Tarun smiled lovingly at Silent Sunny. He didn’t smile back. He couldn’t because he was a lizard. And lizards don’t smile. Not even if they are fantastically happy and have eaten a fantastically full meal of a full housefly.

Silent Sunny didn’t even know he was called Silent Sunny. Tarun didn’t know if Silent Sunny was a he at all. Tarun didn’t even know if Silent Sunny was the same lizard he saw last week. All any lizard ever did was lie flat against the wall, near the tube light in Tarun’s room, waiting for insects. All Tarun ever did was smile at him.

Since you have now been formally introduced to the lizard, let’s tell you a bit about Tarun. Two bits, actually. Tarun was eight years old. Tarun desperately wanted a pet. If you want to know why, you need to know about his best friend, Joey. Joey and Tarun were in a race. They were both the same in everything. Same height. Same age. Same class. Same marks in their exams. Same cuts on their knees from falling off a wall – at the same time, into the same ditch. Same howls while their same-cuts were being same-cleaned. Same score on the video game they were not supposed to be playing.

They even lost their front teeth at the same time. Of course, that was because they smashed into each other while playing football. When the teeth fell, they looked exactly the same lying in the grass. Tarun even suspected he might have taken Joey’s tooth home to show his grandmother.

The day everything changed was when the pet waddled into the picture.

Joey’s father brought home a puppy that nobody wanted anymore from a pet shelter. How could anyone not want a pet? Tarun thought that grown-ups had balloons for heads.

Nevertheless, balloons aside, Joey was now ahead in the race. He had a pet. Every afternoon, he rushed back from school to play with his puppy, take it on walks and show it off. Tarun could do none of those things. He had zero pets. But he had one excellent idea.

Joey, how about me sharing your pet?’ Tarun asked. After all, they even shared their lunchboxes and always cut each idli exactly down the middle with their rulers.

Joey did an unbelievable thing. He said no.

“No, we can’t share a puppy. You can’t chop my puppy down the middle.”

No-Never Nimisha, who never ever gave up her swing, also did an unbelievable thing. She got off her swing, ran home howling, and told her parents that Tarun wanted to chop Joey’s puppy up.

It all cooked up this big khichdi of a mess, with the kids calling each other not-very-nice names and the parents calling each other about the kids calling each other … et cetera, et cetera.

No matter how many times (seventeen times, he counted) Tarun said he loved the puppy and would never chop or slice or cut anything, no one listened to him. He couldn’t even cut his pyjama string, he pointed out. Remember that time when it got knotted up and he was bursting to pee? He wasn’t cut out for cutting. No one listened.

Joey was now officially mad at Tarun. He yelled that he would never ever let him anywhere near his puppy – forever and ever (many “evers”, just to be sure).

There was only one way to solve the problem. They had to get back on the same-same footing at once. A pet was therefore needed. Tarun begged and pleaded and even crawled on all fours at home, asking for a pet. “Please, a pet. Please.”

He would be so good, he promised, if only he had a pet. He would study twenty-four hours a day, even more than twenty-four hours, definitely more than that liar, Joey, did. He would never tell another lie himself. He would eat his bitter gourd and not bury it in the flowerpot.

No, said his mother. She would end up having to feed the pet.

No, said his father. He would end up having to bathe the pet.

No, said his grandmother. She was allergic.

“To what?” asked Tarun. “You can’t be allergic to all animals, birds, fish, insects and reptiles.”

“I am allergic,” said his grandmother, and sneezed thrice for effect.

“Then you must be allergic to humans, too,” Tarun said, stomping out, “because there’s no pet here.”

That’s when Tarun decided to find his own pet. Not just to be same-same again with Joey. He honestly really wanted to have a little animal, bird, fish, insect, or reptile at home. He loved the humans he had, of course, but his heart would be even fuller if a little non-human joined them too.

That’s why Tarun stood on his chair and stared lovingly at Silent Sunny. He smiled at him. “Mummy won’t have to feed you. And Papa won’t have to bathe you. And Daadi cannot possibly be allergic to you – because here you are, and she’s not sneezing, is she?”

Tarun got on to his computer, which was seriously meant for serious studying, and looked up everything about lizards. “You are from the Gekkonidae family,” he informed Silent Sunny. “Your full name is therefore Silent Sunny Gekkonidae from this moment forward.”

Silent Sunny looked unimpressed. He didn’t even wag his tail like Joey’s puppy did all the time.

“You look like a baby crocodile,” Tarun kept the conversation going. “That’s what I will introduce you as. Joey will be super jealous. You can’t be climbing walls if you are a baby crocodile, so please come down and sit in the washbasin on the day I bring my friends home.”

Tarun read on. “You can even grow a new tail. How cool is that!”

The more Tarun read, the more difficult it all sounded. Silent Sunny hunted at night and disappeared during the day. How would Tarun and he find common hours to play in? Silent Sunny didn’t move unless he absolutely had to. How was Tarun supposed to teach him to fetch a ball, a housefly … or whatever?

There would be time to worry about that later. The holidays were almost upon them. Tarun would have plenty of time to train his pet crocodile. That might even get him featured on TV. Exciting! He would be one up in the race with Joey then. Tarun settled down, eyes gleaming with fantasies of wild applause for his wildlife skills.

Excerpted with permission from The Impossible Pet, Jane De Suza, illustrated by Karunya Baskar, Puffin.