Andy and Jeff were acquainted with an older lady, named Mildred, who lived in their town and who was a flower enthusiast. Even though they lived in the desert, she enjoyed gardening. She was locally famous for her incredible collection of flowering plants. Mildred put a lot of time and effort into her extraordinary garden. Her late husband had done most of the work involved in setting up the garden before he died, but there were still little improvements she made from time to time. One of these projects involved Andy and Jeff. She paid them to collect flat rocks from the desert for her. She used these rocks to frame planters, build walkways, or as stepping stones.
Mildred paid the boys as much as she could afford for their efforts. Mildred had a very limited income and so she did not have the resources to pay the boys all that much. The boys didn't really have many employment opportunities and so they were grateful for any work they could get which yielded a little spending money. Both Jeff and Andy were eleven years old and there just weren't that many people who had a lot of work for boys their age. They enjoyed helping Mildred and she appreciated their efforts. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement.
To collect flat rocks, Mildred would drive out into the desert and park by the side of the road while Jeff and Andy searched for rocks. She would sit and read as the boys scouted around in the desert and found rocks for her. The boys were paid according to the size and number of rocks they collected. They simply brought the rocks they found to Mildred's car and kept doing this until they had found all the flat rocks in an area. Then Mildred would drive up the road a ways to another area and park and the boys would repeat the whole process. In a good two-hour work session, the boys could make enough money to buy some candy and a soda each, plus pay for a container of BB's for their BB guns. Sometimes the boys would go out into the desert on their own and if they happened to find any flat rocks, they would carry them to the side of the road and remember where they had left the rocks and take Mildred to pick up the rocks later.
One Sunday morning Jeff and Andy walked out into the desert about two miles out of town to hunt for lizards. They had a coffee can with them that they carried in a burlap knapsack that they used to hold the lizards. They were keeping a lookout for flat rocks, but mostly they were interested in lizards. Hunting for the lizards involved looking at a lot of rocks and so the two activities were quite compatible.
"There's one," said Jeff pointing to a bush. A lizard had just darted under the bush.
"Where?" asked Andy.
"I'll scare him out," said Jeff.
Andy moved toward the bush and waited for the lizard.
"I see him, he's going to come out that way," said Jeff pointing in the direction he expected the lizard to run in order to escape from him.
After a few quiet moments as each boy did his part to corner the lizard, it suddenly jumped out from under the bush. Andy tried to grab it, but it escaped and ran under a medium-sized rock.
"I'll pick up the rock and you grab it," said Andy.
The boys positioned themselves for this next maneuver. Andy got behind and over the rock and Jeff crouched down in front of the rock waiting for the lizard. Andy lifted the rock about three inches and Jeff looked under it and said, "Okay, I see him, now lift it real nice and slow."
Andy complied and when the rock was five inches off the ground, Jeff grabbed the little lizard.
"I think he's a spiney," said Jeff inspecting his catch.
Andy retrieved the knapsack, pulled out the coffee can, and took off the lid. Inside the can there were three other lizards. Two were ringtails and one was a leopard lizard. Andy wrung out his hand after opening the coffee can. He had been bitten by the leopard lizard on a finger earlier and he had irritated his finger on the lid of the can. "Ouch, that still stings," he said.
"Those leopards sure can bite hard," said Jeff.
"Tell me about it," said Andy, inspecting his finger.
Jeff dropped the newest lizard into the can and Andy closed the lid.
"Let's go up to those boulders. I think there might be a chuckawalla over there," said Jeff. He pointed to a group of boulders at the top of a low rise about two hundred yards away.
As the boys hiked over to the boulders they talked about something that had happened the previous night. Jeff had stayed the night at Andy's house. Jeff sort of looked at Andy's father as his own father in a way. Jeff's real father had ran off and left him and his mother before he was born. Although Jeff stayed at Andy's house quite often, Andy never stayed at Jeff's house. Andy's father didn't really like Jeff's mother and discouraged Andy from hanging out at Jeff's house for this reason.
"Do you think that Jimmy Ray and Mica are going to stay in jail long?" asked Jeff.
"I doubt it. The sheriff just usually lets them out the next day. They're probably already out, I bet," said Andy throwing a rock he had picked up a little earlier.
"I don't know. They busted two windows at your next door neighbor's house," said Jeff.
Jimmy Ray and Mica were a couple of guys in their late fifties who always got in trouble for being drunk and rowdy in public around the boys' town. On the previous night they had showed up, uninvited, to a party at Andy's next door neighbor's house. They were already drunk and when they weren't admitted to the party they threw a couple of chairs that were on the porch through Andy's neighbor's windows. Jimmy Ray and Mica then hung around and verbally abused Andy's neighbors until the sheriff showed up, about twenty minutes later, and hauled them away to the town jail. Andy and Jeff had gone to sleep about two hours before all this happened, but Jimmy Ray and Mica had made so much noise that the boys, and everyone in the neighborhood, for that matter, had been woken up and where unable to return to sleep until the sheriff had taken care of the nuisance.
