Wildlife According to Og the Frog Read online

  Ms. Mac is bringing out some drums—a pair of them—and pounding out a beat.

  “How do you like these bongo drums, Og?” she asks.

  “Bongo?” I ask. My whole head vibrates at the sound of that word, because Bongo was my name back in the swamp! But Ms. Mac doesn’t know that.

  BONGA-BONGA-BONG! she plays.

  I can’t help but join in. “BING-BANG-BOING!” I twang.

  The crowd loves it.

  “Go, Og!” someone cries.

  Ms. Mac plays a little louder and a little faster.

  “BING-BANG-BOING!” I repeat.

  The crowd cheers. I think I hear some piercing SQUEAKs in the background.

  I start hopping to the beat of the drum. The sound reminds me so much of warm summer nights in the swamp, when all the creatures are at their noisiest.

  The background music is the constant chirping of the crickets and the loud, deep voices of the bullfrogs going, “RUM-RUM-RUM-RUM!” Owl hoots and the high-pitched “kee-aahs” of hawks add to the night music, along with the beat of the woodpecker drumming away at a nearby tree. RAT-A-TAT-A-TAT!

  Once, a chorus of green frogs even sang a song about me! My heart swelled with pride.

  I don’t usually sing in front of humans, but I can’t help myself.

  There was a swamp where lived a frog

  And Bongo was his name-o.

  B-O-N-G-O!

  B-O-N-G-O!

  B-O-N-G-O!

  And Bongo was his name-o.

  Everyone’s dancing now, except Ms. Mac, who is pounding those drums.

  I glance over at Humphrey’s cage. He’s hanging from the top bars of his cage, squeaking his lungs out. “SQUEAK-SQUEAK-SQUEAK-A! SQUEAK-SQUEAK-SQUEAK-A!”

  “More, Og, more!” the humans shout.

  So, I give them more.

  And in a classroom lived that frog

  And Bongo was his name-o.

  B-O-N-G-O!

  B-O-N-G-O!

  B-O-N-G-O!

  And Bongo was his name-o.

  The sound was deafening, but the neighbors didn’t care because they were all at the party, too!

  The festivities keep going for a long time. And when the music stops, Humphrey is nowhere to be found.

  “Humphrey, where are you?” Ms. Mac scurries around the apartment looking for him.

  I hear a weak squeak, and when she checks his cage, she spots him in his sleeping hut.

  “Sleep well,” Ms. Mac whispers to him.

  She comes over to my tank and flashes a big smile. Nobody smiles quite like Ms. Mac. “You were certainly the life of the party, Og,” she says.

  “You weren’t so bad yourself,” I reply.

  “You’d better get some sleep, Mr. BING-BANG-BOING, like your friend Humphrey, because we’ve got a big trip coming up,” she says.

  “Where are we going?” I ask.

  “For some folks, vacations mean relaxing and doing nothing,” she explains. “But me? I like an adventurous vacation where I see new things and meet new people. And animals,” she says. “I have a feeling you do, too.”

  “Animals? What animals will we be meeting?” I ask.

  She turns off the light and leaves the room before I get an answer. And she expects me to sleep tonight?

  I cool off in the water for a while. I’m not sure if I am asleep or awake because the whole evening has seemed like one big, noisy, wonderful dream.

  Road Trip

  At the end of the stream there’s always a new beginning.

  —Granny Greenleaf’s Wildlife Wisdom

  I watch every move Ms. Mac makes the next day. She washes and sews, sorts and folds clothes, always humming a happy tune. I wish she’d get those bongo drums out again.

  She pulls a suitcase out of the closet and then . . . she leaves!

  Humphrey and I don’t say much. We sit and wait, but nothing happens.

  This is our great adventure?

  Humphrey dozes off, and I hum a new verse to the song from last night.

  There was a frog who got so bored

  And Bongo was his name-o.

  Yawn, yawn, yawn, yawn, yawn!

  Yawn—

  The door swings open, and Ms. Mac hurries in, her arms loaded with shopping bags. “Sorry I was gone so long,” she says. “I had a lot to get, including more food for you two.”

