Amphibian (15 page)

After a few minutes, I went back to my classroom. Everybody was looking at me, but I had stopped laughing and was acting as normally as I could. The good thing was that all that laughing gave me an idea as to what song to use for my picture: ‘Kookaburra'!

The kookaburra call sounds like human laughter. It sings to warn other kookaburras where its territory is. My dad and I once listened to a whole bunch of kookaburras on the internet. It made us laugh too. You just can't listen to kookaburra calls without laughing. This is kind of ironic because the kookaburras don't mean to be funny at all – they're being quite serious.

As I painted a kookaburra on top of a eucalyptus, I kept a close eye on the clock. The minutes ticked by like they were hours. Bird and I kept looking at each other. Then at 2:47, right on schedule, Mrs. Wardman told us it was time to clean up – only three minutes to rescue time.

I was so nervous I could barely breathe. I patted the pocket of my cargo pants to make sure the fake fraud frog was still there – like he might have jumped out or something. He hadn't.

We all took off our smocks and stuck our paintbrushes in the big jar of water. But then something completely unexpected happened! Something Bird and I never thought of in our wildest imaginations: Mrs. Wardman picked up the jar of paintbrushes and put it in the sink! How could Bird knock over the jar to create a diversion if it was in the deep sink? It's not like he could pick up the jar and put it on the counter and then knock it over and still have it look like a complete accident!

I looked at Bird, and he looked at me, and we both just stared at each other. There was only one minute to go until action time, and we had no way of getting everybody to look in one direction! I felt like my chest was going to explode.

Then Bird smiled at me and did something that really surprised me – he stuck his pointer finger in his right ear. That was the signal for me to get ready for the switch! I didn't know what he was going to do, but I knew this meant I had better get into place. I walked over to Cuddles' aquarium, patted my pocket again and got ready to lift the lid.

Then all of a sudden Bird started making sounds like a dog! He went, ‘Arrf, arrf, arff,' loud and then louder. Everybody looked in his direction. Before I had a chance to change my mind, I put Cuddles' jar of crickets in my pocket and then opened the lid to the aquarium and reached my hand in to pick him up. I could hear Mrs. Wardman say, ‘Richard, what are you doing? Stop that this instant!'

In my mind I kept telling Bird to keep on barking, and he did. That was a good thing since picking up Cuddles was harder than I imagined because my hands were so sweaty. I had Cuddles in my hand twice, but both times he jumped right out.

I glanced up to make sure nobody was watching me. They weren't. They were all looking down under the art table. Mrs. Wardman was standing where Bird was originally standing and saying, ‘Richard! Get out from under there. Right now!'

Then Bird started howling like a wolf, and the kids were laughing and laughing and Mrs. Wardman was saying, ‘Children! Don't encourage him. Richard, come out from under there this instant and march yourself down to Mr. Legacie's office!' Bird just kept on howling, growling and barking, and the kids kept on laughing.

Finally, I got a hold of Cuddles in one hand and put in the fake fraud frog with the other. Then I shut the lid to the aquarium and closed my hands over Cuddles and made a fast walk for the door. I couldn't believe nobody had caught me! I was almost frog-free!

As I was walking, I could feel Cuddles trying to jump. Thankfully, this was one part Bird and I had thought about beforehand, and I had left my lunch bag on top of my boots with the lid open. I quickly put Cuddles in and zippered the lid.

Then just as I turned around to go back into the classroom, Bird and Mrs. Wardman were walking out. Bird smiled at me, but I didn't smile back in case Mrs. Wardman was watching.

Mrs. Wardman said, ‘Phineas! Get back in the classroom; it's not time to go yet.'

She marched Bird down the hall. I knew Bird was on his way to a misbehaviour, but I also knew it wouldn't bother him as much
as it would bother me. It would likely just mean he would lose his Game Boy for a week. I would tell him it was worth it to save a life.

When I got back into the classroom, I kept looking around to make sure nobody was looking at Cuddles' aquarium. Thankfully, they were still all laughing and talking about Bird.