"They should just ship those guys away somewhere far away from here," said Andy.
"Yeah, that way they could bother someone else," said Jeff kicking a small rock.
When the boys reached the boulders they started to hunt around for chuckawallas. Chuckawallas were large, unsightly lizards with loose, sandpapery skin. The most unusual thing about chuckawallas, and the thing that made them difficult to catch, was that they were capable of inflating themselves in order to avoid capture. When cornered, a chuckawalla would seek the refuge of a narrow crevice in a rock and then inflate itself to make it impossible to dislodge it from the crevice. The boys knew a few tricks to use on chuckawallas and were eager to capture one. Not only was capturing a chuckawalla a challenge, they were also prized possessions and it was possible to barter or sell them for quite a high price.
The boys had searched around the boulders for about three minutes when Andy saw some people by a vehicle about a third of a mile away. He pointed them out to Jeff.
"What are they doing?" asked Jeff.
"It looks like they're digging something up," said Andy straining his eyes to figure out what they were up to.
"Let's get closer so we can see," said Jeff.
The boys used the cover of scattered boulders to move closer to the people without being seen. They were able to easily approach to within a hundred yards, at which point Andy said, "They're digging up cactuses!"
"Cacti," said Jeff correcting Andy.
"Which ever way you want to say it, it doesn't really matter. The important thing is that they're breaking the law. Remember what Mildred told us a couple of weeks ago?" asked Andy.
"Oh, yeah! She said that too many people are stealing cacti from the desert and that the state made up a new law against collecting cacti," said Jeff.
"Yeah, it's called, cactus-napping," said Andy.
"What should we do?" asked Jeff.
"We ought to get their license plate," said Andy.
"We're going to have to get a lot closer than this to see it," said Jeff.
"I should have brought my dad's binoculars," said Andy.
"Yeah, you should have," agreed Jeff holding up his hands as if he were looking through a pair of binoculars.
The boys left the knapsack and the coffee can behind and crawled on their bellies. They used the cover of small boulders and shrubs to enable them to work their way close enough to the people and their vehicle to be able to read the license plate. Also they wanted to be able to describe the cactus-nappers and their car. They figured that this information would be useful to the local law enforcement authorities. The boys didn't have anything to write on and so they had to work hard to memorize the license plate number.
It took the boys about twenty minutes to get back to town. Once they had crawled a safe distance from the cactus-nappers, they jogged the rest of the way. They took turns carrying the knapsack and tried their best to provide a reasonably smooth ride for the lizards in the coffee can. For the first part of the jog, they mostly concentrated on memorizing the license plate number. They repeated it to each other several times.
"GLS452", said Jeff.
"GLS452", repeat Andy.
"GLS452," said Jeff again.
"Green Lizard Soup for fifty-two," said Andy.
"What?" asked Jeff.
"The letters 'GLS' stand for 'Green Lizard Soup'," said Andy.
"Oh, I get it," said Jeff.
"And there are fifty-two guests at the party," added Andy.
Toward the end of their jog back to town the boys speculated about what the lizards must have been thinking. The ride in the coffee can must have been quite different from the usual daily experiences of the lizards.
"They probably just think it's a really bad earthquake," said Jeff.
"Or else they think they've been eaten alive and are in the stomach of some big hungry monster," said Andy.
"That's stupid," complained Jeff.
"Well, your idea isn't that great either. Earthquakes don't usually last that long," said Andy with definite sarcasm.
"So? Lizards don't know that!" claimed Jeff.
"Well, lizards don't know what it's like to be in the stomach of a monster either. It's not like they'd still be alive if they'd been eaten before!" explained Andy.
Once they had made it to town, the boys wasted no time in finding the local sheriff. They were on their way to the sheriff station, but they found him driving down the street about two blocks from the station. They waved him over. After he stopped the boys explained what they had seen and where they had seen it. They gave the sheriff the license plate number and a description of the vehicle and the people they saw. The sheriff nodded in approval and appreciation as the boys provided him with useful details.
"I'm gonna go catch me some darn cactus-nappers," said the sheriff happy to be on a mission to rid the desert of people who would do it harm. He made a call on his radio for back up, and then drove off out into the desert.
The boys went to Andy's house where they found Andy's father relaxing on the sofa and reading the newspaper. "What have you boys been up to?" he asked after they came in through the front door.
"We've been lizard hunting and we saw some cactus-nappers out in the desert," said Jeff.
"You don't say. So what did you guys do about it?" asked Andy's father putting down his newspaper.
