Page 34 - The Woven Tale Press Vol. III #10

Every night after the sun went down, a “Do you want a story tonight?” I asked.
bullfrog came up from the creek that ran behind our apartment building and sat by the pansies next to our front door. He was so loud that my brother and I could hear
him through the thick front door, across the living room and on the other side of our bedroom wall.
Chase took hours to fall asleep and I took minutes, but tried to stay awake long enough for him to feel safe with the emptiness that came with my snoring.
“Why does he come up here?” Chase whispered, from the trundle bed below me one night. Mom was talking louder than she normally did on the phone, from her makeshift bedroom in the sun- room, so I didn’t whisper as I normally would have.
“I don’t know,” I said, turning to my side and yawning loud. Mom’s voice rose and fell then went quiet and came back in a rise of laughter she tried but failed to stifle.
Above her conversation and the hum of cars on the freeway on the other side of the woods behind our building, we heard the elastic croak of the bullfrog.
“Does he want to eat us?” Chase said.
I laughed and asked how he thought something smaller than his foot could eat us. He reminded me about the black widows in the shed behind Dad’s house, and I reminded him that they were poison- ous and that frogs were not.
“Maybe he likes looking at the flowers,” I told him. “There are prettier flowers down by the creek.”
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On the other side of the wall Mom laughed again, then went quiet and the ice maker rumbled and dropped its contents inside the freezer.
“No,” he said then changed his mind and asked me to tell him the story I’d made up about the dolls that came to life and killed their owners.
“No way. You ratted me out to Mom last time.” I propped myself up on my elbow, hit him with my pillow.
“Do you think the frog has a name?” he said, hold- ing his hand up to block another blow.
I climbed from my bed, knowing without ask-
ing that something more than a flesh-eating frog was bothering my brother, and I pushed him over, pulled up his blankets to cover my legs. I laid my head next to his on the pillow and spoke softer than I had before. “He can have one.” Then I thought and corrected myself, “He probably does, but we’ll never know it unless you learn to speak frog.”
“Nope,” Chase said, and I laughed and told him he’d learn frog 101 next year in second grade.
“We’ll call him Rrrrrobert,” I said, making a croak- ing sound with my voice.
“Ha.Ha,” Chase said, to let me know he wasn’t
CAllie VAlentine