Ten-Finger Exercises

Tater and Lulu

Oh-oh, I'm in trouble. I've been cruising blogs for some ideas to write about. I've got nothing to say about frogs, potatoes, nip and tucks, and navel lint collections, but I guess I'll have to try.


Tater Tot, the frog, was having a terrible day.

His friends all called him Tater because he lived in a pond by a fast food joint, and the tidbits that were overlooked by the seagulls were his, all his. He had become a little, uh, tubby. The tubbier he got, the more he wanted to sit by the side of the pond singing out "Belly-deep, belly-deep," and the less he cared to hop about.

Now, you might argue that frogs are not vegetarians, but Tater was. Even as a tadpole, he'd looked at flies for dinner with disgust. Sure, it was fun to catch them, but eat them! Yuck!

Tater's friend Lulu was being honored next week at a ceremony at City Hall. Tater was going to have to hop into a tux, and his old one was much too small for him now. Whatever could he do? He couldn't disappoint her. She deserved a fit frog for an escort. After all, Lulu Hopper was the first frog in Muddy-Frogwater to learn to read.

Once just a tadpole in the window well outside the old Carnegie Library, Lulu was never far from books. One summer while hunting flies, Lulu hopped up the steps behind a girl whose friends were straggling behind her. As the girl held the door open, scolding the group for being so slow, several flies flew past. Lulu saw her opportunity and in she went behind them.

It was a strange, new world for Lulu inside. Tables, chairs, shelves and books as far as she could see: nothing looked familiar. At least there was some water. A small bowl of it had been put out for the library cat who was nowhere to be seen. Three or four humans stood peering at the shelves, picking out books to take home. They’d read a page or two and then tuck the book under their arm or put it back and go on to another. Lulu was careful to stay out of their way because they certainly weren’t looking where they were stepping.

To the left of the door was a wide rack for magazines, and Lulu hopped up on it. She could see better from there. By this time she was curious. The only time frogs paid that close attention to anything was when they were on the trail of a fly. Something else was happening here, and Lulu wanted to find out what it was.

The giggling girls descended on the magazines, and Lulu sat very still. She had chosen a Yard and Garden picture to blend into, and she watched and listened as the girls turned pages and exclaimed.

“Oh look, a frog!” a girl in a pink sweater squealed. Her big hand reached out, and before she could do anything Lula was caught.

“Hello little froggy. What are you doing? Trying to learn to read?”
Pinky held her loosely, and all the girls clustered around her to see.

“Oh isn’t she cute?” they cooed.
Lulu didn’t know what to do, so she did nothing.

“I could teach you how to read,” Pinky said. She spread the magazines on the table and set Lulu down beside them. “Maybe I should start with some children’s readers,” she said, and the girls all left to go gather some.

This was Lulu’s chance. She could escape while there was no one watching her, but she didn’t. She stayed, and in the course of the summer, they taught her how to read. By fall the clever librarian set up a display of books facing the window well, and Lulu began to teach other young frogs to read without having to face the perils of people's feet and the heavy library doors.

Next week Lulu would get an award for being Muddy-Frogwater's first literate frog, and Tater wanted to be beside her. So he pond-ered his options.

He could go on a diet of nothing but navel lint for a week, or he could go to the local plastic surgeon for a tummy lift. Tater shook in his boots, that is, if he had boots, at that thought. He'd seen Jimmy, the plastic surgeon, before, when he caught Tater's father and hauled him off to biology class for a little experimentation. No sir. It was gonna have to be navel lint after all.

Good thing Tater was a vegetarian. He was used to veggie-burgers, and veggie-chops with his tater tots. Navel lint wasn't really much worse. He exercised too. Every day he swam the pond five times, and did twenty pull-ups at the end (but that was mainly because he had a hard time getting his fat belly out; he kept slipping.)

At the end of a week, Tater was in great shape. His tux fit him like second skin, and he was ever so proud to stand beside Lulu at the ceremony. In fact, he was so excited, he was hopping up and down.

Oh well, this ends my blue month. Sorry if I've turned you all sickly green. Thanks for putting up with me, even when I don't have anything to say.