When Mrs. Wardman came back, she told us to put our agendas and homework into our backpacks and get our outdoor clothes on. When Bird didn't come back, I started to get worried again. Then, as I was putting on my jacket, Bird came down the hall with a misbehaviour in his hand. He whispered, ‘Did you get him?' and I nodded my head.

As we stood in line to leave, my heart was jumping around so much it felt like Cuddles was in my chest. I really, really hoped Mrs. Wardman wouldn't notice that he'd been replaced by a fraud frog before we got out of the school. I knew someone would notice tomorrow morning, but by then Cuddles would be on his way to Australia.

When the bell rang for us to leave, Bird and I felt like running to my house, but we couldn't because of Cuddles and shaken frog syndrome. Bird carried both of our backpacks and I carried my lunch bag. I could feel Cuddles moving around, which was a good sign.

Bird said, ‘What are we going to do when they notice Cuddles is missing tomorrow?'

I shrugged. I had been so worried about the first part – the rescuing Cuddles part – that I really hadn't really thought about that part. It just hadn't seemed important at the time. Now it seemed a little more important.

Bird said, ‘But aren't you not supposed to bark up the wrong tree until all your ducks are in a row or something like that?'

‘How about we don't do anything,' I said. ‘Nobody will know it was us.'

‘But we'll be the first to be questioned because we acted so weird,' said Bird.

‘That doesn't prove anything,' I said. ‘And besides, you act weird lots of times, and a frog hasn't gone missing before.'

‘But this was the first time you ever acted so weird,' said Bird. ‘You looked crazy like my grandfather after he shot at the squirrels through his living room window without even opening the window.'

‘Crazy people don't go around stealing frogs. But I heard sometimes they lick them because there's a chemical on frog and toad skin that makes them go crazier – or was that just a myth? I can't remember.'

‘But just in case, maybe we should be the ones who scream out, “Cuddles is gone! Cuddles is gone!” tomorrow morning. That way Mrs. Wardman won't think that we did it because who reports their own crime?'

‘Remember Jacob and Sean and their fire?' I asked Bird.

And then Bird said, ‘Oh. Right.'

Jacob and Sean who are in fifth grade set a fire in the woods last fall and then reported it themselves. When the fire trucks got there, they asked the firefighters for a reward for reporting the fire. That made it seem suspicious, and they got found out. For punishment, they had to go to every class and talk about fire safety. That would be like Lyle having to talk about being nice.

‘But it might work if we don't ask for a reward,' said Bird.

‘I don't think it would work,' I told him. ‘Lots and lots of guilty people report things because they think that it will make them look less guilty. It doesn't work.'

‘Well, then maybe we should go back to the school and open the lid of the aquarium so that Mrs. Wardman will just think that he escaped.'

I thought about that for a moment. That made sense. At least then Mrs. Wardman would just be looking for the kid who opened the frog lid and not for one who actually took the frog.

‘How about you wait here and hold Cuddles. I'll go back, and when I see Mrs. Wardman leave, I'll sneak into the classroom and open the lid,' I said.

Bird thought about this. I could tell because when he's thinking, he rubs the soft spot just under his nose. That part is
called the philtrum, and it's not for snot to flow down like Bird thought before I told him what it's really for. It's to allow humans to move their lips lots of different ways to talk and to show emotions on their faces. Some other primates like lemurs have this spot too.

‘I think I should go back because I can run a lot faster than you,' said Bird. ‘And besides, I don't want to be responsible for Cuddles. You stay here and hold him.'

I said okay. I wasn't surprised Bird wanted to do it because I think Bird actually likes being scared. He dropped our backpacks and started running back toward the school. When he got to the corner, he turned and looked at me and yelled out, ‘If I get caught, you owe me big time! BIG TIME!'

I sat down next to a tree at the edge of the woods and checked on Cuddles. His throat was moving in and out really fast, and I was worried he was going to have a heart attack or something. I wondered if that happened with frogs. I knew it happened all the time with humans. I also knew that as much as I wanted to hold and cuddle Cuddles to make him feel better, there was nothing I could do to calm him down. He's not a social animal and other beings wouldn't be able to make him feel better. If I touched him, it would make him even more anxious. So I just sat there holding the lunch bag and hoping that Bird wouldn't get caught and would make it back fast.

