BOOK 3: The Enchanted El Camino Saves the Town – Chapter 1: Adam and the El Camino Get Acquainted

As strange as it seems, life went on in a more or less ordinary way for a teenager Adam’s age for the next few weeks. The main difference was that he developed a routine that allowed him to explore his El Camino’s abilities, while keeping them a complete secret from everyone else. He drove everyday to school, and even started giving other kids rides now and then. After the shock of seeing the unusual car in the parking lot, the other kids all seemed to have decided Adam was a cool guy now. Luckily, Adam had been uncool for long enough to know that being cool was only as good as long as you remained that way. He was always nice to other kids who hadn’t climbed as far up the social ladder, simply because he remembered what it was like at the bottom. Adam had also been lucky to be exposed to other cultures from birth. He knew what it was like to not be in the majority as far as ethnic background and culture, thanks to the mix of peoples he grew up with in Tesuque. All this meant that he was developing into a very admirable young man who respected his peers.

But, this young paradigm of maturity did still have his secret life. Every couple of nights he would set his alarm clock for 4:30 AM. He made up a story about how he was doing some early morning running to keep in shape. He would dress in his work out clothes, and take his El Camino out to go to the athletic track at the northern city limits of Santa Fe. At least that is what he told everyone.

What he in fact did was drive up to the slopes of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. He knew some logging roads that didn’t see any cars for days, and that were shielded by trees in all directions. He found one particular road he could take that was covered by tree branches until a big meadow opened up that overlooked Tesuque below, with its two meandering streams. In the distance you could see Santa Fe, with smoke rising out its chimneys from wood burning stoves being lit up in the morning. In the background to the south, Sandia Mountain would be lit up from behind by the morning sun. It would look dark and menacing on its western slope, comprised of steep granite cliffs. When he accelerated at the end of the tunnel through the trees, he would push the accelerator pedal the extra notch at just the right moment. The car would be propelled up into this beautiful scene just as they hit the opening in the branches of the meadow.

He made sure to fly high enough up so that nobody would think they were seeing a car any time he was over homes or the city. This meant that he got to know the terrain of Northern New Mexico very well from the sky. He bought a map of the state, and he would amuse himself at night before he fell asleep by finding areas to fly over the next day. He would mark his route on the map, and then attempt to follow it the next morning during his flight. He made additional notes on the map based on his observations.

But he only allowed himself an hour of true flight time per day, although this was sometimes a difficult rule to enforce. He knew that he didn’t want to be in the air when people started waking up, so he disciplined himself to be safe. Thanks to these precautions, he managed to enjoy his amazing vehicle without anyone noticing for the time being.

Since the El Camino had already shown that it had hidden talents, Adam had asked it several times what other abilities it had. All he had received in the way of an answer was a snippet of a news broadcast, “…only time will reveal the true nature…”

As time went on, Adam discovered that the car seemed to have moods when it didn’t communicate at all. Adam continued to talk to it one way or the other, sometimes in the same way that humans have been talking to their tools for all of history, not expecting an answer. He got used to the fact that he couldn’t always expect a dialogue.

Once the El Camino sensed that it had made its point about having the option to remain silent, it started playing the radio for Adam so that he would have a nice soundtrack for his drives and flights. The car seemed to know Adam’s taste in music. The radio would skip from station to station, providing the perfect DJ mix for Adam’s musical needs. Adam would tell the car any time it didn’t choose correctly, which helped to inform the car’s choices, so the two were soon in perfect alignment. This was an ability that Adam wouldn’t have been able to imagine his car having if he hadn’t experienced it himself.

As far as Craig and Samwise go, even with the punishment Craig endured, they were both spending happy days getting to know each other. The day after almost burning down the house, Craig tried to build a new cage for Samwise next to his bed. He made sure it was nice and cozy with the light and heating pad. Craig knew enough not to put anything near the electronics that might catch fire now.

But when he tried to introduce Samwise to his new home, the iguana started thrashing its tail around and struggling in a way that it never had before. It made it perfectly clear that it did not like the new home Craig had prepared. In the end, Craig had to try moving the cage back to the garage. Once he did this, Samewise once again became loving and docile. He practically scampered into the new cage that Craig had put together for him in the old location. Apparently there was something about the garage that really made him feel at home.

