Stop That Frog! Page 2

  “Just like you,” I said in my most funny voice.

  “Hank, you and your sister are turning this house into the Zipzer zoo,” my dad said. “Where is this frog going to stay? He can’t stay on the coffee table. That’s where I’m putting your mother’s birthday flowers.”

  “He’ll stay in Hotel Hank,” I said. “Otherwise known as my room.”

  “Ashley and I will help you carry the tank in there,” Frankie said. “Come on, Ash.”

  Frankie and Ashley picked up the tank and headed to my room. I said a quick good-bye to Papa Pete, then followed them, carrying Fred in my hands. We all knew that we had to get out of there fast, before my dad said Fred couldn’t stay. We placed the tank on my desk, next to my bed. Carefully, I put Fred down on his plastic log, and Ashley put the screen cover on tightly.

  “I’m going to go fill up his dish with fresh water,” I said. “You guys wait here.”

  “We can’t,” Ashley said. “It’s time for dinner. We have to go.”

  “Okay. Then come over tomorrow morning, and we’ll plan something fun for Fred for this weekend.”

  They headed for the door, and I headed for the bathroom sink. Before she left, Ashley turned to me and said, “Hank, don’t forget. After you put Fred’s dish in the tank, put the cover back on, so he can’t get out.”

  “Of course I will,” I told her. “I know that rule best of all.”

  They left, and I went into the bathroom and filled Fred’s dish with nice cool water. After I put it in his tank, I reached in and gave him a little rub on the head. He croaked as if to say, “That feels good.”

  “Hank,” my dad called from the living room. “I need you in here right away to sign your mother’s birthday card.”

  “In a minute, Dad,” I called out.

  “Not in a minute,” he called back. “Right now. We need to do it before your mother gets home.”

  I turned to Fred.

  “I’ll be right back,” I told him. “Make yourself at home.”

  Then I hurried into the living room. Dad was signing the card, and Emily was busy wrapping a present for Mom.

  “Help me with this,” she said. “Put your finger on the ribbon while I tie the bow.”

  It seemed to take her forever. She kept tying and untying the bow until she got it to look just the way she wanted it.

  “Hurry up, Emily,” I said.

  “What’s the big rush?” she asked.

  “I have to get back to Fred.”

  “Why? He’s safe inside his tank. You put the top on, didn’t you?”

  “Of course I . . .”

  Uh-oh. Did I? Or didn’t I?

  I pulled my finger off the ribbon as fast as I could.

  “Hank, you ruined my bow,” Emily yelled.

  But I didn’t care. I was only thinking about one thing . . . Fred. I raced to my room as fast as my legs could go, hoping that I’d find him safe in his tank where I had left him.

  As I pushed open the door to my room, my heart sank all the way down to my shoes. I could see the screen cover lying on my bed. It was definitely not where it was supposed to be. But maybe Fred was still in there.

  I ran across the room to get a closer look. Everything in the tank was just as I had left it . . . except that Fred wasn’t there. I pushed aside all the plants to see if he was hiding in the leaves. He wasn’t. I picked up the hollow plastic log to see if he had wiggled inside it. He hadn’t. He was just plain gone.

  “Fred!” I called out, looking desperately around my room. “This isn’t funny. Come on out from wherever you’re hiding.”

  There was no answer. Not even the smallest croak.

  I got on all fours and looked under my bed and under my desk. I even picked up my wastebasket and looked in. There was nothing there but a plastic spoon with chunks of last night’s strawberry yogurt crusted on it.

  What had I done? Had I lost Fred forever? What was wrong with me that I couldn’t even follow the one most important rule? I knew that rule, I really did. I went over it and over it. But somehow, it just fell out of my brain.

  I pounded my forehead with the palm of my hand, hoping to get my brain working again. That must have shaken something loose, because an idea suddenly popped into my head.

  I crouched into my best frog position and tucked my legs up next to my chest. Then I started hopping around my room and croaking, trying to sound just like Fred. I hoped that I was saying something cool in frog talk. Something like, “See, we can have a lot of fun together. We can hop the night away, so come on out.”

