Agatha Agnes McFearson McMervey stood silhouetted in the doorway, a cloud of green-sponge-rollered rage. She opened her mouth again to repeat her thundered question.
“I said, WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?” the window behind were Mr. Smapps usually sat, shattered and pieces of glass covered the ground. A hand clutching a bent scalpel appeared on top of the desk and the science teacher appeared looking like he had been suddenly hit by a passing freight train. He straightened himself, adjusted his glasses, and cleared his throat.
“My dear fog-horn voiced Madam; I think everyone in the room is quite aware what you just said. We are all simply speechless because of the BEAUUUUTIFULL sound that came out of your lovely, red, errrrr, lips.” Under the cabinet in the back of the room, Fred rolled his eyes at the ridiculous man who was nervously licking his lips and attempting to compliment a person who is almost impossible to compliment.
When the woman had first opened her ridiculously large mouth and emitted that first terrible shriek and shattered the glass of Fred’s cage, the frog had wasted no time in hopping toward something that would offer him some sort of reasonable protection. It was a mercy that all those screaming children had frozen at the sound of Mrs. McMervey’s voice, because if they hadn’t, there was no question in Fred’s little brain that he would have been turned into a frog pancake. He turned his attention back to the action in the classroom. Mr. Smapps had just ordered all the children back to their seats and was trying to explain to the woman in the doorway why his class had been in complete chaos when a small voice spoke at Fred’s side.
“Ribbit, ribbet squeak, croak” Fred jumped and almost hit his noggin on the cabinet above because he had not heard the language of Froginese for so long. Of course, he wasn’t surprised at all to see the frogified figure of Jamison Jeffery Jenkins McMervey cowering beside him.
“What am I going to do now?” the little frog-boy moaned to himself once again.
“Well you could always let the science maniac over there dissect you and learn find out what it’s like to have dozens of little grubby school kids looking at your insides!” Jamison Jeffery Jenkins McMervey jumped at the sound of Fred’s voice.
“Ahhhhhhhh! You can talk?”
“Sure I can talk just the same as you can. Did you think I was the Spanish teacher or something?”
“Of course not, I mean ah, yes, no, I guess I just forgot that frogs can talk to each other too. I’m glad you can talk though, because I really need you to tell me what to do.”
“What do you mean?”
“Can’t you turn me back into a person? It’s nice bein’ a frog, a little slimy maybe, but I kind of liked being a boy.” In the darkness under the cabinet, Fred snorted at him,
“Why would you want to be a boy again? After all, you were a mean, annoying, snotty-nosed little thing.”
“But I didn’t mean to be mean! Now I won’t ever be able to do the things I like again. I’ll never be able to play ball, or jump on my pogo-stick, or ride my bike, never again feel the wind in my hair, never again see the sky, never again play in the rain, never have the chance to be the first person under thirteen to stand on their head for a week straight! ” Jamison Jeffery Jenkins McMervey’s volume was increasing, the terror was growing, in fact, it actually sounded like he was about to start crying. Fred started to feel a little remorse for what he had done. Maybe he shouldn’t have been that drastic, he could have just jumped on some little girl’s head to start the pandemonium, but then, they were going to dissect him. He looked over at the little blob of frog-boy sitting in the darkness, his shoulders shaking from his sobs.
“Well, I guess I could….” But he wasn’t able to get any farther. At that moment a sound, a sound more horrible than Fred had ever heard, began filling the classroom. It filled the room, it seemed to wrap itself around all the little children who were still out there, covering their ears and cowering in fear; it pushed itself into Fred’s ears and through his head; it seemed to roll itself up and slam against the only remaining window. The window shuddered, it seemed to hold, but them the sound grew louder and slammed against it again with the death blow. At first only a small crack appeared in the very center, but then branches began growing off it. Growing faster and faster, and getting larger and larger, until they consumed the window, and then, it shattered. It shattered into a million pieces which fell to the floor with a crash. Fred them heard the source of the sound, which of course was Agatha Agnes McFearson McMervey shout at the terrified teacher.
“What do you mean, my son has become a FROG?!?!?!”