jittery. She searched for several numbers in the phone book and made several calls to exterminators and the earliest appointment she could set was a week later. Keeping her broom near her, she continued to clean making sure those things could not hide underneath anything on the floor. As she vacuumed, she picked up the puzzle book she left on the floor the day before when shockingly, her hands touched a sodden debris on the backside of it, carefully flipping it over to notice a smashed little salamander. She shrieked dropping it to the floor again as she tried to gather her composure, she was quite reluctant in picking the book up again so she used the vacuum hose to sucked the book up then hit the vacuum off button dropping the book into the garbage.

“Eek! Well, I can always get another book.” She thought.

When Trevor arrived home from school, she made him search again for that yellow and black salamander and to get rid of it once and for all. Together they searched high and low but was not successful.

The next day, it Saturday morning and Amanda slept late. She was awakened by the bright sunlight that shone through her bedroom window. She took a long stretch then positioned her body to the opposite side of her pillow. While in a haze, slowly opening her eyes, she looked straight into the eyes of a little yellow and black salamander sitting on the edge of her pillow. She freaked and screamed with all her might frantically jumping out of bed when her mom and dad panicked running up the stairs to her room.

“What is it Amanda? What’s wrong?”

“That thing! That lizard thing was on my pillow!” She yelled running over towards them.

“Where is it now?” Her mother inquired.

“I don’t know! It must be still in my bed!” She exclaimed.

At that moment, Trevor rushed in to try and find it. As he searched underneath the pillows then pulling back the sheets and there it was the yellow and black salamander.

“Come here you!” Trevor stated reaching to pick it up.

As it wiggled in Trevor’s hand, he politely rubbed its head softly to calm it down.

“See, it’s harmless.” Showing his mom and dad.

Amanda had seen enough so she ran downstairs.

“Okay Trevor we’ve all seen it now get it out of here.” His dad demanded.

“Okay.” Trevor agreed taking it outside.

Giving a sigh of relief, “I thought we’d never find that thing!” Mrs. Rodgers remarked.

It was Thursday of the following week; Mrs. Rodgers welcomed the exterminator and began to show him areas in the house where the salamanders had been seen. They went all over the house pulling things out and spraying and finally the last room of the house was Amanda’s room.

The exterminator sprayed the odorless solution all around her room wall and underneath her bed. Then he opened her closet door allowing her mother to pull out the boxes that was stacked against the wall on the floor of her closet and shockingly, there was a nest of them. Many small yellow and black salamanders had made their home behind those boxes.

“Oh my goodness would you look at that! The one my son found outside had made some babies!” Mrs. Rodgers told the exterminator.

Luckily Amanda was over a friend’s house and wasn’t there to witness what was found in her closet.

“If I