The
Little Brown Frog Meets a Terribly Spoilt Child…
'I’m
a little brown frog still in the water
A little brown frog doing what I oughta
Out I jump onto a lily pad
Then I jump back in and it makes me glad
That I’m a little brown frog hiding from bold Brutus…'
On one of those gloriously warm and sunny summer days that we all so enjoyed
during our childhood, Croaky, the frog, was sitting on his favourite lily
pad, without a care in the world. And why wouldn’t he? He was happy.
He was so happy to be alive, knowing how fortunate he was in having a
wonderful pond all to himself, where no one ever bothered him or came
anyway near, apart from the old man, Fred, who lived in the house at the
top of the garden. And even when he came it was only in passing, when
he took his weekly jaunt through the garden.
Shooting out his tongue with incredible speed and accuracy at a passing
insect, a Hovver Fly, Croaky caught it all too easily, and then pulling
it in, he began munching contentedly on the unfortunate creature. He thought
that it must surely be his lucky day, especially so since he caught another
three of these daintiest of morsels within as many minutes. And perhaps
it was his lucky day; God knows how difficult it can oftentimes be for
a small frog to secure a decent meal. So Croaky enjoyed this time of contentment,
relaxing on the lily pad, while soaking up the warm sunshine rays. And,
yet again, perhaps he was lucky, having no inkling, no idea whatsoever,
of the unfortunate turn of events that were earmarked especially for him...
It was August bank holiday Monday, and Fred readied himself for the biannual
visit of his sister, Edith, and her only son, Brutus. He really dreaded
this day, and counted down to its climax for a good three weeks before
it actually arrived, and all the while wishing that it were over and done
with.
Now, don’t get me wrong, Fred held no animosity to his sister, and
in his own peculiar way, he even liked her, a bit. What he didn’t
like and, indeed, feared was her son, her spoilt son, Brutus, whom he
considered a waste of space and an utter abomination of a child. And he
was right, Brutus, being an only child, had been spoilt rotten during
his entire life. There were simply no other words to go anyway near in
describing how bad this child actually was.
“Hello, Edith,” said Fred, as he opened the door to his sister
and her abomination, err, son.
Fred never personally addressed Brutus by name. Having received far too
many insults when he had followed this practice, he had long since given
it up, preferring to ignore the scoundrel, as best he was able, during
the hour or so his sister allotted to him twice yearly.
“Why doesn’t young watsit go out into the garden?” he
discreetly asked, as he handed his sister a nice cup of tea. “He
always enjoys it out there…”
“Gardens are for morons,” said Brutus, picking up his uncle’s
prized carriage clock from the mantelpiece, and fingering it with as much
care and decorum as one might bestow to a lump of coal.
“He’s a dear,” said Edith, lifting her cup and sipping
her tea so daintily one would have been forgiven for thinking she was
of royal descent. “And he always did have an eye for fine things.
See how interested he is in your clock.”
Brutus was interested in the clock alright, so interested he tried to
prize its back open with the use of his butter knife, carelessly damaging
the screws and the back of the clock as he pursued this ambition with
as much determination as Hitler invading Poland.
“Ah, see how he has opened it,” said his mother, smiling radiantly
at her bespoke son. “He always was a bright spark.”
Ignoring the remark about sparks, for fear of tempting fate a bit too
much, Fred watched his nephew’s actions with growing trepidation,
worried for his favourite clock.
Suddenly there was a loud twang, like a sound of a spring breaking. After
skipping a beat, Fred’s heart sank.
Brutus stared into the clock’s innards, like a street cleaner might
look into a heart transplant patient’s body, before the new one
was inserted.
Taking the clock and trying, but with no success, to close the little
door on its back, Edith returned it to the mantelpiece where it sat oddly
askew from the wall. “Now you go outside, like your uncle has suggested,
and take a nice stroll around the garden,” she said, patting her
son on the head. “You never know what you might discover while you
are out there.”
He growled, Brutus growled protesting as much about the pat on his head
as being told what he should do. But with little else in the house to
amuse him, the spoilt child made his way out and into the garden.
“God it’s a mess,” he complained, as he wandered away
from the building, “even worse than last year…”
And it was true; the garden was an absolute mess. Fred, however, preferred
to call it a wild garden, where the native wildlife took precedence to
everything else. Brutus still called it a dump.
If he had been fifty of sixty years younger, Fred would most probably
have agreed with the troublesome child, that his garden was akin to a
dump, but with the passing of time, of so many years, the old man saw
the world, including his garden, in a far different light than in the
distant heyday of his youth. He had long since given up tending his patch
of greenness in what is usually considered the conventional way. And at
the ripe old age of eight-four he was quite happy to let it look after
itself, allowing the many shrubs, flowers, tress and plants to fight it
out with the opportunist weeds, and to let the better plant win, be it
weed or cultivar.