  “Squeak!” Humphrey says.

  “We won’t be near a town,” she explains. “I bet you guys will be as happy to get out in nature as I will.”

  BING-BANG-BOING! We are going somewhere wild. “Out in nature,” she just said.

  “SQUEAK-SQUEAK-SQUEAK!” my excited neighbor exclaims.

  “The call of the wild must be answered,” she adds with a grin.

  I dive into the water and start swimming laps.

  I grew up in the wild, and I’m going back to the wild tomorrow. Will there be a swamp? Will there be my swamp? Will there be lots of yummy crickets, mosquitoes, beetles and dragonflies? Will there be—

  Screech-screech-screech!

  I glance over at Humphrey, who is spinning on his wheel like crazy. I wish someone could fix that screech.

  Until now, I haven’t thought about his summer. He may not like being out in the wild. He might not like mosquitoes or dragonflies, not to mention bats, snakes and bullying bullfrogs.

  Ms. Mac leans down by my tank. “Og, you know everything about living in the wild,” she tells me. “But Humphrey . . .”

  She looks over at his cage. He’s spinning his wheel so fast, he’s just a blur.

  “He doesn’t know anything outside the human world,” she says.

  Ms. Mac is right. I was so excited about being back outside, I’d forgotten that Humphrey has always lived inside.

  “I hope you’ll look out for him,” she continues.

  You bet I will! “BOING-BOING! BOING-BOING!” I assure her. “I promise!”

  * * *

  Riding in a car isn’t comfortable for me, and this ride is so bumpy, huge waves are breaking in my tank water. If only I had a surfboard!

  I try to sit on my rock but keep sliding off, so I just float and hope the road smooths out soon.

  It’s certainly a rough start to our big adventure. And the loud music Ms. Mac is playing makes it even wilder.

  Once or twice I boing to Humphrey to ask if he’s okay. I hear a few weak squeaks in return.

  I’m so busy trying to stay afloat, I don’t have much time to think about where we’re headed. Maybe that’s a good thing, because I have a nagging worry in the back of my mind about the new animals she said we’d be meeting.

  Suddenly, Ms. Mac turns off the music and stops the car. “Oh, wow,” she says.

  The water in my tank is calmer now, and I feel a breeze drifting in through the open door.

  But it’s not like the breeze that occasionally floats through the window in Room 26. This breeze carries a million trillion smells of grass and mud, trees and flowers, and also a hint of squirrels, foxes, mice, birds and things that Humphrey has probably never smelled before. Me? I’ve smelled them all before.

  “You okay, buddy?” I ask Humphrey.

  He doesn’t answer. Maybe he’s hearing the skittering mice outside the car and the human footsteps coming closer.

  Then I hear a man’s voice. “Well, who do we have here?” it asks.

  My heart beats like a bongo drum. That voice reminds me of the man who found me back in McKenzie’s Marsh. The voice that said “gotcha” as he captured me and took me away from my friends and family and life as I knew it.

  I’m lucky that I ended up in Longfellow School, where there’s so much to do that most days I don’t have time to miss the swamp, but I don’t ever want to run int
o that human again!

  I’m relieved when I finally see the man’s smiling face and his bright red hair. He’s definitely not the frognapper! In fact, whatever this place is, he owns it.

  When he introduces himself, he has a friendly name. “Call me Hap,” he says. “And welcome to Happy Hollow.”

  What I can see from the car looks happy, too. Blue sky, green trees and grass.

  Then I hear Hap say that we’re spending the night in a robin’s nest, and I’m confused. Does he think I’m a tree frog? (I am not.) And if Ms. Mac is with us, how will the three of us fit?

  “We’re still getting the counselors’ cabins fixed up, but the kids’ are ready,” he explains.

  The Robins’ Nest turns out to be a small wooden building with a porch.

  “This is a cozy cabin,” Ms. Mac says, opening the door.

