A pair of boys in the third grade
kept getting threatened by this guy that couldn’t even add thirty two point
five to negative twelve point three. He was
strong, so the rest of the class listened to him. The two boys tried to not let him continue to
make them feel down, so got them try to put their thoughts and reactions off of
him. At one time, the two of them began talking,
instead, about the frogs that they noticed in a stream in the woods near their
houses. Their parents’ houses were next
to each other and near a wooded stream.
Talking about those leapers from
the floating logs for three days got them to start going to the woods at first
every other Saturday, but it built up to be every Saturday. After they were going to the woods a bit,
they noticed a swarm of tadpoles that grew into a swarm of frogs and three
toads along that path near that stream, and the boys began noticing and
watching what the frogs ate along that stream.
“We don’t get poisoned by his
lumps but don’t tell anybody.”
“Okay. People will look up to us more if they hear
someone mention that they saw us carrying a poison toad.”
Eventually they started regularly
digging worms and catching caterpillars, spiders, and flies to feed that group
of amphibians that were becoming their pals.
In school, on a hot day, when the windows were opened to cool the class
off a bit, a fly buzzed around the neck of Tom, who caught it and put it into a
bag so he could bring it to his real friends.
Instead of putting him down, the other kids at their desks whispered
that Tom is “Brave catching those bugs in order to force them to leave us alone.”
Tom
and Frank continued spending more and
more time outdoors. At the woods. And, also, around their houses. Soon they decided to put up a tent into the
middle of one of their yards. Eight feet
away they dug a moat to surround that tent.
Their moat is four feet wide and four feet deep. They connected to it by an old pipe they found that someone threw out. To the pipe, they attached the street
gutter. The kids now can open it when
the moat needs more water. The moat they
seeded with tadpoles from the forest.
Most of the tadpoles were from frogs, but some of them were from toads.
They
also built a six inch tall soil wall around the outside of the moat and they put
out a wooden plank that they could use to cross that moat. The reason why they dug that moat around the
tent and filled their moat from a pipe they attached to the gutters was to go
along with them killing spiders, crickets, flies, fleas, in order to feed the frogs and toads they now kept around
their house. In their minds and hearts, that tent was called their house. They kept two sleeping bags in that tent. During the night they crept out of their
bedrooms and entered their tent so they could sleep with their frogs and toads. Their parents noticed this and started out
keeping their eyes on their sons at night.
After a couple weeks things seemed to go along well so those parents let
their boys do what they wanted to do.
One week end, they talked with their sons. They let them know that they saw them exit
their houses and go to that tent in the back yard. “As long as you just stay here, and the
weather is okay, and no one else comes around, you can do that. Stay safe.”
Tom and Frank agreed with their
parents. To show their agreement, both
kids started cleaning their rooms regularly.
They also started mowing the parents’ lawns and digging weeds, and
shoveling snow off their sidewalks and off their driveways in the winter time. They discovered, that first year, that frogs
and toads dig underground during late fall and hibernate in the protected earth
during winter. Even though the kids
folded up and brought indoors their tent and sleeping bags, they kept the
ground surrounded by the moat shoveled and walkable during the winter.
As the spring approached Tom and
Frank dug clean that circle pool water from their houses and started again collecting
dead animals, and dog poops along with earth worms and grass hoppers and
such. They knew they needed to feed
those relying frogs and toads. The dog
poops and dead animals drew flies and ticks and such to their area. The kids caught them while they weren’t in
school but the frogs and toads could catch them if they got hungry when Frank
and Tom were studying or being taught.
That second year, Frank and Tom also
started catching bees along with those flies and fleas and caterpillars. Those bees they knocked out in their moat and
tied colored yarn strings onto their legs.
Tom had the blue ones and Rob had the green ones. They started bringing their bees along with
them to the park. Walking down the streets. And, eventually, to school. Their teachers
tried not to notice them at first. They
did not want to scare the classes if in their classes a bee made a mistake and
flew threw the window. But soon they noticed the blue or green strings attached
and how the bees looked like a Bouquet of Balloons exhibited by Tom and Frank.
The teachers had the two kids sit
at the back end of the row so their bees would not disrupt the other
students. The bullies also began staying
away from them because they did not like being stung when they tried to force
Frank or Tom to do something for them.
Along with their Green and Blue
swarms, Tom and Frank began bringing a few toads to class. They usually did not bring the frogs because
the frogs wanted water more than the toads.
Girls would look at Tom or Frank with their toads and wonder how they
can hold them and not get poisoned by all those warts. Frank and Tom did not think they became
immune to them, they realized that people do not get poisoned by warts. They knew from experience that toxic fluid
produced to protect the toads was just a tail, and with all their toads and
frogs and other true friends, they had many tails buzzing around them.
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