Dempsey's Dilemma
by
Sheila Lee Brown
Published by Sheila Lee Brown
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 by Sheila Lee Brown
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Dempsey's Dilemma
Dempsey White’s mother was known to scream at least four or five times a day. She was screaming one summer afternoon as six-year-old Dempsey entered the kitchen. He saw his mother’s legs poking out from beneath the table. He got down on his hands and knees to see what she was doing. She was swiping at something with his butterfly net.
“Oh, Dempsey,” she cried. “Get that thing out of here now!”
Dempsey saw the fat lizard he had found earlier that morning. The lizard climbed onto the table leg and turned slightly brown, matching the color of the wood. Dempsey grabbed it and held the squirmy creature with both hands.
“He won’t hurt you.”
“Lizards belong outside, Dempsey,” his mother said as she stood and put the butterfly net back on top of the refrigerator. Dempsey hadn’t been allowed to play with it since he caught all the moths flitting around the porch light one night and let them loose in his room. “Go ahead and put him out.”
Dempsey let the lizard go on the back porch.
“Bye, lizard,” he said sadly.
At supper that evening Dempsey’s parents discussed Dempsey’s habit of bringing critters into the house. Dempsey sat quietly and ate his string beans with his fingers. He was thinking about the tadpoles he had in a cup in the bathroom.
“There’s no telling what kind of germs he’s bringing in,” his mom was saying.
“Yeah, and you never know exactly where they will turn up,” his dad added. “Two days ago I found a slug in my shoe.”
“I know, I know.” His mother sighed. “Maybe going to the zoo tomorrow will at least get him interested in warm-blooded animals.”
The next morning at the zoo, Dempsey’s mom let him take turns using her camera. Dempsey appeared to enjoy taking pictures of the animals and his parents were hopeful that he might finally lose interest in bugs and reptiles.
“Did you have fun today?” Dempsey’s dad asked him when they got back home.
“Yes!” Dempsey replied. He walked over to his mom who was downloading the pictures onto the computer. He grinned as he looked over her shoulder. “Where’s my pictures?”
“That lion was really big, wasn’t he?” Dempsey’s dad said as he joined them. “Did you get a good picture of him, Dempsey?”
“Huh?” Dempsey said. “The lion? Oh, yeah. He was big.” He leaned over his mom as she began opening the pictures.
“Oh, my.” Dempsey’s mother said as she clicked through the images. One had a part of the lion’s mane, but was zoomed in on a giant horsefly on the lion’s shoulder.
Another one was a close up of a dragonfly resting on rhinoceros’s tusk.
“Cool!” Dempsey said. “I didn’t have to sneak up on them to get a good look. I just zoomed right in. See.” He pointed at a picture of a caterpillar climbing on a limb where a bright, blue bird was perched.
“Can we print some of these and put them in my room?”
Dempsey’s mom and dad looked at one another in surprise.
“Sure.” They replied.
His mom printed a few pictures and they put them up on Dempsey’s bedroom wall. She didn’t even flinch at them when she and his dad came in to kiss him goodnight.
The next morning Dempsey asked his mom if he could use the camera again.
“What are you going to do?” She asked with a chuckle. “Take more pictures of bugs.”
“Yes!” Dempsey said.
His mom stopped chuckling and looked at Dempsey with her eyebrows raised. He smiled his biggest smile.
“I suppose that’s okay,” she said slowly. She took the camera out of a drawer and handed it to Dempsey. “You still remember how to use it?”
To prove he did, Dempsey lifted the camera and took a picture of his mom. By chance, he also got a picture of a praying mantis (which was the last thing Dempsey had carried in before going to the zoo) crawling up her shirt sleeve. He plucked it off just as she was about to scream and put it outside.
While outside, Dempsey took pictures of spiders and frogs and lizards and different bugs. Later that day he picked out his favorites and his parents printed them and put them up on his wall. The pictures looked good and Dempsey liked that he didn’t have to worry about putting his creepy, crawly friends back out, so he finally stopped bringing them in.
As a result, Dempsey’s mother hardly ever screamed any more.
He sort of missed the sound.
