Face Your Frogs

“The frog! The FROG! Noooooo!”

There was a full grown one in the front driveway and it was after me.  I tunneled into the plant bed which was my very best choice of hidey-hole.  No one could ever find me there when we played hide and seek. It was full of pointy Spanish saber spears and smaller prickly succulents that gouged and stung my legs and squished under my bare feet.  

I squatted making myself smaller hoping the it-she-alien-thing wouldn’t see me. 

The giant frog was dressed in a full bib apron and a flouncy white mob cap like an obscene Beatrix Potter/Charles Dickens cloning experiment. I had the vague notion that she was my babysitter and I was being bad making her chase me. I was terrified of the consequences. She breathed a menacing wheeze like hissing, clicking and crickets.   

She was angry. 

Worming further into the foliage, I prayed that she would pass me by. But she only grew closer swinging her webbed feet in a heaving flopping stride. My panicked breathing, ruffling the leaves around me, drew her attention. She slowly turned her misaligned shiny face toward me.  A new stream of crickets, clicking and hissing sounds spewed triumphantly from her wide upturned ruby red lip-stick adorned lips.

“Dere yuh arrrreee.  Yuh neeeeeds t’commmme wit me liddel missssss.…sshhhhhh.”

And she reached out her slippery wart-covered manicured hand. Fire engine red nails tipped her fingers. As her tentacle fingers wrapped around my wrist, I filled my lungs with a huge draught of air preparing to light the fuse on an ear piercing scream.

“What frog? Wake up, Linda. Where’s the frog?”

Mom was sitting on the edge of my bed shaking me awake breaking the grip of that hideous dream. “I keep dreaming about her Mom. She comes looking for me every night! And she’s getting bigger.”

“Every night?” said Dad, leaning on the doorframe, grinning so I could see the distinctive gap between his front teeth. “Why do you think she does that?”

“I don’t know Dad, but I need her to go away. She scares me.”

Mom, her brows furrowed, said, “Now, I told your Dad that this could be a very bad idea, but he has something for you.”   

I hadn’t noticed that he had his hand behind his back, and all the horror of that recurring night terror began to fade into pink and purple unicorn prancing little girl glee. 

I was getting a present!

“I think,” said Dad, “This new friend is in charge of making that bad nanny frog stop chasing you. He made a promise to protect you."

He tossed a big green frog on my bed at my feet. Not a real one. Stuffed like my Teddy Bear and my Lion.

But I still jumped up so hard I bumped my head squarely on my bookshelves over my headboard sending a cascade of storybooks to the floor.

The frog. It was a Steiff toy stuffed animal, soft and grinning sporting realistic markings and a pink tongue, just like a real frog. Its shiny black eyes glinted at me conspiratorially. We were going to be brave slayers of nightmares and bedtime buddies for many years to come.

I loved Frog on sight. 

I was, however, a tad pissed that Lion and Teddy Bear had not stepped up earlier in this saga.

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