BLOGWORDS – Wednesday 16 July 2025 –WRITING WEDNESDAY – DOUBLE -DOUBLE WHO’S IN TROUBLE – LUCKY THE LIZARD

BLOGWORDS – Wednesday 16 July 2025 –WRITING WEDNESDAY – DOUBLE -DOUBLE WHO’S IN TROUBLE – LUCKY THE LIZARD

WRITING WEDNESDAY – DOUBLE DOUBLE WHO’S IN TROUBLE – LUCKY THE LIZARD

 

* cover reveal Friday 5 September

 

 

LUCKY THE LIZARD

       Jere and I used to pull that all the time, mostly when we got in trouble. Like, Mom would ask who did whatever, and we’d both say, “Not me.” And point to each other. It usually worked, although sometimes we’d both be in trouble if it was bad enough.

      Especially the time we lost Jeff’s pet iguana, Lucky the Lizard.

      Jere and I thought we were doing a nice thing, taking Lucky for a walk. We even made sure to use Belly’s kitty leash. Belly was our big fat yellow and white cat. And by fat I mean huge; he was at least twenty pounds.

      But Lucky wiggled right out of the harness and skittered across the patio. And we skittered after him. He found a spot of sun—it was July and it was hot, which he liked—and just settled there like the girls at the swimming pool trying to get a tan.

      Jere stayed with him while I ran in the house for a couple of Dr. Peppers and a bag of [CHIPS]. When I came back out he hadn’t moved.

      Jere and I got bored after a while and climbed the stairs outside the detached garage. The apartment up there hadn’t been lived in for years and now it was kind of dilapidated—perfect setting for two ten-year-old boys to have adventures.

      When we came back down later that afternoon, Lucky was gone. I had totally forgotten about him but Jere noticed the cement block where Lucky had settled and realized he wasn’t there. We knew we were in for it. Jeff had fought hard for Mom to let him have an iguana in the first place, and for him to be gone… We’d be in deep trouble.

      We headed for the creek. That’s where iguanas go, right?

      “Boys!” Mom was usually pretty laid back but she was a [BOSS] when she was mad. And man, was she mad. “Jeremy Paul! Jordan Neal!” She definitely didn’t need a microphone for us to hear her—and we were all the way around the circle at the corner. “Right now!”

      Both our bike tires spun in the dirt on the empty lot as we tried to get home as fast as we could. We both hopped off our bikes before we even stopped; mine wobbled across the yard and Jere’s crashed into Mom’s flowers—he’d pay for that later.

      We tiptoed in the house, sort of—we were ten- and ten-year-old boys don’t exactly know how to be discreet.

      “Get your muddy selves out of my living room!”

      We hustled to the back patio. Mom followed and sat down, a glass of lemonade in her hand. We fidgeted; she took a sip, then calmly set her glass on the patio table.

      “Now, sit down, boys.”

      We knew she didn’t mean on her fancy patio chairs, so we plopped on the hot cement.

      “Jeff tells me that you lost Lucky.” Her voice was calm and that was way scarier than when she was yelling.

      Jere and me looked at each other, then back at her.

      “Well?” She took another sip of her lemonade.

      “We didn’t lose him.” I started

      “Yeah, he just ran off.” Jere picked up the thread.

      “We had him all safe…”

      “… in Belly’s harness.”

      “But he excaped.”

      “We chased after him…”

      “… but he bit me—” a total lie but if it would garner even a degree of sympathy from Mom it was totally worth it.

      “He bit you?” She leaned forward. “Let me see?”

      How did she do that? How did she know I was lying? I did have a scratch from [NEIGHBOR] though, so I showed her that.

      “Oh, Jordy—” She took my grimy hand and touched the scab from the neighbor’s cat, Fluffy’s, scratch; it was, after all, a week ago. “That looks bad. I’m glad it’s healed up so quickly.”

      Then she gave us The Look. You know, that look that all moms have. The one that says more than all the words could ever say, or how loud she might be.

      “I want the truth and I want it now.”

      Jere and I glanced at each other.

      “Somebody better start talking.”

      And we did. We talked over each other, recounting the events of the afternoon. Including bailing on our search and going to see if Gus was home.

      “And whose idea was it?” I don’t know why she kept asking us that; she had to know what our answer would be—it was always the same…

      “He did it.” We both answered, and this time we both pointed to the other, no clue that would become our signature trademark.

      After a lecture about respecting other people’s property and how much she had spent—an ungodly amount, she assured us, now wasted—and how devastated Jeff was, Mom grounded us both. Indefinitely.

      And yet, we knew our punishment would soon be forgotten; Mom was working two jobs and it seemed like it was all she could do to fix supper and clean the house.

      Oh, and Jeff found Lucky a week later. In the giant oak tree in the empty lot. We never thought Lucky would hide in a tree. We both figured he’d go for the water—after all, isn’t an iguana like a miniature alligator?

 

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

“I’ve always had voices—er, stories in my head. I once said I should write them all down so someone could write them someday. I had no idea at the time that someone was me!”

 

My stories are deep and dark, my characters raw and real, with a healthy helping of hope and joy, humor and laughter, and abiding and sustaining faith.

My characters struggle in some way for their identity. Their stories are their journey to know who God created them to be.

There is also a strong element of friends, family, and faith in all my stories, and the difference it makes to have such a support system.

 

 

·       unsavory heritage series—seven generations, from Cissy to Connie, each with their own secrets, one of which is ugly and unsavory, and initiates the curse they all bear

·       Seasons series—four friends, each one struggling to know the truth of just what happened when one of them plunged into the depths of the black waters of the Edisto River

·       FourSquare – Four stories about four couples who also happen to be four sets of twins.

 

 

“Maybe you have to know the darkness to truly appreciate the light.”—Madeline L’Engle

 

“There is freedom waiting for you on the breezes of the sky. And you ask, What if I fall? Oh, but my darling, what if you fly?” —Erin Hanson

 

#Blogwords, Writing Wednesday, Robin E. Mason, Current Work in Progress, #WIP, Double Double Who’s in Trouble, FourSquare Series Book 2, Lucky the Lizard, #FourSquare, #twinfiction, #twinsmarryingtwins, #twinconflict, #fictionwriter, #battleforidentity, #cominginAugust, #amwriting, #amediting, #fictionwriting, #faithfiction