Adam was able to discover what that something was a few mornings later. He had decided to take an especially early flight with the El Camino that day, so he got up yawning at 4:00 AM. He tiptoed to the garage, but he heard something right before he opened the door. He heard the distinct sound of baroque classical music coming from inside the garage. He assumed it was the radio that Craig had been leaving for Samwise to listen to. But then he remembered that Craig had taken it to his room when he tried to move Samwise there, and he had left it on his desk.

When Adam put his hand on the door knob the music suddenly went silent. Samwise’s cage was placed much more in the open now to avoid starting fires, so Adam could see the lizard when he opened the door. It was laying near the heating pad on the side closest to the El Camino. It had a look of a baby in its mother’s arms as it gazed through half closed eyes at the car. Adam started to suspect that he wasn’t the only friend that the El Camino had made since it was put back together. And now the mystery of why Samwise refused to live anywhere but in the garage was explained as well. But Adam couldn’t tell Craig, since that would reveal his car’s talents, so he let his younger brother contemplate the mystery. He decided that an added benefit was that this would keep Craig’s mind occupied, and hopefully out of trouble.

With this discovery Adam thought he had seen the limits of the car’s special abilities. Already he couldn’t believe the ones the car had, so it was normal that he wouldn’t imagine other ones. But what proved to be one of the car’s most amazing talents was revealed slowly as the boy and car spent the next few weeks together.

BOOK 2: The Enchanted El Camino Saves the Family Home – Chapter 6: The Tesuque Fire Department to the Rescue

In this way they were able to make it to the so called Tesuque Fire Department in just a few minutes. The El Camino had circled in for a landing between a couple of hills on an old dirt driveway. They were helped to remain unseen by how few homes had been built in Tesuque back in the 1970’s. It was a time when there were still more Piñon trees and Chamisa bushes than little Santa Fe style box homes dotting the hills.

Once they were on the ground Adam heard the radio start up with, “…take a step to the right…” “…take a step to the right…”

Following these directions, he turned to the right once they got to the main road. He only had to go a few yards when the radio turned up the volume suddenly, “…take a step to the right…” “…take a step to the right…”

Adam turned into the first driveway on the right, and saw that there was a small red colored Ford pickup with a hand lettered Fire Department logo on the door. He jumped out of the car and ran up to the house. He pounded his fist on the door until he heard a sleepy voice coming out of the back of the house. In what seemed like hours to Adam, a man he recognized as being the father of a classmate from elementary school, Mr. Katenact, shuffled up to the door.

“My house is on fire I need help, quick!” Adam practically screamed at the guy.

This finally seemed to wake up the civil servant in him, and Mr. Katenact told Adam, “Don’t worry. I’ll get there. What is the address?”

Adam told him, but as he did he realized that it would take the guy at least ten minutes to drive the truck there. He started pleading, “Please mister. My house is going to burn down. My family doesn’t have enough money to build a new one. Please hurry!”

“Listen, you just calm down. You’re only going to slow me down.” Mr. Katenact was pulling on his big boots and almost ready to go to the truck, so even if Adam didn’t notice it, he was doing his job as well as anyone could at that point.

Adam had just the time to wisely pick up a spare fire extinguisher, which was hanging in the front entry of the house. In those days most of the construction in Tesuque was adobe mud bricks. They weren’t the wood boxes that most American houses are, so they weren’t very likely to burn down. People often didn’t have fire extinguishers in their homes, and Adam knew his family didn’t. This changed in the decades to come, and maybe stories like the Celier family’s fire are the reason why.

“Just follow behind me in your car, and I’ll get there faster with my siren,” Mr. Katenact instructed Adam.

That was a good plan normally. But normally didn’t include flying El Caminos. As the fire truck pulled out on to the main road, Adam heard, “…fly like an Eagle…,” and he knew what the radio was trying to tell him.

Adam drove the car back to the dirt driveway that they had landed on. He started to accelerate, but this time he told the car, “Listen, I know where we are going, and I saw how you got us here. Let me do the driv…er, flying this time, o.k.? I’ll be really careful to not let anyone see us.”

He didn’t get a response because he was already at the point of pushing in the accelerator pedal past that extra notch. He kept it pressed until they were climbing into the air at a steep incline. He circled away from the road and any houses as fast as he could. He even tried to imitate the way crows or hawks sometimes rise in a slow arc, just in case someone did see them. But, it didn’t take them more than a few seconds to be high enough to be able to head towards the house.

