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W
HILE
B
ARNEY WAS SUPPOSED TO BE
casing up his mail, he was reading comic books. He was trying to brush up on his general knowledge of Frogman, with the hope of thinking of something to use as a sign for Whitaker. Barney had a sizable stack of
The Adventures of Frogman
comics on his desk. He shared them with the other carriers, all of them having a lighthearted, laughter-filled morning until Orson heard and put a damper on the happy ruckus. From then on, Barney did his research privately.

While Whitaker was supposed to be doing his multiplication tables, he was doodling pictures of Frogman and the water tower. Miss Smathers didn't value his artistic energy and as punishment made him stay in for the afternoon recess. Felicity stayed in too. She had the sniffles.

“That often happens when you try to adapt to a new part of the country and its climate,” Felicity said with a cough. “My father told me so.”

There was something about the way she talked—the words she used, her continuous smile—that left Whitaker uncertain.

“I'll just be gone a few minutes,” Miss Smathers said. “Whitaker, I want your multiplication tables finished by the time I get back. And, Felicity, please wipe your nose.”

Miss Smathers handed Felicity a tissue and left Room 103 to gulp down a cup of coffee and as many cinnamon rolls as she could without appearing too gluttonous to the other faculty members.

After 3 x 9, Whitaker put down his pencil and looked at Felicity. “This is boring,” he said bashfully.

“Not really,” Felicity answered. She was tearing her used tissue into tiny pieces and putting them around the inside of Cynthia's desk.

“What are you doing that for?” Whitaker asked.

“Because Cynthia sits behind me and ties crayons in my hair. Now maybe she'll catch my germs and get a
really
bad cold, so she has to stay home. Forever.”

Whitaker walked to the window. Jeff was stealing a ball from some little first graders. And Gordy was coming in first in the races across the length of the playground. Whitaker was the fastest in the class; he wished that he was out there, winning. “This
is
boring,” he said.

“Not for long,” Felicity announced, smiling.

When Felicity finished with her tissue, she stood on her desk and yelled, “Look out!”

“What's the matter?” Whitaker asked.

“Are you blind? The floor is poison. If you touch it, you'll die.”

Whitaker jumped onto the nearest desk.

“Listen,” Felicity explained, “the floor is quicksand and you have to get to the blackboard to rescue the sleeping princess.”

“What princess?” Whitaker asked.

“The eraser, you know, the princess,” Felicity answered. “But remember, you can't touch the floor.”

Whitaker jumped from desk to desk until he got near the blackboard. He tried to reach the eraser, but he couldn't. “What am I supposed to do now?” he asked.

“That's your problem.”

Whitaker opened the desk (it was Susan's) and grabbed a reading workbook and a notebook. He tossed them in front of him onto the floor. He stepped on them until he could reach the eraser. “There,” he said triumphantly, “the princess is rescued.”

“Now it's my turn,” Felicity said. “You have to give me directions.”

“Okay,” Whitaker said. “The floor is bear blood and Miss Smathers's desk is Frogman's spaceship. That's where you have to get if you want to be safe.”

Following Whitaker's idea, Felicity jumped up to the front of the room, gathering reading workbooks on her way. When she got to the last desk, she lay the workbooks in front of her, one by one, all the way to the “spaceship.”

“I did it!” Felicity shouted. She smiled. And sneezed.

Whitaker thought that her teeth were the biggest and straightest and whitest he'd ever seen in his life. She should make toothpaste commercials, he said to himself.

“Now,” Whitaker said, “let's just chase each other. First one to touch the floor is the loser.”

They both armed themselves with workbooks and notebooks and textbooks and folders, and jumped all around the classroom.

Whitaker was in the middle of a giant leap when the bell rang. He slipped on a folder as he landed. He touched the floor. “I guess I'm dead,” he said.

“Who cares?” Felicity replied. “Everyone's coming in and we have a mess to clean up. Come on.”

Felicity and Whitaker picked up all the workbooks and notebooks and textbooks and folders and tossed them into the closest desks. They didn't have enough time to put them in the right places.

“There,” Whitaker said, “at least the room
looks
like it should.” He sat down at his desk and started to work on his multiplication tables again.

Felicity sat down at her desk. She wiped her nose with her finger, then folded her hands in front of her.

Miss Smathers entered the classroom. Icing covered her upper lip and chin. “Well, you two are certainly being quiet. That's what I like.”

“I didn't
quite
finish,” Whitaker said, eyes innocent.

“That's all right, Whitaker,” Miss Smathers said as she brushed crumbs off her blouse. “I'm just so pleased to see you working hard for a change.”

Whitaker turned around to look at Felicity. They smirked.

Jeff and Gordy and the other students started filing into the classroom, still excited from recess.

“Settle down, children,” Miss Smathers said, loud and clear. “Now everyone open your desks and take out your reading workbooks. We have a
lot
of work to do this afternoon.”

Did they ever!