Fourteen minutes and seventeen seconds later, I saw Bird running toward me. When he reached me, he said, ‘I did it! I did it! This is really exciting! I think I want to do this professionally when I grow up.'

‘I think you'll be good at it,' I said. ‘Maybe you can work for Greenpeace someday. They do animal rescues.'

‘Yeah!' said Bird. ‘And do you know what else I did? I took the fraud frog out of the aquarium.'

Bird hauled the brown fake frog out of his coat pocket to show me. We looked at each other and started laughing.

‘Good thinking,' I told him.

We walked to my house really quickly, but just before we got there, I put the lunch bag back in my backpack. I figured Cuddles would be okay until we got him up to my room. I opened the door and yelled, ‘Hi Mom, Bird's here, bye Mom,' and my mother yelled back, ‘Okay, great, nice talking to you both.'

When we got to my room, I sneaked quietly to my mother's room and took her phone, and then I tiptoed back to my room. We looked at the number we wrote down off the website for the Frog and Tadpole Rescue Group: 0419 249 728. That was a weird number to us. Bird and I argued over whether or not the zero counted. I thought it must mean something or they wouldn't have put it there, but Bird said a zero in front of a bunch of numbers doesn't make the number bigger than it is by itself. That made a little sense, so I took a deep breath and dialled the number Please hang up and try again.' So I did but this time with the zero in front.

A man answered the phone. He had a really weird voice, and when he said ‘Frog and Tadpole Rescue Group,' it sounded like he was twisting the words in the wrong places.

I said, ‘Hello. I have a White's tree frog that I rescued and want to give to you.'

Bird poked me in the ribs and whispered that maybe we should ask him for a reward for rescuing Cuddles. I made an angry face at him, and he made an angry face back at me but stopped whispering.

‘Okay, mate, how about you tell me where you found him, and I'll see what we can do.'

I wasn't sure I should tell him the whole story, but I figured someone who works rescuing frogs wouldn't call the police on us – and besides, he was at the other end of the world. So I told him that I found Cuddles in an aquarium in my classroom in Canada.

‘You found him in an aquarium in Canada?' the man asked. That's when I came clean, and I told him that I didn't exactly
find
Cuddles. The man was really quiet as I explained. When I was done talking, at first there was no sound, and I thought that
maybe he had hung up the phone. But then he said, ‘I'm sorry, mate, did you say Canada?'

I said, ‘Yes.'

The man was quiet for another moment, and then he told me that what Bird and I had done was very brave and showed a great concern for frogs. That made me smile on the inside. I didn't smile on the outside because I didn't want Bird to start poking at me again.

But then the man told me something that made the room start to go dark on the sides but get brighter in the centre. After he said that thing, I didn't hear much else, even though he talked for what seemed like a long time. After he finished, he asked me if I had any questions. I said no and thanks and then hung up the phone. My mouth all of a sudden felt really dry, and I had a hard time swallowing.

I looked at Bird and couldn't say anything at first. I opened my mouth but nothing came out. It was like the speaking part of my brain was numbed. It was like I was floating up above where we were and was looking down at my room and me and Bird and Cuddles in the lunch bag.

Bird started saying, ‘What? What? What?' louder and louder. The only thing that unfroze my brain was when I suddenly had the thought that my mother might come upstairs to see what we were doing if he didn't shut up.

I told Bird that the man said that once a frog was taken from its natural habitat, it could never be put back because it might have picked up a virus or a bacteria that it could spread to other frogs in the wild. He told me that the frogs rescued from bags of groceries and suitcases and things are given to frog foster parents who keep care of them in captivity.

‘He said he can't take Cuddles. He said he has to live in an aquarium now because he might have a disease that wild frogs would get if he were brought back to Australia,' I told Bird.

Bird stared at me with his mouth open. Then he said, ‘No way! You mean we did all this for nothing? I got a misbehaviour and won't be allowed to play my Game Boy for nothing? Why didn't
you know that already? You know everything else! You know I count on you to know this stuff because I don't know it! What the crap are we supposed to do now?'