"We told Sheriff Bob," said Andy.
"So you guys were out taking lizards from the desert and you told the sheriff about some people who you saw taking cactuses from the desert," said Andy's father.
Jeff wanted to correct Andy's father the way he had corrected Andy earlier, but he didn't feel comfortable doing that. Instead he said, "Yeah, it's against the law to take cacti from the desert. It's called cactus-napping!"
"So, you little lizard-nappers are telling on the cactus-nappers," said Andy's father.
"Well, yeah, there's a difference," said Andy trying to explain himself. "The cactus are in danger of being made extinct. You can ask Miss Mildred if you don't believe us."
"Oh, yeah, isn't that the lady who pays you boys for taking flat rocks out of the desert for her? That makes you boys rock-nappers in addition to being lizard-nappers. How is it that you feel comfortable telling on cactus-nappers?" asked Andy's father. He wasn't entirely serious, but he felt like giving the boys a hard time just to see how they accounted for this apparent contradiction.
"Stealing cactus out of the desert is against the law," said Andy, trying to make cactus-napping sound even more serious by using the word "stealing" which he associated with a recognized crime.
"Oh, so, now it's stealing? Then, if you guys are going to be consistent, aren't you stealing flat rocks and lizards out of the desert?" asked Andy's father trying to be even more difficult and not allowing Andy to get by with simply rewording his explanation.
"But the cactus are endangered," said Jeff trying to find the magic words that might get Andy's father to agree with them.
"So, then you're saying that some things are special. Cactuses are special, but flat rocks and lizards aren't. Is that what you're saying?" asked Andy's father with a bit of a smile.
"And tortoises too," said Andy.
"So, then, let me see if I'm hearing you right. You're saying that some things have special protections and other things don't," said Andy's father trying to clarify things a bit.
"Yeah, that sounds right," said Jeff, reviewing Andy's father's words in his mind.
"Let's see. So, then cactuses and tortoises are protected and flat rocks and lizards aren't. Some how that doesn't seem fair," said Andy's father.
"Dad!" said Andy realizing that his father was just playing with him and Jeff. "Stop doing that!"
"Doing what?" asked Andy's father.
"Playing like you don't understand," said Andy.
Andy's father laughed a bit and then said, "Okay. Okay. But here's another question. What if the cactus-nappers were not aware that cactus-napping was against the law?"
"Then maybe they should just get a warning," said Jeff trying to be fair.
"But you say that ignorance of the law is no excuse," said Andy.
"Unless, of course, it's an ignorant law, but I have to agree that protecting cactuses and tortoises is a good thing," said Andy's father.
Andy's father could be confusing at times. Although, as a miner, the work he did didn't require much academic ability, he spent a lot of his free time reading. He enjoyed debating about current events with other adults and he felt it was important to question the way things were done and that blind obedience to anything was an indication of mental decay. In fact, one of his slogans was "Question everything!"
After a couple of hours the boys made a trip down to the sheriff's office to see what had been done about the cactus-nappers. They recognized the car of the cactus-nappers parked outside the sheriff station. Inside the station they saw the sheriff. When he saw Jeff and Andy he told them that he had arrested the cactus-nappers and that he was going to have the cactus-nappers replant each of the cactuses they had dug up. Additionally, they were going to pay a large fine.
"Do you think the cacti will live?" asked Jeff.
"Some might, but that's better than none of them living," said the sheriff.
"Are they under arrest?" asked Andy.
"Yeah and right now they're getting to know Jimmy Ray and Mica a little better than they probably want to. I might even have Jimmy Ray and Mica go along with us tomorrow when we replant the cactuses," said the sheriff with a slight chuckle.
"Who'd want to get to know those guys?" asked Jeff, realizing that being locked up in jail was bad, but that being locked up in jail with Jimmy Ray and Mica was way worse.
Andy almost said, "You're mother would," since Jeff's mom had gone out with Mica for a while, but he decided that this would be too mean and that he should keep that thought to himself.
"Pretty much no one," said the sheriff answering Jeff's question. "Heck, I'd ship those two dead beats off to Siberia if it were up to me," he added with a chuckle.
"Siberia?" asked Jeff, not sure where that was.
"Sure, haven't you ever heard of Siberia? Don't they teach you nothing at school? Siberia is where they send criminals in the Soviet Union," explained the sheriff.
The boys looked at the sheriff blankly. It was clear that they didn't comprehend what he was talking about.
"It's a cold place in the middle of no where. No one wants to go there. That's why it's a punishment," said the sheriff.
"You mean it's cold and so there aren't any cacti," said Jeff.
"Yeah, good point. Maybe we should send the cactus-nappers there too! You can't be a cactus-napper if you live somewhere where there ain't any cactuses!" said the sheriff, thinking that Jeff intended to imply this conclusion.