Morning,

Well, after a wee break, froglets, I am BACK with my scribbles and here is my first story.

Yesterday, Herring Gull and I had a BBQ at Tadpole Creek with eight of our friends. We had a fun day apart from one slightly unfortunate but VERY amusing incident.

One of our friends, Tea Cup, lives next door to my enemy, Rotten Rory, and he happened to see Tea Cup leave her house and so followed her with his friend (and also my enemy) Slimy Sam. Tea Cup was unaware that she was being followed so they saw us at Tadpole Creek.

Well, they hid in a tree and watched us while we cooked some fish, worms and moths over warm coals so that we could make some yummy burgers to eat. After a while, we noticed that the odd moth or worm was vanishing from the BBQ. At first, we thought it was in our imaginations but then two moths seemed to vanish very quickly. Puzzled, we looked around the coals but could see no sign of the missing moths. Then, I happened to turn away to get some more worms to cook and as I turned back I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked up but apart from some leaves moving on the tree above, I could see nothing suspicious but a worm had definitely gone missing. I put the worms in my hands on the warm coals and then deliberately turned my back on them. I counted to ten and turned around to see a worm on the end of a line disappearing into the leaves above.

Quick as a flash, I went to the tree and looked up. You won’t believe what I saw. There was Rotten Rory and Slimy Sam sitting on a branch overlooking the BBQ with a fishing line quietly stealing our food and eating it themselves. I hopped up onto the branch they were sitting on as Rotten Rory said, “delicious,” as he licked his fingers after eating a moth – our moth. “You know, you’re a good cook, Errol.”

“I’m loving this moth,” agreed Slimy Sam chomping away with juice running down his chin. He was always a messy eater. “Although,” he added, “I could do with some ketchup.” He was never the brightest of frogs!

“You rascals”, I said annoyed that they were ruining our day by stealing our food. “How did you know we were here?”

A smug Rotten Rory said “it wasn’t difficult, Errol, we just followed Tea Cup.”

“And your fishing line?”

“I took this hook out of Herring Gull Harry’s satchel when he wasn’t looking and got some reeds which I tied together to this branch. Rather impressive, I thought. It certainly worked,” explained Rotten Rory admiring his handiwork.

Well, froglets, as you can imagine I was furious but, just at that moment, Slimy Sam finished eating the moth and bent forward to pick up a worm when he suddenly lost his balance and fell. I shook the branch so a startled Rotten Rory had no choice but to fall as well …. landing on their bottoms on the coals below.

Herring Gull Harry, Tea Cup and our friends were surprised by their sudden arrival but we all burst out laughing as they ran off howling and holding their sore bottoms. Serves them right for stealing our food.

We used Rotten Rory’s improvised fishing line to catch some more fish instead. All in all, it was an entertaining day at Tadpole Creek!

E