  I hopped and croaked for what must have been five minutes. My legs and throat were getting really tired, but I couldn’t give up. That frog was my responsibility, and I wasn’t going to stop until I found him.

  I did stop, though, when I heard a hissing sound at my bedroom door. I looked up to see my sister, Emily, standing there, with Katherine draped around her shoulders like a scarf. Although Emily has been known to hiss, this time it was Katherine making the noise.

  “Katherine is annoyed by your stupid frog imitation,” Emily said.

  “Tell your lizard I’m not stupid,” I shot back.

  “Then why are you acting stupid?”

  “I really need to find Fred, and you’re not helping the situation. He got out.”

  Emily glanced over at the tank and saw the screen cover lying on my bed.

  “He didn’t just get out,” she said. “You let him get out. And you say you’re not stupid? You didn’t even put the cover back on.”

  “Emily, I don’t need your comments right now. So just take your hissing friend and go. I’ve got to call Frankie. At least he’s someone who’s willing to help.”

  As Emily turned to go, Katherine looked at me and let out another hiss.

  “And I don’t appreciate your advice, either,” I said to the iguana, just in case she could understand English.

  I ran into the living room, picked up the phone, and called Frankie. It took me three times to get the number right. I know his phone number by heart, but in my mind, the numbers always get flipped around.

  “Frankie,” I said as soon as he answered. “I have a problem. Can you come here right away?”

  “No can do, Hank. It’s family game night. I’m stuck here.”

  “Then come tomorrow first thing. And bring Ashley. It’s an emergency.”

  “What’s the emergency?” a voice from behind me said. It was a voice I was hoping not to hear. The voice of my dad.

  I hung up and turned to him, trying to smile in a real casual way.

  “Oh, it’s nothing important, Dad. Just kid stuff.”

  “Hank, don’t lie to me. Your voice didn’t sound like just kid stuff.”

  “Okay, fine. I’m in trouble. It’s Fred—I’ve lost him.”

  My dad sighed. I’d heard that sigh a million times.

  “It’s always something with you, Hank. Your mom is on her way home now, and I’ve made her favorite Chinese chicken salad as a pre-birthday surprise. I’m not going to let you ruin this dinner with your missing frog.”

  “But, Dad . . . Fred is lost!”

  “He’s not lost, he’s just misplaced. He has to be here in the apartment somewhere. We’ll find him after dinner. Now go wash up.”

  “What if Fred is in trouble? What if he jumped in the toilet bowl . . . or is stuck in my gym shoes and faints from the smell?”

  “Hank. Go . . . wash . . . up. We will deal with this after dinner.”

  My mom came home and was so happy to see her birthday flowers and favorite meal. I was going to tell her about Fred, but my dad shot me a warning look that meant NOT NOW. Instead, we just sat down to dinner.

  “Oh, Stanley, this chicken salad looks so delicious,” she said. “Doesn’t it, kids?”

  I nodded yes bu
t didn’t mean it. As I looked down at my plate, I kept hoping I’d see a little frog face peeking out from behind the lettuce.

  But all I saw was a chunk of chicken.

  Oh, Fred . . . what have I done?

  After dinner, everyone in the family went on a hunt for Fred. We looked everywhere. And I mean everywhere.

  In the end, we never found Fred that night. He had vanished without a trace.

  Frankie and Ashley arrived bright and early the next morning. I had already put out three pairs of my mom’s rubber gloves on the dining-room table. Next to the gloves, I laid out the butterfly net that came with my Junior Science Explorer Kit. Next to that, I added a medium-size strainer that my mom uses for making some of her horrible vegetable dishes. And next to that, I placed the plastic container that we use to store leftover potato salad.

  “What’s going on?” Frankie asked me, looking at the assortment of things I had put out on the table.

  “Welcome to Fred’s search-and-rescue team,” I answered.

  “Where’s the team?” Ashley asked.

