Salamander Crossing

I pushed my dentist chair to the upright position and looked around nervously. It was probably just my imagination. I had been reading the magic misfits 3, and Theo had just almost been murdered by an evil magician who had set himself on fire right after the incident (in the book of course, I don’t actually know anyone called ‘Theo’). Still, those flashing lights had seemed so real. Then, I saw them again. Six flashes of light, from the direction of the road. Who would be out at 3 am in the rain? Then I heard voices. First some muffled talking that I couldn’t understand, and then a distinct yell of ‘Car!’  I knew I wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep till I found out what those people were doing. I hoped they weren’t evil magicians. But I knew evil magicians didn’t really exist. Or did they? I put on my raincoat and headed outside. 
After I got a few steps away from my house, I realized I didn’t have a flashlight. But I headed towards the mysterious lights. Then I saw them: a group of about six or seven people. Closest to me, there was a boy my age wearing an odd space-age hat that had a shiny blue hood and a clear plastic disc that extended around his shoulders. He also wore a t-shirt with the words ‘fro yo’ on it, and a pair of yellow boots with shiny reflective bits that came up to his hips. He was bending over next to a girl who looked about the same age as my brother. She was wearing a pink raincoat and pink boots with shiny bits that came up to her hips. She was also wearing a pink bow tie and a pink top hat. The boy was sketching something in a sketch book. The girl was cupping her hands arounds something that I couldn’t see, holding it carefully, as if it were precious. There was also a man in a beige trenchcoat and a black fedora, carrying a briefcase and looking around nervously, shining his headlamp left to right, left to right. There was another girl who looked a few years younger than me, who was scanning the ground with a flashlight. She was wearing a hat like the boy’s, only it was pink, not blue. She had on a huge backpack, a blue t-shirt, and lilac boots that came up to her hips. She was carrying a scraper! Finally, there were two little kids. One of them was wearing a bathing suit, a very wet and bedraggled pair of fairy wings, and a very wet and bedraggled tutu. The other one looked like a paradigmatic fisherman, except for much smaller. He only looked about two years old. He was dressed in a yellow hat, yellow slicker and yellow rain boots. He was carrying a teddy bear who was dressed in the same manner. 
Just then, the man in the trenchcoat pointed his flashlight at me and said, “No car, but there is a kid.” They all turned and looked at me. 

“Look out, don’t step there!!” warned the girl dressed in all pink.

 I looked down. I didn’t see anything but a rock, but I didn’t step there anyway. Instead I asked, “Are you a secret society?”
The boy about my age replied, in a spooky voice, “Yes, we are. And now that you have seen us, you can join us.” I was terrified. I wondered if I should join them, so they wouldn’t hurt me, or not join them, since it doesn’t seem good to be part of a secret society. Especially one that carries around scrapers. 
But then the one wearing the bedraggled fairy wings said, “No we aren’t, silly! We’re salamander hunters!”
I was relieved that they weren’t a secret society, but puzzled at why anyone would hunt salamanders. I mean, it would take a lot of salamanders to make a stew. And a salamander pelt rug would be awfully tiny. 
I obviously looked confused because the boy in the odd hat clarified, “We don’t like, eat them or anything, we help them cross the road.” 
“Oh, so what is the scraper for, if it isn’t for cutting off the heads of salamanders?”I asked
“Scraping the roadkill salamanders off the road”, the boy replied. “I’m Eli, by the way. This is Sarafina” he said, gesturing towards the girl with the huge backpack. 
“But you can call me Sara,” said Sarafina. 
“Because ‘Sarafina’ is a mouthful” explained the girl in all pink. 
“That’s Fuschia”, said Eli. “That’s Willow,” he said, pointing at the girl in the fairy wings. “And this is Teddy” he said, picking up the little boy dressed in all yellow. “And that is--”
“CAR!!!” Yelled the man in the trenchcoat. 
Eli grabbed my hand and pulled me to the side of the road. “—Dad”, he finished. (“Not ‘car’”), giggled Fuschia. 
“HIIIIY” bellowed Eli’s dad, in a very low, very loud voice.
“Dad, voice!” said Fuscia. 

    

“hiiiiiii” he squeaked in a very squeaky high voice. 

    “Dad, your normal voice!” corrected Eli. 

“Oh, hi”, said Eli’s dad, in a perfectly normal voice. 

“So, do you want to help us find salamanders and frogs?” asked Eli 

It sounded like fun, and I also wanted to spend longer with Eli and his wonderfully weird family so I said “ok!”

“Also when you hear Dad yell ‘Car!’ get of the rode” warned Eli

“It’s the most important rule.” Explained Willow 

“Teddy!” added Teddy

“Ooh, an eastern newt!”exclaimed Sara 

We all ran over to look, even though I didn’t know what an eastern newt was. Eli started sketching, and his dad took a phone out of his briefcase. Sara started talking excitedly in Latin. 

Eli explained,“Latin’s her latest langued” as if that made it make sense. 

“Her name is Mandy.” decided Willow

I looked over Eli’s shoulder to see what he had drawn. What I saw was a drawing so perfect, it almost looked like a photo! “That’s amazing!” I exclaimed

“My hat?” Eli asked, very confused.

“No, your drawing!” I clarified,giggling.

“Realy, you like it?” he asked in disbelief

“It's amazingly realistic!” I said

“Thanks” he said “Hey Sara, Come write the name under this salamander!” 

“Which languages?” she asked 

“English, Latin, and Willowish,” he replied.

