Leaving Nora's Garden

By Michael D. Harrison

The tale of growth and family among the small animals in your backyards. Like with all children, there are lessons learned and friendships found each day. In this tale Hailey, a Fence Lizard in Corona California helps train her brother Noah, makes a friend of an Alligator Lizard, and overcomes challenging events as she grows. Her brother also blossoms. And then there is the great battle.

This is not just a story about the big sister. Noah also has a story, the way siblings do, separating from her and coming back from his own adventures to find her. In the way of his adventures he meets a California Mouse, Daniel. Together they wander into part 2 of this book, encountering their challenge of finding meaning in their aging lives, suddenly thrust by their adolescence into a different, more dangerous world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael D. Harrison
• Release date: Mar 11, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301689064

Michael D. Harrison

Michael D. Harrison retired after 33 years in the Transportation Industry with UPS. He had published several poems in the MUSE at Riverside Community College in the mid-1990s. He began writing fiction in 2010. His favorite genre is Literary Fiction. The book "Sifting the Sands"is his first adult themed story, having mature content and was published in 2012. The 2013 children's story, "Leaving Nora's Garden", is his first children's themed story written in a format enjoyable to adults as well as children. In 2022 he has published another family children and adult read aloud story, "The Sunny Side of the House." Currently Michael is publishing only in electronic format.

Book preview

Chapter 1: Her Children

Good night, Momma. I hope you feel better, Hailey said.

Miss Julie was tired from laying the seven eggs. They had arrived steadily, one per hour. Hailey saw her mother’s eyes were still moist from the effort.

I’ll be okay tomorrow, Miss Julie said.

Hailey was relieved her mother’s ordeal was over for the year. Even so Hailey was excited by the magical birth thing and how there would be siblings for her to play with. Miss Julie had explained it to her many times so Hailey knew it was how she had also come into the world. Yet she thought seeing them hatch would complete her understanding.

Miss Julie told her the eggs needed to be covered with a thin layer of sand for four weeks and at the end of the time the babies would hatch. She said during the weeks of development the eggs’ soft shell would become transparent so they could see the gender each of the eggs had become. Once they knew the gender she could help her mother give them names, even before they hatched.

As she readied for sleep Hailey grew excited thinking about having younger siblings. She decided it would be nice to have one of the eggs to take care of as her own.

Being careful her mother didn’t see her Hailey crept to the neat pile of eggs. Watching for a moment to see if any egg was more special than the others, she selected the largest. Taking it very gently in her mouth she carried it back to her sleeping corner. With the wall at her back she protectively curled her tail around the egg before she fell into a restless sleep.

They came during the dark hours. There was no sound. The Black Widow Spiders dropped from the ceiling unraveling silken strings from their spinnerets at the rear of their grape-sized bellies. Each of the seven Black Widows had come to steal one of the seven Lizard eggs. The cruelest of them, the hag Lillian, watched as the others quietly lifted the eggs to secure in their own web sack. They waited in silence for Lillian to lead them back into the darkness of the ceiling.

Where’s the last egg? said Lillian. She always hissed when she spoke.

There aren’t any more, one of them whispered. None of the subservient Black Widows wanted to tell her. They knew how furious she would be. She had told them there would be seven eggs and there were only six to be found.

What do you mean? There were seven, said the hag. She searched the sacks her coven held to see if any of hid an extra egg. An extra egg would have been a very hard prize to resist. Below them the sleeping Lizards lined the brick wall.

Search the nest. Find the egg. Do it now, she said.

In such close quarters not one of them would have come out of a battle without some injury. Miss Julie was weak from the birthing. Hailey was not experienced in the art of night fighting. The Hags were vulnerable in close quarters because they’d become so excited they would end up fighting each other in the confusion and could not avoid each others blasts of web.

Just as the Spiders split into two groups of three the room was flooded with bright light from above. The old man and his wife had come to hunt Black Widow Spiders in the moonless night to re-supply the science class with specimens. While the old man pulled the plywood cover off the nest she exposed the Black Widows in her flashlight beam.

Look, there are six of them. We have to be quick, he said.

The old woman did her part. She spun the long stick tipped with molasses inside the den so by brushing it against them the Spiders were captured but not injured. The helpless Spiders jetisoned webs upon each other.

That ought to do it, said the old woman as she pulled the stick up from the brick stack, and held it away from her body. She hobbled next to her husband back into the light of the patio. They placed the grape-sized Black Widows into separate preservation jars for the science class donation. Afterwards the old man forgot to cover the nest with the plywood board so the damp night air settled into the sleeping chamber, putting the Lizards deeper into slumber as their hearts beat slower.

Lillian avoided the capture. The instant the light flooded the nest she’d climbed into an empty corner and clamped herself into a dark ball of web and venom, waiting for the humans to go away. After their shuffling feet had gone back to the patio she dropped silently to the floor. From her hiding spot she’d seen behind Hailey and spotted the seventh egg.

