1.

BOY MEETS FROG

The first time that I saw the frog, I was sitting in class. Its face was pressed
up to the window next to me from the outside. I had been drawing in my
notebook, but once I noticed it, I couldn’t stop looking. It couldn’t stop
looking at me either (if it had been a staring contest, I would have lost).
Maybe frogs blinked, but with its big eyes smushed against the glass, this
one didn’t. Stagwood Forest was just beyond the school yard and it was
riddled with frogs, but they always avoided people. I knew right away, in a
way that I can think better than I can say, that this frog was different.

Miss Weaver hadn’t noticed. She’d been my teacher for a few months, and
was known for having a stack of black hair that rose a foot above her head.
Before the school year started, I had heard rumors about her, and within a
week I realized that they were all true. For one thing, she wore the same
outfit every day; the colors changed, but she always had on striped pants
and a striped jacket. For another thing, she was mind-numbingly boring. The
kind of boring that makes your eyes shut without your permission. Part of
the problem was that she liked to tell pointless stories instead of teaching.
She was obsessed with telling stories about former students who had
become famous. The first couple of times weren’t bad, even kind of
interesting, but by the second week of school she had already started
repeating herself, just like with her outfits.

I knew all the stories by heart. The professional football player who was
good at math, the politician who was a teacher’s pet; I knew every word.
Instead of listening, I spent most of class drawing. I drew imaginary places,
and designed creatures to fill them. Every drawing had a story. But not that
day. I had barely gotten started when the frog appeared, and changed my
life forever.

I tried to listen back in to Miss Weaver, just in time to hear the end of her
story about Martin Shandals, the now-famous comedian. Martin had
transferred schools half way through the year, so I always felt like that one
shouldn’t count. We were supposed to be learning long division, but
something had reminded her of Martin. I knew exactly what bad joke she
would end the story with, and much less about long division.

“Whenever he acted up in class I’d say, ‘we’ve got a real comedian on our
hands don’t we?’ And I was right!” she said with a giggle.

I was sure Miss Weaver would see the frog eventually, but she didn’t.
Nobody did. When I looked again to see if it was still there, I noticed
something shiny. It made me forget all about class, and Miss Weaver and
Martin Shandals. There was no denying it: the frog had put on a tiny pair of
glasses.

I wanted to lecture it, to explain that frogs don’t wear glasses. It bothered
me that it didn’t already know that. On top of that, it had been staring at me
for at least five minutes. It seemed like it was bordering on rude. Could a
frog even be rude? I wasn’t sure. But, the bigger question was why it was so
interested in me.

I wasn't the type of kid who got attention. Teachers always wrote “needs to
participate more” on my report cards (with a smiley face to make my
parents feel better). I never got into trouble and barely ever stood out on
purpose. A few years earlier, I accidentally peed my pants because my
zipper had gotten stuck in the bathroom at the last moment. I tried to
convince everyone that I had fallen into a puddle at recess. The custodian,
Mr. Salazar, charged outside with a mop and brought me to find the puddle.
My guess is that we wasted an hour looking around at the gravel. My mom
dropped off some new clothes and nobody really noticed my wardrobe
change (…or that it hadn’t rained in weeks).

That’s how it was. Whether I did something spectacular or sneezed myself

out of a chair, nobody cared, and almost nobody said my name. As far as
school was concerned, all those things had happened to “some kid”. So, why
would a frog with glasses jump up on a windowsill to stare at "some kid"?

Teachers, on the other hand, were different. Once her story ended, it hadn’t
taken Miss Weaver long to realize that I wasn’t paying attention. She called
me up to the blackboard to make an example out of me.

“Since you don’t feel the need to listen, why don’t you solve a problem on
the board instead?” she said, sitting down at her desk.

My stomach did a flip. The problem would take a minute or two to solve, and
being in front of the class always made me nervous. How could I be expected
to do anything when there was a spectacled frog staring me down!

I stood to the right of the equation on the board so that I could check on the
frog with quick glances. Despite the distraction, I did my best to focus.
Halfway through, I saw that the frog had moved towards the front of the
classroom. It stopped at the window by Miss Weaver’s desk. It took me a
moment to figure out what it was doing. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
It was trying to lift the window.

Focusing on the problem became almost impossible. I made a mistake and

then quickly erased it. The next time I looked over, the window was open.
Why should that surprise me? Of course a frog with glasses would also be
super strong. The window was only open an inch, but that was enough for it
to slip through. I dropped the chalk, and some of my classmates laughed.
Bending down to pick it up, I tried convincing myself that when I stood back
up again the frog would be gone. “It’s not there, I just think it’s there.”

When I straightened up, the frog was sitting on Miss Weaver’s left shoulder.
This was a brave frog. Her head blocked the class from seeing it, and I
realized that I was still the only one who could. Either the frog was real or
my imagination had outdone itself. It wasn’t all that surprising that Miss
Weaver didn’t feel it there, because the shoulder pads inside her jacket were
large and fluffy. I had heard that she rested her head on them like pillows
during her breaks. So, now there was a frog sitting on Miss Weaver’s
shoulder and nobody else knew it. And I was supposed to be doing math.

Now that it was closer, I could see the frog better. It didn’t look like some
new species of frog to me. It looked like every other frog I had seen (except
for the glasses). I wondered if they made contacts small enough for a frog.
But, it wasn’t the right time to worry about frog vision. That’s a job for a frog
eye doctor, anyway.

I had daydreams all the time when I was drawing, and sometimes I got lost
in them. I tried one last time to explain the frog away, by saying it had to be
part of an elaborate daydream. I concentrated hard, finished the problem,
and put the chalk down. The frog couldn’t be real. I shook my head
confidently.

When I turned to Miss Weaver I saw the frog look me square in the eyes, and
nod. A moment later, it disappeared into Miss Weaver’s hair.