Outside, somewhere within the overgrown garden, Brutus kicked an old watering
can from out of his path; it banged and clattered as it disappeared into
the lush undergrowth. And he laughed, thinking how easily every last item
of his ancient uncle’s personal possessions, including the furniture,
could be lost within the wilderness of a garden he was in, that’s
if someone felt so inclined to do such a nasty thing…
As he battled his way further down the plot, Brutus felt more like an
explorer than a child in a suburban garden discovering all manner of things
long since forgotten with the passing of time. Stubbing his toe on a rock,
he let out a yell; displaying his utter annoyance that he had been unable
to spot it through the jungle his eccentric uncle had the audacity to
call a garden.
“Dearie me,” said Edith, “I do hope my darling it all
right.”
Fred, said nothing, he only smiled, because in his mind’s eye he
was imagining all manner of terrible frightening things happening to the
bold child, like being stung by a wasp, or tripping over that pile of
old flower pots he had been meaning to move away from the path –
for absolute yonks, or, better still, standing on the rake and getting
the handle straight up and into the face. Yes, that was the one. It was
perfect, and he smiled again.
“Fred, are you feeling okay?” asked his sister, “Because
you’re smiling in a most peculiar way…”
Returning to the present, Fred realized that it had only been a daydream,
but smiling again, he thought it was better than nothing.
“Fred?”
Meanwhile
outside in the garden, the spoilt child, picking up the offending rock,
struggled under its weight, determined to punish it (can you actually
punish a rock?) for being the cause of his pain. His big toe still throbbed,
and he wondered should he take off his shoe, to see if it were bleeding
or, worse still, broken. But as we all know a child’s mind can suddenly
drift off in any direction – and so quickly. Brutus was no exception
to this rule. Seeing the glass of a long abandoned cucumber frame sparkling
under the camouflage of a thick layer of brambles, he thought what better
opportunity to kill two birds with the one stone.
You
see, ever since the last time he had visited, when he had tripped over
one of those spreading, all pervading shoots that such plants are so capable
of producing, and fallen into its thorny interior, Brutus had loathed
all things connected to blackberries. And this plant, this sprawling,
threatening plant was most definitely a blackberry.
Despite the heavy weight of the rock, Brutus lifted it high above his
head, and with one huge effort he sent it flying through the air where,
seconds later, it smashed into the cucumber frame like it were made of
nothing more substantial than balsawood. Splinters of wood and shards
of razor sharp glass, sent hurling away from the pulverised frame in every
direction, caused absolute mayhem to the peaceful tranquillity of the
man made wilderness.
“Hah,” laughed Brutus, wiping his sweating brow, “That’ll
teach it!”
Inside of the house Fred heard this noise, and he once again began smiling,
hoping for the worst.
“What was that noise?” asked his sister, fearing for her precious
son’s safety.
Thinking fast, Fred replied, “The bin men, they also come on Mondays…”
“But it’s a bank holiday,” said his sister, returning
her cup to it’s saucer.
“They’re a dedicated lot, this neck of the woods,” he
replied. “Worth every penny of the council tax I have to pay, and
no one will convince me otherwise.” Fred was a good liar when it
suited him.
Having
completely forgotten about his offended big toe, and happy to have caused
so much wanton destruction, the brutal child continued his explorations
of the wilderness garden.
Seeing something glistening through the tall grasses ahead of him, Brutus
scratched his head, and said, “I wonder what that is?” As
he battled his way through yet more of the troublesome and offending brambles,
he realized that he had never before been this far down the garden. This
fact spurred him on, thinking he might find something of value, something
the old man might have lost, that he could steal, oh how he loved that
word, and he said it again, “Steal, I love to steal things!”
Passing through the last rambling of thorny brambles, Brutus found himself
in a sheltered refuge, quite different from the rest of the garden. It
was still wild, but it was so tranquil, hidden, secreted away from all
eyes but his. And the glistening thing he had seen? It was a wonderful
watery oasis.
“Why, it’s a pond,” he said, “a wildlife pond
with water lilies, with flowers on them, big white ones.” And for
someone who hated gardening, who really hated it more than anything else,
Brutus actually found himself admiring it. It was only for a moment, mind
you, only the briefest of moments, but in that short time he admired nature
for the first time in his life.
When this brief interlude was over, and the problematic child regained
his usual composure, his mind cranked into action, considering all the
nasty things he could perpetrate on this calm oasis. He considered all
sorts of terrible things, like filling the pond up with the many rocks
lying scattered thoughtlessly about the place, though he soon abandoned
this idea, thinking it too much like hard work and far too akin to gardening,
which as I have already told you he hated. Another idea that he considered
was to drain the pond, but without any obvious means of doing this dastardly
deed he abandoned this idea. But he knew that he had to do something;
he would never forgive himself if he were to leave the pristine pond in
the same condition that he had found it. And what might his friends think
if they were ever to find out? No, leaving it intact was out of the question.
So scratching his head, trying to spur on the few cells of grey matter
he had lurking somewhere within it, Brutus struggled to formulate his
plan of action.
It took him a while, a good fifteen minutes, to come up with a plan of
action, a plan of attack on the serenity displayed before him. And this
plan, this brutal plan that Brutus had formulated was simplicity in itself,
he would set fire to the pond by setting the whole area ablaze, thus boiling
the murky green waters, water lilies and all.
