1) A young boy gets a bearded dragon lizard as a pet for his 9th birthday after being excited to get a snake. 2) At the pet store, the boy is overwhelmed by the smells and sounds of the animals. He is uncomfortable with snakes that eat mice or pee frequently. 3) The boy chooses a bearded dragon that he names Spike. He sets up Spike's cage at home and looks forward to playing with his new pet lizard.

1. MY ROOMMATE
It was a cool October morning. I was excited. My mom had finally given up arguing
about getting me a snake as a ninth birthday present. I was really starting to act up by
the time we left that afternoon. I was the fastest one to the van. When I got to the van I
started yelling and screaming, “Come on lets go!”
When we got to the pet store I was in an unfamiliar place. I jumped out of the van and
ran to the door. My two brothers Alex and Evan and my mom and dad had barely started
getting out when I said, “Come on my nose runs faster.” It felt like it took an eternity for
them to get to me. When they finally did I opened the door.
When I walked into the pet store the first thing I noticed was the sound. I could hear
birds and crickets chirping, and one cricket ran across the floor. I kept looking at it until
it led my gaze to a big blue fish tank to my right. Inside was what looked like a big
catfish the width of my thigh and length of my arm, but it was really a small type of
whiskered shark. When I turned around I saw a big concrete half oval with two large
tortoises inside. The next thing that hit me was the smell. It smelled like bird and fish
food and it smelled like crickets, lots and lots of crickets. After we got someone who
could tell us about the animals we went into the reptile room.
When I walked into the reptile room I almost noticed right away that the room was
very bright. It was probably from all the heat and U.V. lamps. The next thing I noticed
was the heat. There were probably more than twenty heat lamps in there. It was so hot I
almost started to sweat. When I started to look around I noticed that there weren’t just
reptiles there were also frogs and tarantulas. Next I started asking the guide about the
snakes they had. Most of the snakes they had ate baby mice. Honestly I didn’t like the
idea of feeding newborn mice to a snake that will squeeze the life out of them. There was
one snake that ate small fish but it liked to pee. I wanted a snake I could play with so I
didn’t get that one and I didn’t get the ones that ate baby mice.
Since I wanted a pet I could play with I couldn’t get the snake that liked to pee
because it would make a mess, and I didn’t get the others because I would have to feed
them baby mice and I didn’t want to. So instead of getting a snake I decided to get a
lizard. There were a lot of lizards. There were iguanas, blue tongued skinks, geckos, and
bearded dragons. I decided to get a bearded dragon because I could handle it and it had
spikes coming out of its sides which made it look cool. Once I chose the one I wanted
the guide took him out and put him in a box. Next I went out of the reptile room and got
a book on bearded dragons, a cage for him, bedding that looked like rabbit food, a heat
lamp, a U.V. lamp, a little house for him to sleep in and a water bowl. Once my mom
bought everything we went out, got in the van and drove home. I was complaining he’d
get too cold.
When we finally got home I started yelling and screaming, “Come on, hurry up and
set up his cage under my loft bed.” We all rushed into the house, or at least I did. Once I

2. noticed they didn’t come in yet I went back, opened the door and almost hit Evan in the
face. I yelled, “Hurry up,” and I went upstairs. It felt like forever before they got into
my room. When they finally did I yelled, “Come on, I don’t want him to freeze to death
before I get him in the cage.” Then my mom said, “Hold your horses, he’ll be ok.” Once
they finally set up the cage I eagerly opened the box, but before I could take him out my
mom said, “Wait, that heat lamp is way too big for that cage.” So my dad drove back to
the pet shop, got a smaller heat lamp and came back. He got upstairs , unplugged the big
heat lamp and plugged in the smaller one. I put my lizard in and closed the top.
I was so relieved that he was in the cage and in the warmth I almost missed what my
mom said next. “What are you going to name him?” “Um . . . . well he has those spikes
so I’ll call him Spike.” The next day I said, “Mom, Spike is always trying to climb on his
house. Can we go to the local pet shop and see if there’s anything that he can climb on,
like a log?” Mom said, “I don’t know, let’s go check.” When we got there we went in
and started to look. Eventually I found some small logs with holes in them which would
be good for grip. I took the one I liked, found mom, went to the counter and gave it to
the cashier. The cashier told my mom how much it was, she paid and we drove home.
When we got home we went upstairs, I opened the cage and put the log in and closed the
top. Then my mom said, “Are you going to take him out tonight?” I said, “I don’t know,
we’ll have to see.”
It’s been two years since that whole affair. I’m turning eleven in three days and I’ve
grown and so has Spike. I’m anxiously waiting for Spike to reach full size, basically so
that we can finally figure out if Spike’s a boy or a girl. By then Spike will be longer than
two feet. He’ll live for a few more years. We’ve had and are going to have a lot of good
times from beginning to end.