If they had taken the road, they would have been forced to slow down and make the circuitous route that the rural road followed. It followed the meandering valley created by what are called the Big and Little Tesuque Rivers. Adam had always remembered his cousin from New York’s shock when he took her to see the little stream that the locals called the Big Tesuque River. The little stream is not what a river back east looks like.

The road was narrow, and it could be treacherous if someone drove too fast around some of the blind curves created by the meanderings of the stream’s path. It was almost impossible for someone, even with a siren, to make the trip in less than seven minutes.

But as the saying goes, “as the crow flies” is the fastest way to get anywhere, since it is the straightest route. Besides, the El Camino behaved the same way in the air as it behaved on the ground. If Adam floored the accelerator, that car would put on some serious speed.

This meant that they arrived above the house in about two minutes. Adam had to land farther away then he would have wanted so they wouldn’t be seen. Luckily, there was a small plateau near the house, across the BigTesuqueRiver. The plateau was undeveloped at that time, and Adam and Craig had all kinds of adventures playing and hiking in the area. The local kids called this particular plateau “the Plains”, which gave away their lack of experience with the scale of real plains. But, it did allow Adam enough room to land unseen.

Adam had been able to see smoke coming out of the house even from the air, so he wasted no time. He sped down the dirt access road to a wooden bridge which crossed the BigTesuqueRiver. He crossed the main road and pulled into the family’s driveway. He grabbed the fire extinguisher that he had taken from the Tesuque Fire Department and leapt out of the El Camino.

He was shocked by what he saw when he got to the open garage door. It still had the smoke that he had seen from the air pouring out of it. The fire had spread to all of the boxes, and the tarp was almost completely burned. The ceiling joists were being licked by the flame, and it was obvious that they would start burning very quickly unless someone did something. He could see that the iguana cage had been opened when the work table had fallen over on one side. It also looked like this had knocked over a stack of boxes that would have been closer to the ceiling otherwise. The boxes would have probably started the whole roof on fire by now, if they hadn’t fallen. Adam was glad to have had that much luck at least.

He had been taught in P.E. class how to use the fire extinguisher, when they had a special presentation on safety for a week. He pulled out the pin, which reminded him of a hand grenade pin that he had seen at the State Fair. He aimed the nozzle towards the source of the closest flames and he started spraying. He couldn’t breathe very well in the garage because of all the smoke, so he had to spray until he ran out of breath. Then he would run out to gasp, and catch a big gulp of air, before running back in. Once one part of the fire had been put out, he continued to attack the next closest burning area.

In this manner, Adam managed to put out all the obvious flames before hearing the siren from the Tesuque Fire Department truck. In seconds he could hear the tires squealing as the truck sped around the last curves before the Celier home.

The situation was still very dangerous since the smoke was still trickling out of the garage door. Where there’s smoke there’s fire, and it smelled terrible, and was toxic to breathe. Since the area was still smoldering, it needed to be carefully gone over and extinguished inch by inch. So, even though Mr. Katenact was mystified to find Adam already there, he didn’t waste any time as he put on the portable oxygen mask that he had in his truck, and took care of the dangerous situation at hand.

Once the smoke had cleared, Adam helped haul out any debris outside that looked damaged. Later they would separate everything and make sure it had no chance of sparking into flames again.

His mom and dad showed up right about the time they had dragged the last half burnt box to the driveway. “Oh my god, Adam, what happened? Are you okay? Where’s Craig? Is the house damaged?” were just a few of the questions they tried to ask him simultaneously.

Adam was able to answer a few of their questions completely. But he answered some of them only partially, since he was sure that even if he decided to tell his parents about the El Camino’s special abilities, he wasn’t going to do it where Mr. Katenact could hear. Then there were a number of questions that Adam didn’t know the answer to at all.

He explained how he had told Mr. Katenact about the fire, and that he had borrowed the fire extinguisher just in case. He told them how he was able to put out a lot of the fire himself before Mr. Katenact got there. He was able to make them believe that he had beaten the fire truck to the house by taking a couple of dirt roads that he knew about from all his hikes. Since the adults didn’t have any other explanation, they allowed themselves to believe Adam’s somewhat dubious claims.

He told them that he had been feeling sick right after first period, so that he had to come home early. Luckily nobody asked him about how he got home, since they didn’t know that he didn’t drive the El Camino that morning. He told them that he got home to find the fire already in progress. He said he just had time to grab the iguana and speed to the Fire Department.

“I’m sure glad you knew where the Fire Department was, because I wouldn’t have,” his father said, not realizing that Adam hadn’t really known.

