The Three Frogs
Now there is a good-sized pond that sits back a ways from the houses
where the golden retriever and the cats live. The people who live
in those two houses like to go down to the dock and fish off of it or
just sit in their fold-up chairs and watch the sun set. The
reflection of the sun hitting off of the water is just beautiful.
The kids will sometimes sneak away without their parents knowing and
jump in the water and get all slimy and muddy. The owners never
have had to take care of the pond because Mother Nature does such a
good job at keeping it decently clean and healthy for the animals that
live in it.
The pond has its own little community and food chain that has been set
for many years. The frog families are the head honchos of the
pond and whatever they say goes. The highest of all the frog
families is the Freddies. There is the father, Floyd, the
mother, Florence, and their son Fitzpatrick. The Freddies are
nice to everyone and that is why they are respected and the community
voted them to be the leaders of their pond society.
The Freddies live in the corner next to the dock on a group of lily
pads. Floyd has the biggest lily pad since he is the biggest of
the family. Florence has a medium-sized lily pad and little
Fitzpatrick has a lily pad just big enough for his green body.
Their favorite thing to do is catch flies, and their favorite eating
activity is to devour those same flies. In the
summer time, it is not a problem to find a prolific number of flies but
in the wintertime, it can sometimes get cold in Tennessee, so the
Freddies have to stock up and put the flies in the muddy bank of the
pond and dig them up in the cold season. The citizens of the pond
knew that this was what the Freddies and all the other frogs did with
their captured flies and it was understood that no one was to mess with
the flies.
However, one day, there was an unexpected visitor walking alongside the
edge of the pond. Word got around that this guest was not welcome
and that she looked to be up to no good. The Freddies were gone
for the
day because they had gone to visit their friends at another pond.
This visitor stopped near the dock and started sniffing and digging
along the bank and began to scarf down the hidden dead flies. The
other frogs and fish just sat in astonishment because there was nothing
they could do since the visitor was much bigger than they. The
first batch of flies that the visitor tasted were not good to her
because
the flies were too big so she moved to the next area of hidden
flies. She didn’t like those flies either because they seemed too
sweet and just not up to par for what she preferred. The last
section of hidden flies was absolutely perfect to her so she ate up
every last one.
After the visitor stuffed herself, she decided that it was time for a
nap. Since no one was bothering her, she thought it would be okay
to take a nap on those tempting lily pads. She went out onto
the biggest lily pad and lay down on her back. It engulfed the
visitor because she was too small for it. She flew over to the
next lily pad, which happened to be Florence’s pad. The guest
didn’t like that pad either because it was too comfy. The last
option was Fitzpatrick’s pad and it won the stranger’s heart. She
fell fast asleep and after she had done so, the animals were all eyes,
searching their minds to see what they should do. Not long after,
the Freddies were hopping back towards the pond. They could see
that the atmosphere was different. Their friends were stiff and
uptight and just awkward. The Freddies blew it off and continued
on around the pond to the side of the dock. When they ten feet
away from the dock, they could see that dirt and mud had been flung
everywhere and realized that their home was a wreck. They
surveyed
the damage and were so upset. The Freddies looked out on
to the water to see what else was going on. Floyd could tell that
something had been on his lily pad. Florence had a funny feeling
that something had been messing with her lily pad. When
Fitzpatrick looked at his lily pad, he could hardly believe it.
There was a rat on his lily pad! He did not know what to do
except ribbet, “Get off my lily pad!” The rat woke up in a hurry
and was scared to death and fell in the water. The rat did not
know
how to swim and had a stomach full of flies so she sunk to the bottom
of the pond and was to never be seen again.
Author’s note: I retold the story of The Three
Bears by Joseph Jacobs. He wrote it in 1890 in English Fairy
Tales. I continued on with the same setting as the previous
stories, on a lot of land in Tennessee. This was different from
the other stories because I used a pond as the entire setting for this
story. I changed the original story from having three bears to
having three frogs. I did not include a lot of dialogue for this
story because I did not want a lot of communication amongst the
animals. I thought that nonverbal communication would make more
of an impact and create a tenser situation. I also kept the
visitor a mystery until the very end of the story when the baby boy
frog, Fitzpatrick, revealed to the reader who the unexpected visitor
was. The most well known story of The Three Bears included a
little girl named Goldilocks but the original did not include
her. A little old woman was the one who went into the bears'
home,
which many people do not know. I never knew that the original
story had the little old woman falling out of the window and either
breaking her neck or running into the woods. That was new news to
me so I had the rat falling off the lily pad and drowning. I
thought a drowned rat was a nice ending since not many people like rats.
Coverpage
Jacobs, Joseph. (1890). The Golden Book of Fairy Tales. Web source: The Three
Bears
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