The Adventures of Keiko Haubjed

Starring Keiko in

Scorpions

By Tsunami_Holmes

12-year-old Keiko lifted up a massive rock, nothing was under it except dirt. She dropped it violently.

"Ugh, will we ever find it?" she asked herself. Her whole family (except for Keiko's little brother, Dean, who was at a birthday party) were searching under rocks, logs, and such for a geocache. Geocaches were the family's favorite past time. They would drive around town and search for little boxes called caches. Today however, they were not close to finding the cache. They had been searching for a half an hour! But still no sign of the hidden box. Keiko lifted another rock and almost screamed. Under it was a colossal scorpion. Pinchers the size of itself, a long, dark tail, and of course, a poisonous, barbed tail. She was scared silly, but she wouldn't drop the rock, even though there was a terrible creature under it.

Keiko was too curious, she called with a trembling voice, "G-guys, come ov-ver here..." Her family, who were all staring at the hint given for the cache, slowly started walking over.

"What is it?" her dad, Ben, asked.

"A-a scorpion, it's cool, but freaky," Keiko muttered. Her whole family crouched around the dark creature.

"Do you know anything about scorpions honey?" Keiko's mom, Veronica, asked Ben.

"Yes," he replied, "in fact I do."

"Tell us about them!" Keiko urged.

"Alright, first, did you know that they only need one meal a year?"

"No! That's so cool!" Keiko exclaimed.

"Yes! It is! And you know what else is cool?" Ben asked.

"What?" Veronica asked.

"Scorpions glow under ultraviolet light, AKA black light. Would you like to take this one home so we can see it for ourselves?"

"YES!!!" Keiko exclaimed.

"Uh, maybe," Keiko's mother hesitated, "ok, fine."

"Yay!" Keiko jumped up and down, "I'll go and grab a container from the car to put it in."

As she raced to the car, which was parked close by, Veronica shook her head, "why do we have to take home a scorpion of all things?"

"Because the kids need to learn from the world around them, not just from books and the internet," Ben replied.

Veronica nodded. Keiko appeared with a small container, skipping happily back towards the venomous creature and her parents.

"Got it, now, can you tell us more while we catch it dad?" Keiko asked.

"Sure! Let's see," Ben cautiously used a stick to help the scorpion into the jar, "Ah! Did you know that scorpions only have 6 to 12 eyes? And yet, their eyesight is not very accurate?"

"Really? That's funny," Keiko laughed, "but also kinda sad."

"True, but they also can live for 3 to 8 years in the wild with those terrible eyes!"

"3 to 8? Wow, I never would have guessed."

"Yep! They eat insects by poisoning them first, the poison turns the inside of the insect into liquid, which the scorpion then drinks!" Keiko's father explained.

"Yuck!" Keiko made a sour face.

Ben was amused, "Well, there are 2,000 species in the world, only 90 live in the US, and only 30 to 40 out of the 2,000 have strong enough venom to kill a human."

"That's a relief," Keiko wiped her forehead in drama.

"Yes," her father chuckled, "they range in size from about 0.35 inches to 7.8 inches, imagine, a scorpion that size!"

"Nevermind about the relief."

"Not just yet, they will actually die without soil. Without moist, wet soil, these amazing creatures, die," Ben finished.

"Wow, now that we have one, can we go see it glow?" Keiko urged.

"Yes, yes," Veronica said, "I just can't believe that we didn't find the geocache."

"Wait! I see it!" Keiko exclaimed. She reached her hand into a crevice in the rock where the scorpion was, it was a little container. Keiko opened it to find a small logbook, pencil, and a plastic scorpion toy.

Keiko picked up the toy, "wow, it was meant to be. Can I keep it?" Now, you see, in a geocache you must leave something in order to take something. So Keiko's mother nodded and gave her a Mcdonald's toy so Keiko could keep the scorpion toy.

"Thanks!" Keiko smiled as she put the toy into her pocket. Then the group signed the logbook, put the cache back, and walked to their car with two scorpions, one plastic, one God's amazing creature.