Hoppity Hippity

Christopher's Chalk Frog . . . First Grade

In the pond by the big highway a toad lived. He had all the amphibian things that he needed; a lily pad, an assorted fly collection, and a very long and sticky tongue. Yet there was never enough to satisfy him. The toad’s desire for more, juicier bugs carried him from one lily pond to another, and yet he wasn’t sure that that was what he wanted.

It is possible that he did not even know that he was searching. At night when he sat on his lily pad and munched thoughtfully on his crunchy delicious bugs, he would begin to think about what might be in the next pond, whether they had better bugs and bigger lily pads.

If he stretched his little toad legs as far as he could, he was a little taller and he could see on the horizon a beautiful, big pond. A swarm of gigantic bugs buzzed around the surface, enticing the hungriest of toads. He could almost taste the salty goodness of the fresh insects.

There was only one problem. There was a road between this pond and that pond. He sighed wistfully and considered his options carefully. It took him less than one second and ANOTHER look at those buzzing bugs to hop his cute, clumsy toad hop, up onto the edge of the highway.

Now toads are funny creatures. They appear to have the brain the size of a pea but for the most part they can survive - as long as they are in the pond, not on an open highway. If this toad had been a little smarter he would have looked for a car or other moving vehicles . . .

Hop – Hop - Hop out onto the blacktop he went. Faster the toad hopped as the pavement scorched his delicate little webbed feet. Hurry, hurry, hurry little toad. His eyes (you know toads can't turn their heads) looked to the left as he felt an odd vibration on the ground.

Hop – Hop – Hop. Toae was almost at the double yellow line when out of the blue VOOM VOOM VOOM!!!!  A jalopy with several screaming, large size adults went zipping past. The wind whipped past the poor toad, making him feel like his toad warts would fall off of his green skin. Then all of a sudden HONK HONK HONK! A huge semi tractor trailer narrowly missed turning the poor toad into a small disk sized splat.

Hoppity – Hoppity – hoppity, the toad jumped as fast as he could into the ditch at the far side of the road. He crouched there, his spotted warts quivering in fear.

The sun was just setting as the toad hopped past the last drooping dandelion and gazed at his dream pond. From his old pond this had looked like a dream - from here it looked like . . . a mud puddle. Swarms of bugs hung over the top of mud, not fresh water. The hungry toad zapped his tongue out and swallowed one of the little bugs. The toad spit the bug out - pa-tooey – disgusting!  The toad hunched down in toad-like fashion at the edge of the mud and gazed at his new home.

Poor little toad, if he only knew that the bugs are not always bigger in the next pond. As a matter of fact, there may not even be lily pads!!