The garage was almost completely undamaged, other than some nasty smoke stains, and some ruined boxes filled with things that they probably didn’t need anyway. This seemed to help everyone accept Adam’s story.

It also didn’t hurt Adam that the fire had revealed the presence of an iguana in the garage. Craig was in some serious trouble with their parents. Adam was in trouble too for hiding the story from them for Craig, but since he had managed to save the house from burning down, he was getting a pass. Craig though, had to come clean with his whole plan because it was exposed now. He told them about how he had needed to buy the iguana right away or it would be sold. He told them that he had bought a book from the store, and that he had read two more from the library. While explaining all this to his parents, he held his iguana in his arms. He felt a huge amount of relief that his brother had saved his new pet from sure death.

Luckily for Craig and the lizard, his parents were touched by their son’s obvious love for the animal. And it was cute how the iguana snuggled up against him like a cat. If this hadn’t been the case, it would have been back to the pet store immediately. But instead, Craig received a list of additional chores he would have to do to pay for any damages. He was also told about the new “schedule” that he would be following for the next six weeks as his penance for being so sneaky.

Craig accepted all of this without protest. He was too relieved to be upset about his punishment. At least he didn’t have to worry about telling them anymore. And he got to keep his new buddy.

“I know what I want to call him!” Craig blurted out all of a sudden, when the inspiration struck him. “His name will be Samwise, like the hobbit in The Lord of the Rings.”

Everybody thought that was an excellent name, so the iguana became Samwise, Craig’s loyal and resourceful servant.

Adam still had some questions that he wanted answered, though. And amazingly, the only source he had for them was a flying, talking El Camino. He waited until everyone else was asleep that night before tiptoeing out to the garage. He engaged the key enough to turn on the car’s electrical system, and he turned on the radio. It wasn’t tuned to any station and was only emitting static sounds. He just left it there, and tried asking, “Uh, hi El Camino. So, can I ask you a couple of questions?”

The radio didn’t do anything for a few seconds. It almost felt like the car was contemplating its answer. Then all of a sudden it leapt to a few news stations, where it put together a somewhat convoluted response. “…whenever questions…” “…no guaranties.” “…the constitution guarantees…” “…the right to free speech…”

“I guess I’ll take that as meaning that I should ask, but that I might not get an answer,” Adam surmised. “So, you were able to free the iguana from its cage, knock down the most dangerous boxes, and then fly to my school to get me? All on your own?”

The car radio stuck to the news stations, “…dangerous activities forced the army into the necessary actions…” “It has been shown…” “…the body is capable of extremes in extreme situations…”

That answered that question, but it left so many more. “So, what exactly can you do? You can fly, talk, I have to say that you can even think. What are you? What kind of things do you know? Why are you a car? Are you evil or good?” Adam couldn’t stop once he got started.

“…the accused took the fifth amendment on several occasions…,” was the El Camino’s only response. Apparently it didn’t want to tell him everything, or it couldn’t for some reason.

“But why won’t you tell me? Can’t you tell me anything?” Adam pleaded with his car’s dashboard, without thinking about how odd it would look to anyone else.

This time the car made use of some songs, “…I can’t remember all the times…” “I don’t understand how I…” “…time, time, time…” “…gotta give it time…”

Then it paused with some static and started up again, “…I am not evil…” “…you’ve got a friend.”

That answered one of his questions. It was probably the most important one. Not only did the El Camino say that it was not evil and his friend, but its actions of that day showed that it was helping the family in very important ways. He didn’t get any more out of the car that night, even though he stayed a few minutes trying. But, he was going to have to pay very close attention in the future to try to find out what exactly he had created by building his car. He fell asleep that night dreaming of flight and magic.

BOOK 2: The Enchanted El Camino Saves the Family Home – Chapter 5: A Disaster in the Garage

This is where Craig’s plans started to unravel in a very unfortunate way. What he hadn’t realized when he covered the light fixture up with the rag, was what Adam had previously used the rag for. It had been on the table because Adam had been cleaning off some old dirty grease from one of the El Camino’s fan belts. And he had used kerosene to help cut through the grease. Craig didn’t know the smells in a garage well enough to realize that the rag had the petroleum product on it, and that it was in fact highly flammable. The light fixture didn’t give off much heat, but with the tarp on top holding in the heat, and the rag in front, the combination caused a hot spot to develop in the circuitry of the fixture. Normally this wouldn’t have done more than discolor the tarp or rag from the heat, but with the addition of the kerosene, the combustion point was not very high. In a matter of thirty minutes the rag started to smoke.

