Snakeskin

“I gotta tell you something,” said Little Biker Boy, my eight-year-old neighbor. We were sitting on the front porch as usual, me drinking my morning cup of tea and him running lego cars up and down the step. He paused dramatically. “The other morning when I came over, there was a snake on your front porch. Right here.”

“What happened when you walked up?”

“It went right away – fast!”

Like most kids, Little Biker Boy is fascinated with snakes. The ones that live in this region are harmless – mostly just garter snakes or common water snakes. And they do sometimes sun themselves on rocks or roadways or the concrete step to a house.

So when I went for a walk with Little Biker Boy and Ponytail, we looked for snakes. We found a small one, hiding in the cracks of some cement blocks near a neighbor’s driveway. And then in another spot, where Little Biker Boy told me he’d seen a bigger snake, we found crumpled skin, coiled around a post.

Little Biker Boy held the snakeskin carefully in his hands and carried it back to my house, where it’s now sitting amongst the toys and lego blocks on my front porch.