  “We’re it. And these are our tools.”

  “A butterfly net?” Frankie asked.

  “Some people call it that. I prefer to call it a Frog Scooper.”

  “And what’s the strainer for?” Ashley asked.

  “I couldn’t find another net. So the plan is we wait until my mom and dad leave for the movies. The minute Emily gets picked up for her reptile show and Papa Pete arrives to watch us, we set out on our frog-finding mission.”

  “You actually think that Fred is somewhere out in the neighborhood?” Frankie asked.

  “I was watching him when we walked home from school, Frankie. And I saw him looking at that puddle on 78th Street. The one in front of Mr. Park’s grocery store. I’m pretty sure that’s where he would go.”

  “Are you saying,” Ashley asked, pushing her glasses up on her nose, “that you think Fred took the elevator down to the street and hopped away?”

  “Why not?” I answered. “He’s got suction cups on his toes, so he could climb up to the elevator buttons with no problem.”

  “I guess anything’s possible,” Frankie said with a shrug.

  We raced around gathering the rest of the supplies: granola bars in case we got hungry, a magnifying glass to look for frog footprints, and pad of paper to write down clues. As I bent down to look for a pen on the coffee table, I almost tripped over Cheerio.

  “Hankster, what’s that your crazy dog is doing?” Frankie asked.

  Cheerio had picked up one of my mom’s roses and was walking across the living room with it between his teeth.

  “Hey, those are Mom’s flowers,” I said, taking the rose out of his mouth. “If Dad sees this, he’s going to get mad at me.”

  “Why?” Ashley asked. “You didn’t do anything. Cheerio did.”

  “Yeah, but he’s my responsibility, just like Fred is . . . I mean . . . was.”

  Ashley took the rose from me and put it back in the vase.

  “How come your dad only bought nine roses? That’s weird. People usually buy a dozen.”

  “Oh, that’s great,” I said. “Now we have one missing frog and two missing roses.”

  “Make that three missing roses,” Frankie said with a little smile. “Twelve take away three is nine.”

  “You know me and math,” I said. “We’re not exactly best buddies.”

  By the time my parents and Emily left and Papa Pete arrived, we had packed all our frog-finding equipment in a shopping bag, and had our jackets and rubber gloves on.

  “What’s this?” Papa Pete asked when he saw us. “Are we going on a science field trip?”

  “We’re on a mission,” I told him. “Fred is lost, and he could be in terrible danger.”

  “Hank thinks Fred ran away to the puddle on Seventy-eighth Street,” Frankie added.

  “That’s quite a theory,” Papa Pete said. “We better go see if you’re right.”

  That’s what I love about my grandfather. He never makes fun of any of my ideas. And he’s always willing to try anything. You can’t say that about most grown-ups.

  “Do I have time to grab a cheese Danish from the kitchen?” Papa Pete asked.

  I shook my head. “We’ll snack later. Frogs before food. That’s our motto.”

  As we hurried out the door, I noticed Cheerio walking over to the vase and taking another one of my mom’s roses. I had no idea why he was suddenly so interested in flowers. Usually all he wants to do is pee on them. But I had no time to find out. I had to get Fred before anything horrible happened to him in that puddle.

  We couldn’t waste any more time. It took forever for the elevator to come. And once it did, it seemed like we would never get down to the lobby. When the doors finally opened, we raced outside.

  “Here we come, Fred!” I shouted.

  If only he could hear us . . .

  We ran all the way to the corner of 78th and Amsterdam Avenue. It’s only half a block away, but it seemed like a hundred miles because I was so worried about Fred. When we got there, Mr. Park was outside his grocery store, putting water into the buckets that held all the flowers for sale. He looked at the three of us wearing rubber gloves and carrying our supplies.

  “Are you going fishing?” he asked with a laugh.

  “No, Mr. Park,” I answered seriously. “We’re going frogging.”

  He looked puzzled.

  “I’ve never heard of this sport,” he said.

  “It’s not a sport,” Ashley explained. “We’re on a mission to find a lost tree frog named Fred.”