“Why can’t you write them yourself?” I asked

After I said that I immediately wished that I could unsay it. but the problem with words, is that they don’t really work that way. Eli nervously doodled poodles eating noodles, and looked down at his boots, as if they were really interesting. I mean they were tall, but tallness only goes so far. “I’m dyslexic, so I can’t read or write very well, '' he mumbled, almost robotic-soundingly.  

“One of my favorite book characters is dyslexic, Ally from Fish In A Tree.” I responded, unshore what else to say. 

Luckily teddy interrupted by todddeling over, yelling “Teddy!” and presenting Eli with a small frog. 

“Nice, a spring peeper!” exclaimed Eli.

“Has anyone found an ambystoma maculatum yet?” asked Sara.

“Speak English” groned Eli.

“Spotted salamander” she translated in an equally annoyed tone.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“It’s a really rare salamander that’s black with yellow spots and this big” Eli Explained, holding his hands apart about the length of one of those footlong hot dogs you get at fairs, so a foot I guess,if the hot dogs are advertised accurately. 

“Cool!” I exclaimed “ I didn't even know that salamanders could get that big!”

“In China there’s salamanders that can grow up to six feet long.” Eli informed me “There called giant Chinese salamanders”

“Whoever named them wasn't very creative.” said Fuschia “ I mean, there's a species of salamander that lives in China and is giant, so you call it giant Chinese salamander? Not very creative. I would call it something cool, like Mega-goliath-awesome salamander or something”

“I would call it Lulu,” added Willow.

We all laughed except Willow who just looked confused and said “Lulu is a very pretty name!”, and Teddy, who jumped in a puddle with a dramatic cry of “Teddy!”

We continued looking for salamanders and frogs. I told Eli about my little brother, who was eight, and obsessed with dinosaurs, and my parents who were accountants, but not nearly as boring as you’d  expect accountants to be. Eli told me about his mom who was a pilot, and right now was flying somewhere over the Atlantic on her way to France. He also clarified that Sara was a spelling bee champion who was bored with English and learning all the other languages she could, and that yes Teddy could only say teddy, and Willow never took off her fairy wings.
When we got to the end of the section of road that Eli and his family patrolled, we stopped and Eli's dad took chocolate chip cookies out of his briefcase. He hadn't brought one for me, obviously, but they were huge, so Eli gave me half of his. They were the best chocolate chip cookies I had ever had! 

“Theas are Amazing!” I exclaimed

“THANK YOU!” bellowed Eli’s dad in a loud low voice

“Dad, use your normal voice!” Fushuaia reminded him  

“Oh, right” he said in a completely normal voice “I got the recipe from Cook’s Illustrated, and they did claim that these were the best cookies ever, so maybe they were right” he continued in the same normal voice.

We finished our cookies and started back to my house. As we walked I told Eli that at my house we all sleeped in dentist chairs and all of our chairs hung from the ceiling, because my parents didn't want the house to be normal, saying as they had the normalist jobs in the world. I wasn't just trying to make him laugh, we actually do have that wired of a house. He told me that his dad’s name is Topher Gopher, and that Fuschia and Sara share a bedroom.   

“The fact that they share a bedroom isn't the weird part though, it’s how they share it!” he told me

“How do they share it?” I asked

“Shara has the bottom half and Fuschia has the top half,” he replied.

He explained that Fuschia is a really good climber, so her entire room hung from the ceiling, her bed, the drawers she kept her clothes in, her desk, everything! She had a ladder to climb up there and used monkey bars to get around. 

Soon we got to the other end of the bit of road that Eli and his family patrolled, witch was also my driveway 

“Too bad we didn't see any spotted salamanders” lamented Fuschia.

    “Ambystoma maculatums” muttered Sara.

    I headed up my driveway, lighting my way with the flashlight Eli had lent me and humming the song “Flashlight”. 

Suddenly, I saw something black with yellow spots, salamander shaped, and about as long as a foot long hot dog. 

I ran down my driveway yelling “I found a spotted salamander!” and, for some reason, spiraling my arms like a wind turbine.

    Luckily, it takes a long time to load five kids into a car, especially when two of them are still in carseats, one of them insists on talking only in Latin, and another wants to climb into the car through the sunroof. So when I turned the corner from my driveway onto the road, Eli’s dad was just starting the car.  

“I found a spotted salamander!” I yelled, and Eli’s dad stopped starting the car. Everyone piled out of the car (Fuhia piled out through the sunroof), and they all followed me up my driveway, Shara talking in Latin the whole way, and Fuschia turning cartwheels every few paces. When we got to the place where the spotted salamander was, everyone stopped and stared in silence for a second. It was beautiful, a foot long midnight black salamander with neon yellow spots that practically glowed in the light of our Flashlights. 

“Teddy!”Teddy breathed in wonder. We all laughed at that, which broke the spell. Eli’s dad started taking pictures of it from every angle, and Eli began sketching. I watched a spotted salamander slowly take shae under Eli’s pencil. it was almost more mesmerizing than the salamander itself. Shara was still talking in Latin, more animatedly than ever. 

“Her name is Dot!” Willow decided, and when Eli had finished sketching, Shara wrote 

Spotted salamander 

Ambystoma maculatum

Dot

underneath. All too soon, Eli’s dad decided that it really was time to go, and rounded up Eli and his siblings to take them back home. I headed back up my driveway, tired, and soggy, but happier than I had been for a long time. I might never see them again, but I will never forget Eli and his family.