The iguana sensed something wrong immediately. It naturally retreated to the far side of the cage to get away from the smoke smell. But there was nothing it could do to get further away when a small blue flame started to creep along the underside of the rag. That flame quickly trickled up the side of the rag until it changed colors to a smoky orange red flame, which started the tarp above on fire as well. Once a fire starts, it will seek out any fuel it can to keep growing. The pile of boxes and a tarp, with plenty of air supply thanks to the open cavity of the cage they surrounded, made a great environment for a fire. In two short minutes there was a serious flame situation. The iguana was now starting to go in to a sort of trance. It was as if it knew it was about to lose its life, and instinct made it retreat into itself and accept its fate.

 Adam was sitting in his English class trying to get a closer look at the object of his current infatuation, Joan Garfield, without a care in the world at that moment. His plan had succeeded, and he had an awesome car. The uniqueness of the El Camino, which could have been a negative, was actually more of a positive as more and more people told Adam that they thought his car was funky cool. He had learned that by rolling with the mockery punches, he looked like he was somehow ahead of his time. Or maybe he just got lucky, and everyone was growing up a little.

He was also starting to feel the urge to explore the other side of his vehicle’s talents by this time. It was about three weeks since his first test drive had turned into a test flight. He had blocked the event out of his mind, more or less, for two weeks. He even managed to believe that he had dreamed it a lot of the time. But he knew that he was going to have to find out one way or the other. What he didn’t know was what he would do if his test again showed that his car could fly. He would just have to cross that bridge when he came to it. He had no idea that his dream, his brother’s dream, and most importantly his parent’s dreams, were about to literally burn up in a huge bonfire at that very moment!

His daydreaming was interrupted suddenly by the sound of a horn. There was nothing unusual about someone honking in the cramped school parking lot, but something about this horn made Adam’s ears perk up. It can’t be, he thought to himself. Who would have driven my car to school?

But when the horn continued to honk a couple of times, Adam knew that it had to be the El Camino. The El Camino’s horn was an American car horn from the time when American cars ruled the planet, and no other car in the school lot would have sounded like it. Luckily, the bell rang for second period as he was trying to decide what to do, so Adam could run up to the parking lot to solve this mystery.

When he got there though, the mystery remained. He found the El Camino sitting there in the lot, but nobody was around to have driven it there, or to have honked the horn. He yelled out, thinking there was only one solution, “Craig, come out of hiding. I know you drove the car here.”

He looked into the small Piñon tree covered area adjacent to the parking lot to see if Craig was out there hiding, but he had no luck.

He went back to the car to see if there were any clues that he had missed, when he noticed something very strange. He could have sworn the doors were locked when he had first looked at the car. He had noticed because he had been too lazy to look around inside the car before, knowing it would mean looking through his backpack to find the key. But now the doors were open. He took a look around inside this time, but there was nothing to see. He decided that he better go back to class since he was already going to be late. He got out of the car and made sure to lock the doors this time.

But as he was walking away the strangest thing happened; he heard the doors unlock themselves. In the 21^st century we are all used to doors that unlock and lock themselves as if by magic, thanks to electronic keys. But in the 1970’s they weren’t around yet. Keys were still jagged metal tools that needed to be physically inserted into the locks. So, this gave Adam much more of a shock than it would have in today’s world.

He turned around slowly, trying to see if he could figure out how Craig was managing to pull off this trick, when he noticed a flash of green in the back of the El Camino. He hadn’t looked in it before since Craig would have a hard time hiding there. But that wasn’t true of a cowering iguana. Much to Adam’s additional surprise, the pet lizard was somehow in the back of the car, which was somehow in the parking lot opening and closing its doors by itself.

Adam was starting to feel very freaked out by all of this. He took the iguana in his arms and sat back down in the El Camino with his heart beating and his hands shaking. Craig would never have left his new pet in the back of the car exposed like that. There really seemed to be no rational explanation for what was going on. Then, just like it had happened when he was parking during his driving test, the radio sprang on by itself. Only this time it didn’t stay on one station. It started to jump randomly from one station to another. It would stop for a few seconds on one station and then jump to another, sometimes staying for a few words, and sometimes just one. It was when Adam realized that it never cut off mid-word that he started listening to the words themselves.