Lillian looked savagely around the nest for any other sign of life. She considered for a moment whether she could steal the last egg from behind the sleeping Lizard, but the risks were too high for her. She paused, illuminated by the seething glow of the hourglass on her belly. Then she loosened a climbing web from her spinnaret, which vented upward into the night sky the way air goes up a chimney flume.

In the morning Miss Julie was the first to awaken. She knew at once what had happened. The awful smell of the Spider remained in the air. Her egg pile was gone. A few strands of climbing web dangled from the walls. Miss Julie shuddered, realizing there had been more than one Black Widow. She knew she and Hailey might have been wiped out. But she did not know the humans had again intervened in the fate of the Lizards of the yard.

Hailey, Miss Julie shook her, Hailey, wake up.

Hailey’s mother was saddened by her unborn childrens’ demise. But she could not have withstood the pain of losing her living daughter.

Hailey awoke and smelled for the first time the rottenness of the Hags permeating the room. She uncurled from around the remaining egg. What’s wrong Momma?

Oh thank goodness, Miss Julie said when she saw the seventh egg. The Hags came last night. We’re still in danger. We need to go, now.

She looked at the last egg and knew Hailey had slept with it. She guessed it was because Hailey had overcome her jealousy of having siblings and had chosen the one she would share her time with until it was ready to be on its own. Miss Julie smiled at her. What are you going to name it?

Noah. Hailey said it as a matter of fact.

Miss Julie was pleased how without the eggs maturing into transparency Hailey guessed it was a boy. The name sounded nice. It was strong, too. With Hailey carrying Noah’s egg gently between her jaws, the three left the nest to search for their new home.

Chapter 2: Almost Learning to Swim

It had been a large backyard project for the old man and his daughter when they were younger. Made resourcefully with fired-clay red bricks for the raised deck platform they’d supported it with a slump stone bearing wall, the blocks glued unevenly with mortar because he was not a skilled mason. The platform cured and hardened beneath the hot sun. It held strong for many years and was just beginning to show cracks where the weed seeds had taken root. But the purpose of the deck was still served because the platform rose a full twenty-four inches above the pool decking and allowed anything that sat upon it to take in the full extent of the backyard and the Corona Valley below.

The sun was so warm Hailey Hagador Lizard could not help but want to doze beneath it. She skittered to a stop on the huge red brick deck the way little girl Lizards do. The sun heated the bricks to toasting warmth and resting upon it was the best way to enjoy down time from watching her little brother. Hailey loved the heat almost as much as having her back rubbed by her Mama. She daydreamed how with Mama, unlike the sun, she had to pay attention and kind of squirm to get her to focus on the best spot. Beneath the sun she could just push up and down the way little Lizards do to increase the pleasure. The sun wrapped around her and she thought mmmmm….

Hailey awoke with a start. At first she thought it was because she had fallen asleep and her body had gotten too hot under the sun. But then she remembered Noah. She was supposed to watch him.

She knew Noah was growing up. He was able to run in short uncontrolled bursts. Only he did not know like she did about the dangers around the yard. To him everything was fun. Hailey didn’t want to lose him so she’d decided to teach him to play it safe. She’d already taught him to climb head first straight down all the wooden and slump stone fences. And she was working on keeping Noah away from the pool until he knew its danger. Then she heard the splashing and a cry for help from her brother.

Hailey’s mind raced. She elevated on all her feet, looking franticly across the dangerous blue pool from the brick platform. Hailey ran to the front of the brick deck where she could see almost all the pool surface. Nothing! But from where she stood she could see the water rippling at the waterline. She knew at once she must go closer to the pool edge.

Normally Hailey would leave the brick deck by way of the three steps. But she was in emergency mode. She jumped the entire twenty-four inch height of the platform to the concrete below. It jarred her for a second. She dashed to the pool edge, where the white coping sloped up and rounded before it dropped off into the dangerous pool. The coping was easy to hold onto up to a point and she remembered how it’d once given her a false sense of security. She could see over the rounded edge, but not down at the waterline. Hailey knew from experience a Lizard’s reflection would be visible at that point.

Hailey recalled how the desire to see her own reflection in the pool had enticed her to it. In the past she’d wanted an even better view of herself. She’d guessed that where the sun did not shine directly into the water her reflection was better. So she’d edged onward until she’d stared into her reflection in amazement, where falling was unstoppable. Frantically she’d tried to back pedal. No longer in control then, she recalled the panic of being pulled to the water by a force stronger than anything she could imagine.

Suddenly she’d hung in mid-air with her back feet no longer touching the coping and her nose touching the water. Slowly and steadily she’d felt herself being pulled back up by her tail onto the coping. Hailey remembered her mother let her cry for a short time. And then she listened to her mother scold her about how dangerous the pool was for Lizards and why she shouldn’t be near the edge. And then she saw her mother cry.

The thoughts flashed through Hailey’s mind as she raced to the edge of the pool to peer over the side. As she guessed, Noah was clinging to the side of the pool where the water and tile met. He was gasping because