  Inside, I spot a couple of beds stacked on top of each other, but other than that, there’s not a lot of furniture—just wooden floors, wooden walls, a wooden ceiling.

  There is a table by a window, and that’s where Ms. Mac sets my tank and Humphrey’s cage. And then she leaves. With all that green grass and blue sky and toadally frogalicious smells outside, we’re stuck inside.

  So much for the call of the wild!

  I dive into the water and take a lazy swim while Humphrey stares out the window.

  When I see the little guy jiggle the lock on his cage, I hop back on my rock. What is my adventurous pal going to do? “What’s up, buddy?” I boing.

  I’m half expecting him to slide down the table leg, the way he does in Room 26, but Humphrey is unpredictable, as always.

  He scampers up the outside of his cage, all the way to the top, and looks out the window.

  (He may be furry, but he’s as nimble as a lizard.)

  Humphrey spends a long time staring out the window and listening to the sounds. He must hear what I hear: laughter and singing off in the distance, some hammering and clanking. And later, the far-off sounds of bongo drums.

  Once the sun is low in the sky, I worry that Ms. Mac will come back and find Humphrey outside of his cage. If that ever happens, some human will probably fix that lock, and Humphrey’s secret escape route—which only I know about—will be closed forever.

  I don’t think he wants to be trapped any more than I do, and I’m relieved when he crawls back in his cage and closes the door behind him.

  Ms. Mac comes in late and gets up early. The time in between seems awfully long with me stuck in my tank and Humphrey in his cage. Long enough to notice the sound.

  It’s a scritchy, scratchy noise. From my time in the swamp, I’d guess it was coming from a mouse or a rat or something a lot larger.

  Whoever is making that sound has a lot of energy, because I hear it all day long and into the night.

  I can tell that Humphrey hears it, too. From time to time, he squeaks at me, but of course, I can’t actually understand what he’s saying.

  I tell him, “I don’t know, pal. I just don’t know.”

  The scritching and scratching is clearly getting on Humphrey’s nerves, and finally, he swings open the cage door again.

  “Where are you going, buddy?” I ask nervously. “Better be careful!”

  Luckily, Humphrey quickly pulls the door closed again as Ms. Mac comes back into the cabin.

  Whew! A close one!

  I’m used to Humphrey taking chances, and I admire his adventurous spirit. But even though the cabin is boring, there is real wildlife right outside, and I’m not sure he knows how dangerous it is. And Ms. Mac did tell me to look out for the furry fellow.

  Now she tells us, “Things are about to start popping,” which sounds interesting. Then she picks up Humphrey’s cage and leaves the cabin.

  I panic a little. For one thing, I don’t know where she’s taking him.

  Wherever it is, I don’t want to be left behind.

  But she comes back for my tank a few minutes later and carries it through the woods, past other cabins that look like the Robins’ Nest. I see blue sky and green trees and grass and smell aromas I’d almost forgotten!

  It’s a lot like home. I mean my first home.

  At the end of the trail is a big wooden building with a sign outside that says HAPPY HOLLOW HALL. The path down is very bumpy, and there’s a tidal wave in my tank. I feel like a mosquito caught in a hurricane.

  When we get inside, I can hear voices and squeaking, but I’m not sure what anyone is saying. I just try to keep my head above water.

  We pass through a large room full of tables and chairs that looks a lot like Ms. Mac’s living room but bigger.

  Once the waves calm down, I see that my tank is next to Humphrey’s cage and we’re facing another window. It’s nice to look out at the trees and grass, but it would be even nicer to be outside.

  Humphrey’s squeaks suddenly sound excited.

  And then I hear it: “Never fear ’cause Aldo’s here!”

  I can’t believe my eyes. Aldo is standing right next to us! He tells us he’s going to be at camp, too, as a counselor. I’m not sure what a counselor is, but it sounds like someone helpful and wise, like old Uncle Chinwag back in the swamp.

  “That’s good news!” I boing to him.

  And then he introduces his wife, Maria, and explains that she’s taking a break from the bakery to cook here for the summer. He adds that it will be the best camp food ever, but can it taste as good as those crickets in the woods?