“I feel a fire…” one song sang. “In the Home of…,” a radio announcer began. “…Family,” another song finished.

By the time Adam had heard three versions of this message edited together from random radio programs, he started to understand, even though it was close to craziness to believe it. The car was talking to him! It had talked to him during the driving test, and it was talking to him now. And what it was saying was horrible!

“What do you mean, the house is burning?” Adam finally asked the car, feeling like an idiot as he spoke to the dashboard with an iguana in his arms.

“…it’s time to fly a little higher…” “…the Fire Department.” “…that’s the way, uh huh…” The next bits of the radio speak were all about this new message. Apparently the El Camino wanted Adam to drive somewhere and then fly to a fire department.

Adam asked, “O.K., but which one?”

Even before he got an answer, he started up the car and quickly pulled out of the school parking lot. He turned left towards the mountains since he knew of a few nicely deserted dirt roads in the foothills in that direction.

Meanwhile, the El Camino was trying to get a point across, “…near…” “The intersection…” “…Route 66.”

The problem became clear to Adam after the fact, but at the time he wasn’t able to understand exactly what the car was trying to say. The El Camino was trying to communicate that they should go to the Tesuque Fire Department. But the word Tesuque didn’t come up much on the radio. And since it wasn’t really a department, so much as a small truck parked in front of a volunteer’s home, Adam didn’t even know that it existed.

Adam decided that, whatever the additional instructions might be, now was the time to give the car another flight test, since that seemed to be the first thing the El Camino was demanding. Once he got to a straight portion of road, and saw there was none of the telltale dust in the air that happens whenever a car drives on a dirt road so he knew they were alone. He took a deep breath and accelerated. When he got to the end of the pedal’s throw, he pushed it one more notch. He felt his stomach rise into his throat as he and the car took a steep angle into the sky. Soon the Piñon tree dotted hills below were receding away like a dream.

But he still didn’t know which way to go. Since this was only his second flight, and he had just found out the El Camino could talk, he wasn’t in any frame of mind to think clearly. He told the car in his desperation, “I don’t understand where you want me to go. Please just help me!”

Suddenly he felt the steering wheel rotate to the left a small amount in his hands. This resulted in the car making a swinging arc until they were heading north. Then the wheel returned to its original position, and the car straightened out. They were now headed towards Tesuque.

“Okay, I don’t know how you did that,” Adam whispered to the car, after realizing again where he was, “but please be careful. I hope you know what you are doing, because I am about to pass out.”

They were flying higher than they had the first time Adam flew in the car. In fact, they were so high up that they would look like a tiny spot in the air to anyone below. But since the car was on its version of auto-pilot, Adam didn’t try to adjust anything.

In a couple of minutes it dawned on him that, since they were flying over the city of Santa Fe in broad daylight, the EL Camino was being stealthy by flying so high. “You sure are a, uh, smart car,” Adam muttered at this thought.

“…it takes…” “One to…” “No one…,” the car radio assembled into a response.

Adam eventually started to get a little worried that he couldn’t control the car at all. Here he was flying at such a height that if they were to fall, there would be no hope of survival. He eventually made a small, almost involuntary tug on the steering wheel. He immediately felt some relief because the car did turn slightly at his direction. When he stopped trying to steer away from the car’s desired direction, it turned slightly and corrected their course.

“So, you know where we are going, you can get there by yourself, but if I need to I can take control?” Adam asked hopefully.

“The leader of the free world today…” “….stating we give up our…” “Power, the power of…” “…total control,” came from the radio, in a slightly stilted collage of words.

Adam assumed this was agreement to his question. “Sometimes a simple yes answer is all I need.”

The car’s response, “…that’s the way I like it…” made Adam start to wonder if his car was capable of sarcasm.

BOOK 2: The Enchanted El Camino Saves the Family Home – Chapter 4: Craig Gets his Iguana

They made a plan, and the next Friday afternoon Adam picked up Craig after school. He had to put up with a few of Craig’s friend’s obnoxious comments, although, since Craig was attending the public high school, they were more impressed than snobby about the street appeal of the El Camino. When the brothers started to get in the car a couple of the guys asked them for a ride. But they were on a mission, and Craig told them that their parents had said no rides for the first six months.

“You better be careful with all those white lies you come up with. You’re kind of scaring me with how good you are at it,” Adam commented.