Creeping, skulking close to the waters edge, Brutus delved a hand into
one of his trouser pockets and pulled out his prized possession –
his ten-in-one scope. And for anyone reading this, who has no idea what
this object is, I will briefly describe it. A ten-in-one scope is a fantastic
bit of kit, a scientific instrument that no boy child should ever be without.
It’s an instrument that contains everything they could possibly
need such as a reading lens, a compound microscope, an adjustable telescope,
focusing binoculars, a directional compass, a solar time clock, a flat
mirror, a magnifying mirror, a camp fire lighter and a code transmitter.
Like I said, it has everything a boy child could ever need.
Finding a space that wasn’t too overgrown, Brutus sat down next
to the water’s edge. Then carefully holding his scope, he took a
few moments to admire it and, of course, its hidden potential. That having
been done, he opened the scope, adjusting the magnifications lens to its
strongest setting. It was done; he was ready to begin, to set fire to
the whole area, to destroy the pool, boiling its waters until they were
no more than a steamy vapour.
During
all this time, while the bold and frightfully spoilt child had been hatching
his plan, the little brown frog, Croaky, had been sitting on his lily
pad, so still and so quiet Brutus had never even noticed him. The naughty
child had no idea whatsoever that every move he had been making, that
everything he had said was being watched, studied and listened to by the
secretive frog.
Setting
about the foul deed, Brutus grabbed hold of a few handfuls of dry grass,
heaping them into a small pile. Then looking into the sky, to see exactly
where the sun was located, he aligned the magnifying lens with it. He
would soon have his fire.
With his tongue sticking out between his lips, for extra concentration,
Brutus magnified the sun’s rays into a small white dot. Soon faint
wisps of smoke began to rise from the dry grass. Laughing, blowing into
the little pile of grass, he said, “I’ll soon have you burning…”
But despite his best efforts the faint wisps of smoke soon disappeared.
“Drats,” he moaned. “I need more grass.” So pulling
another few handfuls of the dry stuff, he moulded it into a roughly shaped
pyramid, and began the process again.
For a second time faint wisps of smoke drifted up from the grass, but
unlike the first, he continued magnifying the sun’s rays, hell bent
on producing the fire he so craved. And it worked, because all of a sudden
the little pyramid burst into bright yellow flames.
“Ah, ha,” he laughed, clapping his hands with glee. “Fire,
and lots of it,” he said, his mouth gawking wide as he laughed uncontrollably.
This
was the opportunity Croaky had been waiting for, and wasting no time he
shot out his lightning fast tongue at a particularly large and fat fly.
Catching it easily, instead of munching away happily on the insect, Croaky
spat it out, hurling it with such force across the small space between
him and the abomination of a child – Brutus.
Because he was laughing, and laughing so much, Brutus never stood a chance
as the big fat fly whizzed passed his lips, into his mouth and down his
throat, and all before he knew what was happening.
Then it hit him and, gulping in shock, Brutus stopped laughing. He had
just swallowed something – but what had it been? And where had it
come from? “It must have been a fly, that just happened to fly in,”
he whispered. Then he felt his stomach, imagining that it was still alive,
and moving about inside him. “But what if it’s not a fly,”
he cried out. “It might be something altogether more different –
and poisonous.” Feeling his stomach again, he was sure that he felt
a growing pain within it. Tears began to well up in his eyes. And then
he began crying, and he yelled and yelled and he yelled.
His cries were so loud, his doting mother all the way up the garden and
inside the house immediately heard him, and thinking her only son was
mortal danger, she said, “Oh my God, whatever can be the matter
with him?”
His mother, Edith, soon found out what the problem was, because before
she even had the chance to get up off the chair, her son came crashing
through the doorway, yelling, “It got me, it got me!”
Fearing the worst, thinking that something terribly poisonous had just
bitten him – like a snake, she asked, “What got you, my baby?”
Sobbing, Brutus replied, “A fly, I think it was a fly – and
it might be a poisonous one!”
His mother’s fretting stopped, replaced by a contempt for her son,
for a son who had shown himself, and so publicly, to be so stupid, to
be afraid of swallowing a simple everyday fly. And with that she clipped
him hard across the head, saying, “Get your jacket and hat, we’re
going home. And don’t expect me to bring you here anymore, I’m
absolutely mortified at your disgraceful behaviour.” After giving
him another clip across the head, she grabbed hold of one of his ears
and yanked her son all the way down the hallway and out through the front
door.
Edith was so busy scolding her son, she completely forgot to say goodbye
to her brother, Fred. He didn’t mind, though, in fact he smiled
as he watched mother and son turn the corner at the end of the road and
disappear from sight. Then looking up to the heavens, he thanked his god
for such small mercies.
What?
You want to know what happened to the fire? That’s easy enough to
explain. Taking a huge mouthful of pond water, Croaky spat it over the
flames, quenching them quite easily. He’s a resourceful little thing,
isn’t he?
