Excerpts

"Hank!" my sister, Emily, yelled, as she ran up to me and grabbed my arm. "You have to come meet Ginger. She's the cutest snake I've ever seen." "Emily," I said, "long slimy reptiles with no eyelids or ears are not cute. They're creepy." "Ginger's not slimy. Her skin is dry. Come pet her." "I don't pet snakes, or anything else that could eat me whole for lunch." Our family was spending the morning at the West End Avenue street fair. The whole block was lined with booths selling everything from blueberry muffins to tube socks. Leave it to Emily to find the one snake booth. That girl can sniff out a reptile better than my dog, Cheerio, can sniff out a hunk of pot roast under the dining-room table. Ignoring Emily, I headed for a booth that was selling cool comic books. Emily stood there and stomped her foot. "Mom! Dad!" she whined. "This isn't fair. We just spent twenty minutes waiting for Hank to taste every flavor of ice cream when we knew he was going to pick cherry-vanilla all along. Now the family should do something I want to do." "Emily has a good point, Hank," my mom said. "I think we should all go say hello to Ginger the snake." "Fine," I muttered. "But I'm not touching her with any part of my body. I will use my eyes and that's it." We walked over to a large purple sign that read RALPH'S REPTILE SHOW. Under the sign, there was a table with some reptiles displayed in different kinds of glass tanks. A giant tortoise was sitting in the middle of the table. And when I say giant, I mean giant. That guy's shell was as big as my bathroom sink. In front of the table was Ralph himself, with a long orange, yellow, and black striped snake wrapped around his arm. "There's Ginger!" Emily screamed. "Hi, Emily," Ralph said. "Oh, I see you've brought your family over to meet Ginger." "They're all so excited to get to know her," Emily said, reaching out to stroke Ginger's long back. "Make that all but one of us," I added quickly. "I hope this doesn't hurt your feelings, Ralph, but I'm not a big snake petter." "Well, then maybe I can interest you in Clive, my snow leopard gecko," Ralph said. "Or Boris, my adorable blue-tailed skink." Okay, I don't even know what a skink is. But it sounds too close to "stink" for me to even consider petting it. Ralph was wearing a tan floppy hat that looked like his head had sweated in it for at least a hundred years. He had on a brown shirt and shorts, brown construction boots, and a shirt with a million pockets and zippers. Maybe that's where he keeps his skinks. "Is that tortoise even alive?" I asked Ralph. "He's not moving." "You mean Speedy?" Ralph petted the tortoise's bumpy head with two fingers. "He's probably just thinking about the lettuce leaf he had for lunch. If you want a little more excitement, you should get to know Ginger. She's a hoot." Ralph moved his arm so that Ginger's face was very close to my nose. Maybe it wasn't very close, but it was close enough for me to jump way back. "Look at Hank," Emily laughed. "Afraid of a little snake." "I'm not afraid, exactly," I told her. "I just don't happen to love snakes the same way you do. Maybe I'm not an animal person." "You love Cheerio, don't you?" Excerpted from Fake Snakes and Weird Wizards by Henry Winkler, Lin Oliver All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.