Highly Commended Story - The Adventure of Little Lizard

“The Adventure of Little Lizard” by Mourah Francis Chizoba, Blossom Fount Model School, Nigeria, is the Highly Commended story in the junior category of the first biannual Short Story Contest 2019.

The Adventure of Little Lizard

Once upon a time, lizards where living beside the river bank. The female lizard will stay there and lay eggs, making their bodies always fresh. One day, the leaders of the lizards said “Let us have a meeting about how we can stop living beside the oceans, rivers and streams.” The smallest lizard among them known as Little Lizard said, “Let us start living in humans’ clothes so we can be warm and avoid the cold.” Most of the lizards said it was too dangerous although they liked the idea. They however decided to give it a trial.

One day a woman came to the stream to take her bath. She kept her clothes beside the stream and went into the water. The little lizard and a few of his friends were passing by and saw the clothes. The little lizard said to the others “This is a good opportunity to try out what we had agreed in the meeting.” The other lizards said it wasn’t a good idea, but little lizard who came up with the idea decide to give it a trial on his own. He then crawled into the woman’s clothes and stayed there. After the woman finished taking her bath, she came out of the water and put on her clothes. She did not notice anything the first time as Little lizard held on tight to her flappy dress, trying so hard not to make contact with her skin. As the woman walked and her clothes flapped from side to side, so did the Little lizard.

He however held on very tight trying so hard not to be noticed. Unfortunately for him the woman was going to the very busy market to buy some food stuff. As she approached the market, the woman walked even faster. Little lizard tried as much as he could to hold on but he couldn’t and after a while he had to make contact with the woman’s skin. The woman was shocked and began to shake and hit her body so hard, as she screamed. Little Lizard who was trying not to fall off and at the same time avoid being hit by the woman, kept on moving on the woman’s body. This tickled the woman and made her move as though she was dancing. Other people in the market looked at her in amazement. Some even thought she was going crazy. After much struggle Little lizard fell off. The woman now found peace while Little lizard’s problem just began. He had to dodge the fast-moving feet and try to see his way through the heavy dust created by moving feet. It was really a difficult task as he had to avoid been stepped on in order to stay alive. Little lizard finally found a small rock at the side of the market where he hid himself till the market was calm.

It was however very late in the evening and the lizard knew he had to go back to his home as it was not a good time to stay around the market as hawks would soon be around the market in search of food. As he was about to make a move, he heard the cries of hawks. Filled with fear he managed to escape and ran as fast as he could back home. On getting to his house, he met his friends and other lizards who were already thinking he was dead. He then narrated his experience to the rest. They all then agreed that Little lizard’s idea was not a good one and decided not to play around the clothes of any woman.