Strange Creature

Last night there was no wind at all. The bushes weren’t rustling, the leaves weren’t blowing, and mommy’s hair wasn’t being pushed all over her face. But yet, something was moving…

Mommy took Nala and I out back last night for our after dinner walk. It was already dark out, and Yippee and Yappee (mommy’s names for our barking neighbor doggies) had already gone inside.

Nala finished her walk and went back to the patio to wait by the sliding door. Mommy and I walked near our huge mango tree, and then we heard a sound. It was almost like a creaking. I stared at the ground under the mango tree, but didn’t see anything move.

Under the mango tree, on the ground, lays a large “tarp,” a really big piece of brown heavy plastic that is covering a stack of wood. Mommy says that the pile of wood is what’s left after a hurricane knocked a branch from out of our mango tree. That branch destroyed part of the old fence. Daddy rebuilt the fence, but the wood pile from our old fence is still there.

Mommy didn’t want me to go over in that corner, and I’ve been really good about that. But just in case… she bought this big tarp to cover up the wood pile.

Sooo, last night when we heard the creaking, we started to see the tarp move up and down in one spot. We stared and stared. “There was no wind,” mommy thought out loud. “So how was it moving?” she wondered. I wondered that too, but since I wasn’t allowed over there, I couldn’t check it out.

All of a sudden, mommy yelled something and went running to the house with me running behind her on the leash. “What is it?” I wondered.

When we got inside, mommy closed the sliding door, and ran into the bedroom where daddy was watching TV. “Possum!” mommy yelled. Possum? What the heck is a possum?

Daddy yelled back, “Where?” “Out the window,” mommy said back.

They opened the blinds and looked out the window. “See it?” mommy asked. I jumped up on daddy to see if I could get a better look. “Oh I don’t see anything,” I thought. So I jumped off the bed. Nala stayed on the bed, so mommy asked her if she wanted to see it.

Nala looked out the window, but I don’t think she saw anything. She looked at mommy and thought, “What am I looking at?” Mommy held Nala’s face in the right direction and showed her something outside. “See it?” she asked her.

All of a sudden, Nala started barking like crazy. What did she see? I wanna see it! “Bark! Bark!” I began to yell. I jumped up on the bed and tried to look outside. “I wanna see it,” I barked… whatever it was.

Mommy held me so I could look outside. “I still don’t see it,” I thought. She moved me into a different spot. “I still don’t see it.” She moved me a third time, and also held my face and pointed outside. “Still don’t see… OMG! There’s something moving there! What the heck is that strange creature?!” I began barking like mad.

Mommy shhh’d us because she thought the creature would hear us and go away, but daddy said it must be deaf because it didn’t even notice our barking. Daddy shined a green laser outside to see if it would notice it, but it didn’t. The only thing the laser did was make me go crazy, because it kept reflecting off the window onto the bed and the closet!

The creature was sitting in the corner, on a section of wood that had been uncovered by the plastic tarp. I had never seen anything like it. Mommy and daddy thought it was “cute,” but I wanted to chase it. Too bad I couldn’t get out the window!

Mommy and daddy think the possum may be living underneath our tarp. They only come out at night, and we have to be very careful of them because they are wild and could be dangerous to doggies and humans.

Mommy said this possum was a small one, because she once saw a huge possum outside the door at night on the other side of the house. That one scared her because she didn’t expect to see it.

Sooo, I learned about a possum last night. They’re cute, but sometimes dangerous little creatures that like to hide underneath plastic tarps and wood piles. You never know what these wild animals will think of doing, so if I were you, I would watch them from far away. That is, unless you have a front row seat from inside your bedroom window. 🙂