Timothy Tree Frog
By Audrey S. Nourse Giulia M. SheltonAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2010 Audrey S. Nourse and Giulia M. Shelton
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4490-5462-5 Chapter One
In a small pond in a little neighborhood in a big city in the middle of Ohio, a gray blob of jelly quivered and shivered, wiggled and jiggled, until out popped a slithery, round, tiny green creature with a long, squirmy tail.
It was a tadpole.
He looked around, wagged his tail, and began to move through the water.
"I can swim!" he shouted. "I can swim all around the pond!"
And he did.
He swooped and he curled and he looped and he swirled. "Whee!"
He swam to the bottom of the pond and found some tiny plants to eat.
He swam underneath a big water lily and counted the lines in its leaves.
He swam around and around with the hundreds of other tadpoles in the pond.
One day, he swam in the shallow water near the edge of the pond, and he saw a huge shadow in the water!
"What is making that huge shadow?" He looked up as high as he could!
There, next to the pond, stood a very tall, brown pole with shiny green leaves at the top!
"Wow!" said the tadpole. "I'd like to climb up to the very top of that big pole."
"It's a tree, and someday you will. Peep! Peep!"
"Who said that?" The little tadpole was so surprised that his little body wiggled and jiggled and quivered and shivered.
And he squinted his eyes and looked high into the brown tree with the shiny green leaves at the top.
And then he saw it ... a tiny green creature with four legs, two round eyes, and a great big smile.
"I did. Peep. Peep. I'm a tree frog. Peep. Peep. And I sit here on this big tree all day, and I catch mosquitoes to eat. Peep. Peep."
"How did you get there?"
"See my two strong back legs? Peep. Peep. They help me to jump anywhere I want to go. Peep. Peep."
"But why don't you fall off that big tree?"
"Look at my long, sticky toes. They help me stick to the tree."
"Ooh," said the little tadpole. "I want to climb that tree, but I don't have two strong back legs and sticky toes. And all I have is this wiggly, squiggly tail."
"Someday you will climb this tree and look around and catch mosquitoes just like me," said the tree frog. "All you have to do is eat and swim. Eat and swim."
And as fast as you can snap your fingers, the tree frog pushed with his strong back legs and jumped so far that the tiny tadpole couldn't see him anymore.
The tiny tadpole was sad. He wanted to climb on the tree, but he had no legs or sticky toes.
So he swam down to the bottom of the pond, near a big rock, and he thought and he thought about strong legs and sticky toes and trees and eating and swimming.
Eat and swim. Eat and swim. That's what the tree frog told him to do. Eat and swim!
"Yes!" said the tiny tadpole, "That's what I'll do!" And he whooshed up through the water, over to the lily pads, and then down again to where the eating plants were. "I'll eat and swim. Eat and swim! Then I'll get strong back legs and sticky toes."
That's what he did. Every day. All day long. Eat and swim, eat and swim.
One day, as he wiggled his tail to get to the bottom of the pond, he felt something strange.
His tail didn't wiggle like it used to.
He twisted his head around to look at his tail, and to his surprise he saw two little legs growing inside his tail. Legs! Strong back legs!
"Whee!" He swam as fast and as hard as he could all over the pond, and he ate twenty-two mouthfuls of plants.
The next day as he wiggled and jiggled along in the water, he felt something strange right behind his head. He twisted around to look and saw two other legs starting to grow behind his head. These legs had long, sticky toes!
"Whee!" He swam in circles around the pond as fast and as hard as he could And that day he ate twenty-seven mouthfuls of plants.
Every day he swam and ate, swam and ate, and dove and wiggled and jiggled and squirmed.
And every day his tail grew shorter and his legs grew longer and stronger and his toes grew stickier and his eyes grew brighter.
And then came the day when his tail was gone, and his back legs were strong enough, and his toes were sticky enough, and his eyes were bright enough.
The tiny tadpole, who was really no longer a tadpole, jumped on his strong legs right out of the pond and across the wet, green grass, and climbed straight up the tree with his long, sticky toes.
He looked all around and stuck out his tongue and caught a mosquito! "I'm a tree frog now! Peep! Peep!"
And he was so happy he sang a song:
"I am a T, Peep Peep I am a T-R-E, Peep Peep I am a T-R-E-E F-R-O-G, Peep Peep And I am happy, Peep Peep Oh so happy, Peep Peep And I think my name shall be TIMOTHY. Peep Peep."
And Timothy Tree Frog was happy to be a tree frog. He had two strong back legs. He had two strong front legs with sticky toes. And every day, he climbed up the tree to sing and catch mosquitoes.
And every day, he looked around and he listened. All around him he could hear other tree frogs singing and peeping. Hundreds of tree frogs. Peep Peep Peep Peep.
And every night, he looked around and he listened. He could hear thousands of other tree frogs singing and peeping. Peep Peep Peep Peep. But Timothy Tree Frog was all alone on his tree, and he felt lonely.
One night, from way across the other side of the pond, he heard a beautiful, high voice singing:
"I am a T, Peep Peep I am a T-R-E, Peep Peep I am a T-R-E-E F-R-O-G, Peep Peep But I am lonely, Peep Peep Oh, so lonely, Peep Peep I think I'll find someone to be a friend to me. Peep Peep."
"I'll be your friend! Peep Peep!" shouted Timothy Tree Frog as loud as he could.
"I am a T, Peep Peep. I am a T-R-E, Peep Peep I am a T-R-E-E F-R-O-G, Peep Peep I too am lonely, Peep Peep So very lonely, Peep Peep Come here and be a special friend to me. Peep Peep"
He kept peeping and peeping and singing and singing, and in a few days, a beautiful, green girl tree frog jumped onto his tree and said, "Hi! My name is Edwina, and I'll be your friend."
Timothy Tree Frog was very happy.
And Edwina Tree Frog was very happy.
And they snuggled together on their tree.
The leaves on the tree turned from green to red and then fell to the ground. And it turned cold, and snow covered the branches of the tree.
Edwina and Timothy found a cozy spot in the mud at the bottom of the pond, and they snuggled together and sang:
"We are T, Peep Peep We are T-R-E, Peep Peep We are T-R-E-E F-R-O-G-S, Peep Peep And we are happy, Are we happy? You can bet that we will say a great big yes!"
And they stayed in their cozy little spot at the bottom of the pond all winter.
When the weather got warmer and warmer in that small pond in that little neighborhood in that big city in the middle of Ohio, a gray blob of jelly right near Timothy and Edwina's cozy spot at the bottom of the pond began to quiver and shiver and wiggle and jiggle until ...
Can you guess what will happen next?
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Timothy Tree Frogby Audrey S. Nourse Giulia M. Shelton Copyright © 2010 by Audrey S. Nourse and Giulia M. Shelton. Excerpted by permission.
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