  Maria has warm eyes and a big smile. “At last we meet, Og,” she says. “Aldo talks about you all the time!”

  Ms. Mac is a counselor, too, and there are others. One of them is called Katie, and she doesn’t look much older than the big tads in Room 26. When she leans in to get a closer look at me, she says, “Og, I want a dress that matches your beautiful green skin.” I think I’m going to like her!

  Hap Holloway welcomes everyone, and there’s lots of laughing going on until we hear a familiar voice. It’s Mrs. Wright, who teaches physical education at Longfellow School. I don’t think she’s a big fan of classroom pets like me. And the shrill whistle she wears around her neck makes an earsplitting racket. She uses it all the time.

  That evening, the counselors all eat pizza and sing. Ms. Mac plays the bongos, and Katie plays a guitar. Those twangy strings sound a lot like me.

  Between the BONG-BONGs of the drums and the BOING-BOING of the guitar, I feel right at home!

  * * *

  The next day, Humphrey and I are still by the window in the rec room when cars start pulling up outside.

  “Let the fun begin!” Ms. Mac says. “Camp is officially in session!” She hurries outside to greet the new arrivals.

  I expect to see more counselors, but instead, I am amazed to see whole families getting out of the cars, carrying all kinds of suitcases and backpacks.

  I’m even more amazed to see humans I know from Room 26! Richie and Gail are there, and a smaller boy that might be Gail’s brother. Here comes Sayeh and—wait—it’s Miranda! She’s with another girl her age. Whose loud voice is that? It’s A.J., of course, with his younger brother, Ty, and his best friend, Garth.

  They’re all as excited to see me and Humphrey as we are to see them.

  Of course, there are lots of big tads I don’t know at all. I will be meeting a lot of new humans.

  Then something unexpected happens. The parents all leave their children behind and drive away!

  * * *

  Camp Happy Hollow is a surprising place. But Ms. Mac said it would be an adventure, and I’m ready for that! So, while Humphrey naps that afternoon, a new song to celebrate the start of camp pops into my head.

  A-camping we will go,

  A-camping we will go,

  Hi-ho the derry-o,

  A-camping we will go.

  With friends
tried and true,

  And friends that are new,

  Hi-ho the derry-o,

  A-camping we will go.

  With lots of fresh air,

  And trees everywhere,

  Hi-ho the derry-o,

  A-camping we will go.

  I’m used to the noise of the swamp and the classroom. A few nights ago, I had the time of my life at Ms. Mac’s party. BING-BANG-BONGO! It was loud, but I didn’t mind. But this first night at camp makes me wish I had earplugs, even though you can’t see my ears. (They’re right behind my eyes, and they are covered with a thin layer of skin. But I hear just fine, thank you.)

  As everyone gathers in the dining hall, it’s full of loud chatter and shrieks of laughter. There’s singing and noisy forks and knives and an occasional shrill blast from Mrs. Wright’s whistle.

  Ms. Mac was right about one thing: This place is wild.

  When Hap introduces Humphrey and me, the cheering is deafening, but it is certainly a warm welcome.

  Then comes the BIG news—to me at least. Humphrey and I will be staying in different cabins each night, but we won’t be together. We’re a reward to the cabins for obeying the rules.

  After dinner, the campers are sent outside for a campfire. Most creatures run away from fires, but everyone at Happy Hollow runs toward a fire. I don’t mind skipping that.

  Then it’s quiet again, except for distant singing, until A.J. rushes in and takes Humphrey’s cage. “You get to stay with the Blue Jays tonight!” he says.

  Miranda grabs my tank and says I am going to the Robins’ Nest.

  “Good luck!” I tell Humphrey as A.J. races out of sight.

  “SQUEAK!” he replies.

  And I don’t see him again until morning.

  Learning the Ropes

  Listening is learning.

  —Granny Greenleaf’s Wildlife Wisdom

  The Robins’ Nest has changed since last night. Now it is full of girls. And me, of course.