Putting By For Later

Putting By For Later

Ferdie was exhausted and hungry. With the drought, the pond had begun to dry up, so he no longer had a lily pad to call home. Not only that, but the usually prolific number of insects had gone with it!

“I’ve never been this hungry,” he said in a parched croak. He was buried up to his eyes in the moist mud.

“When I was a tad, food was plentiful, but now...”

His eye caught a flash of iridescence. He widened both orbs to track the bug. His tongue flew out as if of its own accord and pulled in the dragonfly in. Just as he was about to crunch it up and swallow it down, Ferdie had an idea.

“Maybe I can stick it to the roof of my mouth to store it for later!”

It seemed like a genius idea, so he began to attempt it. With a clever press of his tongue, he managed to get it to the roof of his mouth. Because he hadn’t crunched it, it was still moving and kept getting away and trying climb out!

“I’ve tried over and over; it will not stick! My mouth is watering to just eat it. But what do I do afterward? Insects are scarce, I may starve if I don’t conserve some food now rather than later!”

Ferdie sat in the mud, just holding the near dead insect in his mouth. The sound of it faintly buzzing was driving him crazy!

“Hey Ferd, what’s shakin’” asked a passing frog he knew.

He opened his mouth to answer the friendly greeting and the dragonfly flew out. The other frog never hesitated and snapped it out of the air.

“That’s mine!” Ferdie told him hotly.

“You snooze you lose!” was the other’s reply.