They drove to the pet store while Craig annoyed Adam to distraction by excitedly telling him everything there is to know about iguana care and maintenance. He learned that they are social animals that loved to be held. They have a very particular diet that consists of green leafy vegetables, with a little fruit from time to time as a treat. But you don’t want them to eat certain vegetables like spinach, beets, and cabbage, which is something that Adam and Craig felt like they must have in common with the lizards. Too bad their mom would never agree. They can be temperamental, and they can lash their tails around and scratch and bite if they feel threatened. But by holding them in a towel at first and scratching their backs gently, they learn to trust their owner and become docile. They respond well to gentle music and low lighting. Since the store bought iguana had been neutered by law, it shouldn’t display some of the hormone driven aggression that male iguanas can sometimes display during cyclical mating seasons.

Other important things for Craig to figure out were how to control the temperature and lighting. Iguanas need to be kept fairly warm, and they need regular light and dark cycles to be kept healthy. Since Craig knew he was going to have to hide the iguana in the garage until he told his parents, he had to find out how to provide warmth and proper light cycles in the cold and dark space.

Once they got to the store, Craig jumped out of the car and rushed inside to make sure that his lizard was still there. It was, and it might have been there for months, the truth be told, since not many people were brave enough to buy such an exotic pet. But Craig was, so he handed his shopping list to the store owner. He also purchased a special natural colored fluorescent light fixture with a timer, and a mini heating pad. He had previously added those to his budget once he realized he needed them, and he had managed to collect just enough to get them thanks to his store credit.

He and Adam loaded the inanimate purchases into the back of El Camino, and Craig took possession of a temporary carrying box that the store owner had put the iguana in. Craig put the box on his lap. He folded his arms carefully over the top so his new pride and joy wouldn’t escape and jump out of the window on their way home. And they were off.

Craig had previously prepared a cage out of spare fencing material for the iguana in the garage behind Adam’s work table. Since there were already some boxes and tarps in the garage, he showed Adam how he had been able to hollow out a two foot high, by four foot long, by two foot wide cage area that couldn’t be seen unless you went over to check. Since that was Adam’s special work area, it was highly doubtful that either their mom or dad would have any reason to be in the area. Again, Adam was impressed by his younger brother’s thorough planning.

When they got home they parked the El Camino in its usual spot in the garage. Craig wanted to be able to duck behind the car if he was interrupted by his parents during the transfer. Adam went in the kitchen and got a drink since he was supposed to be on the lookout for their parents going to the garage. If he spotted one of them, his job was to strike up a conversation, and hopefully talk loud enough for Craig to hear.

Meanwhile, Craig set up the light and timer on one side of the cage he had built. This side was in the corner and easy to shield, so nobody would see the light. He put the heating pad in the middle and made sure that there were no holes big enough for the iguana to get out of. Once he was satisfied that the cage was ready, he got the iguana box out of the El Camino.  He carefully opened the box enough to get a glimpse of his new pet.

The iguana looked a little freaked out when he first opened the box a crack, and it started lashing around inside. He remembered the instructions though, and he spoke to it in a calm voice, and gently put his hand inside the box. He left it there for a minute or so, and when he saw the lizard wasn’t going to attack, he gently started to stroke its back. Almost immediately he could sense the iguana’s muscles relax, and it started to push against his hand gratefully. Craig was able to open the box, and using a towel he had procured for this process, he took the iguana into his arms. It snuggled up to him and felt just like a hairless, scaly, muscular and affectionate cat.

Craig held the lizard this way for a few minutes to welcome it to its new home. But he felt like he better hurry to avoid any unfortunate visits by his parents. He opened the makeshift door that he had crafted for the cage and put the iguana inside. It took a little tour around the cage, sniffing things and testing the cage with its nimble front paws. But it wasn’t long before it settled in where Craig had put the heating pad and fell asleep, obviously exhausted from the excitement of the car ride.

That night before they went to sleep, Adam went to Craig’s room and asked his brother, “So, when you said that you would tell mom and dad in a ‘few days’, how many days did you mean exactly? You seem to know a lot about iguanas now, so you should just tell them.”

But Craig was still worried. The differences between he and Adam caused him to be less trusted by their parents, and Craig trusted them less to indulge him. “But, what if they say no now?” he asked. “That would be a really tricky situation.”