F
LOOR POISON BECAME
a good way to pass the time while waiting for the sign from Frogman. Whitaker taught Jeff and Gordy how to play. And that's what they did most nights after school. They played it at Jeff's house until they broke his mother's antique Wedgwood vase. They played it at Gordy's house until they knocked over Mr. Lucas's stuffed and mounted deer, chipping its antler. And they played it at Whitaker's house until the time they jumped so hard that they ruined Mrs. Murphy's famous soufflé, which she was preparing for her bridge club. Usually her masterpiece was as tall as a top hat; that day it was as flat as the cow-pies that Whitaker and his cousins used as bases when they played ball at the annual family reunion at Uncle Harold's farm.

All of these incidents were accidents, of course. Nonetheless, Floor Poison had to be eliminated from Whitaker's things-to-do-while-waiting-for-Frogman repertoire. Among others, this included what Whitaker called “Zebra-zooming.” This had started one night, years earlier, as an amusement when Mr. Murphy ran into the hardware store to pick up some nails that he needed. Mrs. Murphy stayed in the car with baby Whitaker on her lap. Whitaker reached for the steering wheel and made noises that a car might make. Mr. Murphy let him do the same when Mrs. Murphy went into the grocery store. And the game caught on.

Even now Whitaker would sit in the Zebra and imagine that he was driving. Turning the wheel. Pushing the directional lever up and down. Saying, “Zooooom! Zooooom!” Whitaker couldn't reach the brake or gas pedal yet, but it didn't matter. In his own way, he was going very fast. Rounding hairpin turns. Jumping caverns. Running red lights. The whole bit. All the while, he was on the lookout for Frogman. But never a trace did he see.

During this period Whitaker sorted his baseball cards and reorganized his bug collection alphabetically (that is,
A
nt,
B
eetle,
C
rushed ant,
D
ragonfly,
E
lmer Ant,
G
lued-together ant, and so on). He also went to Horlick's Field.

Whitaker ambled through the field, swishing the now tall, brownish grass, searching for Frogman's footprints around the water tower and near the creek. In the sand on the creek's bank, he saw dog pawprints and cat pawprints and tennis-shoe footprints and what he thought were beaver pawprints. But none resembled those of his hero.

Walking west, Whitaker discovered some new graffiti scribbled on the sideboards of Horlick's Bridge. He studied the words. They appeared freshly painted. The messy letters spelled things like “Babe Ruth for President,” “Go Brewers!,” and “Shoeless Joe Lives,” in dark blue paint. But there were no messages from Frogman.

Whitaker found a rusty key and a 1948 penny and a feather and his lost batting glove. And he found Barney.

“Well, Whitaker, fancy meeting you here,” Barney said, getting to his feet. He had been crouching by the edge of the creek.

“What are you doing, Barney?”

“I stopped on my way home from work to look for rocks. My granddaughter in Florida collects them. And I promised her that I'd send her a few from Wisconsin. No collection would be complete without them. Don't you think?”

Barney held out his hand to show Whitaker his findings. Whitaker didn't think that the stones were anything special until Barney pointed out their subtle coloring and fine shapes.

“If you look close enough, there's a world of things to see in something like a stone.” Barney reached into his uniform shirt pocket that by now was dirty and damp and spotted with dark blue paint, the same shade as that on the bridge. He retrieved a small green object. “I also discovered this piece of glass that the creek has worked on. Rounded its edges. Softened it. It's no diamond, but its beauty comes darn close in my estimation.”

Perhaps it was the mood he was in, but the piece of glass didn't interest Whitaker. But he did wonder about the dark blue spatters on Barney's shirt and the can of paint on the ground near his uniform jacket. Whitaker tried to picture Barney writing on the bridge. He couldn't. He thought that only junior high kids got to do that.

“Anyway, Whitaker, what are
you
doing in what's left of this town's wilderness?” Barney asked.

“I came looking for Frogman. Or at least a sign from him.”

Barney could have guessed that. But he hadn't decided yet what he could do to get out of the predicament that he had gotten himself into. “I'd ask how progress was going,” Barney said, “but I have a feeling that it would be a wasted question.”

Barney was tempted to ask Whitaker exactly what kind of sign would satisfy his curiosity, but he didn't. He wanted to solve this on his own. After all, what's a challenge for?

The clouds that had been rolling in since early afternoon started to drop rain. A fine mist soon turned into a cold, steady pelting. Whitaker and Barney said good-bye to each other, then speedily headed in their respective directions home. Whitaker momentarily forgot about Frogman—he didn't miss a single puddle or clogged sewer from the field to his front porch. Neither did Barney.

T
HE FOLLOWING
S
ATURDAY
Barney had a hard time concentrating on his work. All his energy was being spent thinking of what he could tell Whitaker. Because it was Saturday and there was no school, Barney figured that today would be the day to break the bad news to his buddy. After an agonizing week—and no ideas to use as a sign from Frogman—Barney concluded that the best thing to do was to explain everything about the letters. That they weren't real. And neither was Frogman.

As he approached the Murphy house, Barney's heart grew heavy, beating fast and hard. He reached into his sack for their mail. There was another postcard, a gigantic one, from Aunt Nancy and Uncle Iggie. That was all. Barney read the postcard with the intention of momentarily forgetting his dilemma.

It said:

Dear ones,

This is what Central Park looks like from an airplane. Reminds me of a fuzzy green Band-aid in the middle of giant boxes. Anyway, we walked through here. You wouldn't believe all the people! Some running, some walking, some fighting, some sleeping.