Lizard Music by Daniel Pinkwater

old. Reynold (the same one) guessed that there must have been chickens on the island at one time, and that’s when the custom got started. That sort of explained why Claudia was such a celebrity.

    By the time we had reached the farmhouses, we were walking on the flat crater floor and we could see Thunderbolt City in the distance. It was just as beautiful seen from below as it was when we looked down on it from the crater wall. The city was built on a sort of hill, right in the middle of the crater floor, with the biggest, tallest buildings in the center of town. It was getting to be late afternoon, and the sun was hitting the city at an angle. A big part of the crater floor was in shadow, and the city was shining with a slightly reddish color. What had looked like green lawns from above turned out to be fields of crops, mostly a green cabbage-looking thing about as big as a baseball that grew by the millions all along our walk to Thunderbolt City.
    The shadow on the crater floor had reached the city when we passed through the Chicken Gate. There isn’t any wall around the city, just a gate. The road passes through it. The gate is a huge boulder with a sort of rough door through it. It’s just a natural boulder, sort of egg-shaped with this hole through it. It isn’t fancy at all, except there’s a golden chicken on top. The door is so low that you have to crawl through.
    We entered the city. In a way, it was the neatest place I’d ever been. I mean, it was very tidy—more so than McDonaldsville. There wasn’t a speck of dirt anywhere, and everything sort of just fit together. At the same time, it wasn’t boring and all the same like McDonaldsville. It was busy and interesting like Hogboro. A very unpodlike place. Very lizardy. Lizards were hurrying everywhere. Many of them said hello to us, and stopped for a second to say they were glad we’d come. Then they would excuse themselves and hurry off. They were on their way home from work and school. It was lizard rush hour! Reynold explained that everybody was hurrying home so they would not miss the “CBS Evening News.” There were no cars and buses. Everything moved by lizard power, so it wasn’t a noisy rush hour. There was just a little noise of scampering and scratching as the lizards hurried home.
    Reynold asked us if we’d like to come to his house to rest up and have something to eat. After that, he was going to take us to the place where visitors stay. This was the first Reynold talking. Charlie said that he didn’t want to be any trouble, but Reynold said that it was a pleasure to have us and he wanted us to meet his family. Reynold’s wife was named Helena, and he had three children named Raymond. They all knew who we were and were very excited about Claudia. The house was small and very nice, with polished wooden floors and white walls. There were drawings of Walter Cronkite that the three Raymonds had done, hanging near the television which I recognized from Reynold’s description. Reynold showed us around the house. It was very plain; there wasn’t much furniture. He said that if we wanted to wash, there was a little house in the back yard. We went out. It wasn’t an outhouse; it was a regular bathroom made of stone. Some of the things in it were a little strange, because they were made for lizards. When I came back from my turn in the bathroom, Reynold and Charlie were watching television. It was about time for Roger Mudd. I guessed they were watching television. I mean, they were both sitting there with the three Raymonds, and they all had their eyes closed, and the big cylinder was spinning. Helena wasn’t watching—she was in the kitchen fixing something to eat. I sat down between Charlie and Reynold, closed my eyes, and tried to watch too. It didn’t work. I just sat there trying for the whole half hour—nothing. I guessed there was a trick to it. I made up my mind to ask Charlie how he did it, but I wanted to wait until we were alone.