Five or six weeks ago, you may remember, I wrote about our friendly neighbourhood frog, who paid a couple of visits to our house, ensconcing himself – I always think of it as male – either close to or even on my CDs. At the end of that piece, I speculated that he might return in the not-too-distant future.
And sure enough, in the middle of last week, in the middle of a rare, deep sleep, I was woken by our ever-watchful Scottie who led me to the CD racks again and then sat, beady-eyed, staring. The space he was staring at was far too small for our recent visitor. At least, I presumed so. After all, our froggy fellow was a chubby specimen, unable to shrink himself sufficiently so that he could squeeze into diminutive niches. Try as I might to search elsewhere, the dog remained resolute, staring with unblinking attention at the same spot while I grovelled around on my hands and knees, like an idiot, in my pyjamas, shining the torch into umpteen dark crevices. Bleary-eyed, I saw nothing, no matter how hard I tried.
I went back to bed and turned out the light. At that instant, the dog began whining. I turned the light back on, grabbed the torch, and headed to the CD racks again; my canine buddy hadn’t shifted one millimetre. So, with the clock ticking menacingly toward 3.00 a.m., I started moving the CDs out of the way, remembering that previously our friendly amphibian had climbed up behind the shelves onto the CDs themselves. But he wasn’t there either. The only things left to move were two yoga mats standing vertically tight against the wall.
As nimbly as I could at that time of the morning, I whipped out the mats to see Chubby himself, on his side, his head wedged behind the racks, his body now too large to follow.
I took him outside. My dog wagged his tail once or twice before falling into almost instant sleep. I lay awake for hours.
Then, two nights later … Chubby? Not you, again!