“You knew that going into this,” Adam reminded him. “And you promised me it would only be for a few days. I think you better do it before Monday morning. That way we can pretend to pick the iguana up in the afternoon, and we can get the stupid thing out of my workspace. The longer you delay, the bigger my chances of getting in trouble with you become.” Adam was feeling pretty uneasy about the circumstances by now. He had to convince his sneaky brother to stop sneaking.

“And it is about time you gave that thing a name. What are you going to call it, so we can stop calling it “the iguana”? And no, ‘Iggy’ is not a cool name.” The more Craig was attached to his lizard, the more Adam thought he could pressure him into telling their parents.

Craig had been trying to come up with a name, but so far nothing fit. He had a gift for choosing pet names, at least in his humble opinion, and he had always just let them come to him. It was as if the universe had a name already chosen, but it had to be shown to us humans slowly enough for us to get it. At least that is what Craig thought to himself before telling Adam to leave him alone, and drifting off to sleep.

The next morning was Saturday, and unlike how Adam was up at the crack of dawn when he had a new purchase in the garage, Craig still managed to sleep in until 10:30 AM. But he did check on the iguana first thing. It looked sleepy, but happy to see him. It crawled into his arms when he opened up the makeshift cage, and nestled into his body warmth. Craig had some leftover potatoes and salad from their dinner the night before with him. He tried to feed the iguana a little after he made sure that there was no salad dressing on the leaves. It didn’t seem to be interested in taking the food out of his hands, so he put it in a bowl and put it in the cage.

He spent the next hour with the little guy, but then he had to go to a 4H club meeting, which is an organization formed to teach children about ranching and agriculture. His parents had insisted that he join the 4H club to occupy some of his time, and since he loved animals so much. Even though he complained about going to the meetings, the fact that he was able to spend quality time with ranch animals was actually a lot of fun. His favorite activity was when he and his fellow club members got to take part in a catch the greased pig contest, with all the other 4H clubs in New Mexico. His club hadn’t won; it was the team from Hobbs, with kids who had ranched from the time they crawled out of their cribs, who won yet again. But it was one of Craig’s favorite memories.

Craig managed to spend an hour here and there with the Iguana for the rest of the day Saturday and all through Sunday. The lizard seemed very happy with his life in the garage. The books had said that iguanas can get lonely if they are left alone too long. But so far Craig’s had been fine. It seemed calm when Craig opened the cage. It also ate all the food he brought it, though this only happened when Craig wasn’t around. Each time when he left the food bowl was full, when he came back it was empty. Apparently the iguana wasn’t feeling so lonely that it couldn’t indulge its appetite. Craig assumed he was just lucky enough to have a well adjusted pet. It wasn’t like there was someone who spent time with the iguana when Craig wasn’t there.

Adam was furious on Sunday night, though. Craig had managed to avoid telling their parents, and Adam hadn’t been home enough to force him. It was too late that evening, so Adam whispered through his teeth that night before bed, “I will give you until tomorrow night at dinner before I just go ahead and tell them. I can’t stand pretending not to know. And I feel sorry for your poor iguana in the garage all alone. How would you like to live in there snuggled up to a heating pad all alone?”

“I know, I know. I’ll do it at dinner tomorrow,” Craig promised, “although, he actually seems very happy down there. But it would be cool to have him in my room.”

“Just tell mom and dad. Or else…” Adam laid down the law.

The next morning Craig woke up knowing that Adam was right. He resolved himself to do the right thing and get both he and Adam out of their uncomfortable situation. Besides, he knew that he would be able to enjoy his new pet so much more if he didn’t have to hide it.

Before school Craig paid a visit to the iguana to make sure he was okay. As usual the miniature dinosaur was looking healthy, rested and fed. He didn’t lash about at all, and he crawled right up into Craig’s arms when the cage was opened. Craig pet his back for a while and spoke to him gently about how much fun they would soon have. He made sure to plug in the radio and tune it to the classical station, turned down nice and low. He checked the heating pad. And, last but not least, he rearranged the tarp that he had put over the end of the cage with the light fixture. He had attached the fixture right up against the top of the cage so that if he covered it, with the help of the work table and a couple of boxes, you couldn’t see the light at all from the other side of the garage.

This time he was extra careful and took another rag from the work table and put it in front of the light inside the cage, to hide it a bit more. This way the cage was even less likely to be seen. On top of that, the El Camino was parked in front of the cage that day, since Adam was driving the truck from Mr. Quintana’s garage so he could tow a friend’s car after school. Finally, feeling secure about his lizard arrangements for the day, Craig went outside to catch the school bus.