  “You didn’t happen to see him hopping by, did you?” Frankie asked.

  “I see many strange things on this corner. I see dogs wearing red boots. I see ladies wearing the same boots. I see children with shoes that light up. But one thing I don’t see is frogs.”

  Mr. Park went back to watering his flowers, and we gathered around the puddle to check it out. The puddle had started out pretty big, but it was getting even bigger from Mr. Park’s watering hose. If we stepped in it, it would probably come up to our ankles.

  “So what’s your plan, frog finders?” Papa Pete asked.

  “First, we check it out with our eyes,” I said.

  Frankie, Ashley, and I all stared down into the puddle.

  “Anybody see anything frog-like?” I asked.

  “Does a green leaf count?” Frankie said.

  “No.”

  “Then I don’t see anything.”

  “So now we have to use our nets,” Ashley said, pulling the strainer out of the shopping bag.

  She put the strainer at the edge of the puddle and pulled it through the water. I could hear the metal scraping against the pavement.

  “Look what I found!” she exclaimed.

  “Is it Fred?” Frankie and I asked at the same time.

  “No. A nickel.”

  Papa Pete laughed.

  “This frog search pays well,” he said. “Find another nickel and you can buy yourself a gumball.”

  Ashley continued to scrape her strainer around the edges of the puddle. She found a soggy candy wrapper, a gray pebble, and half a yellow crayon.

  “If Fred is in here, I think he’d be in the deeper part of the puddle,” I said. “In the middle. I’m going to use my net. It has a longer handle.”

  I took a step or two into the puddle.

  “Don’t get yourself wet, Hankie,” Papa Pete warned.

  “Don’t worry,” I told him. “I have my boots on.”

  I leaned over and held my net out as far as it would go. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw something move. Could it be Fred? My heart started to race, and I reached out to dip my net into the water.

  WHOMP! Before I knew what had happened, I was facedown in
the puddle.

  When I looked up, I saw a French poodle in a pink sweater zooming by me. “What happened?” I said.

  “That little dog cut you off at the knees,” Frankie said, laughing so hard he was almost crying.

  “Fifi!” a woman called. “Get back here at once. Look what you did to that nice young man.”

  Fifi zoomed by me again, dashing through the puddle and splashing me in the face. Now it was Ashley’s turn to laugh.

  “I’m sorry, Hank,” she said, trying to control herself. “It’s just that you look so funny sprawled out in that puddle.”

  “It’s a good thing Fred isn’t in there, or you would have crushed him,” Frankie added.

  Papa Pete reached his big, strong hand out to me.

  “Let’s get you out of there,” he said. “You’re soaked.”

  When I stood up, I was covered with puddle water.

  “Look, there’s hardly any water left on the pavement,” Frankie said. “The puddle’s all over you.”

  “Check your pockets for Fred,” Ashley suggested. “Maybe he hopped in when you were swimming around down there.”

  “Listen, kids,” Papa Pete said, putting his hand on my shoulder. “I know you want to find that frog really badly. But I have to tell you, I don’t think he’s on the street. Hank, you have to face the fact that you may not find Fred.”

  “I can’t, Papa Pete. I can’t go back to school without Principal Love’s frog. I have to think of some way to find him.”

  Papa Pete sighed.

  “In my experience, I’ve found that a hot slice of pepperoni pizza makes the brain work better. Let’s go to Harvey’s and think this problem through.”

  I was shivering—partly because I was cold, but mostly because I was so scared. Papa Pete handed me his red sweatshirt. It was so big that it looked like I was wearing a bright red tent. I didn’t care, though. I had frogs on the brain.

  We walked down 78th, passing our apartment building. Our neighbor Mrs. Fink was just walking in the front door. She was carrying a shopping bag that said “Pets for U and Me” on the outside. Probably she had just gone there to buy food for her angelfish, Marsha. As I looked at the shopping bag, suddenly an idea popped out of my brain like a jack-in-the-box.