Errol and Herring Gull Harry searched their homes for their ice skates. After what seemed like forever and just when he was beginning to think that he had lost them forever, Errol found his ice skates hiding under a pile of old comics.

“Oh, thank goodness for that,” he thought as he hopped his way back down to the lake to practise his ice skating skills with Herring Gull Harry.

There seemed to be more frogs on the ice now so Errol and Herring Gull Harry looked for a less crowded area, put their skates on and, whoops, one step onto the ice and Herring Gull Harry fell over onto his bottom. Errol watched him and burst into laughter as he fell over.

“Just you wait ‘til you get on the ice,” Herring Gull Harry said as he turned around and looked at Errol before getting up again. “Then it will be me laughing at you.”

“No chance,’ declared Errol confidently hopping up and completely forgetting that he was now wearing ice skates. As he tried to stand up he wobbled, and then he wobbled some more and as he put his arms out to try and balance himself, he fell flat on his face on the ice.

Not only did Herring Gull Harry laugh at Errol’s performance, but so too did two other frogs.

“Ribbit, those two clowns can’t skate for toffee,” said the taller frog to his friend who, on hearing this, laughed all the more only it was not a friendly laugh, but a nasty, evil one.

Chapter 3: The Frozen Lake

On hearing Errol’s knock, Herring Gull Harry hopped quickly to the front door, flinging on his woolly hat and scarf as he went.

“Hello, Errol,” he said as he opened the door. Surprised to see a very wet and bedraggled Errol, he added, “what happened to you, you look as though you swam here underwater!”

“I might as well have,” mumbled Errol. “I slipped on some ice and ended up in a very large snowdrift.”

“Poor you,” Herring Gull Harry said sympathetically. “Fancy going down to the lake? I hear there are some ice competitions going on there”.

So the two friends hopped their way down to the lake which glistened and sparkled in the winter sunshine.

In the middle of the lake an arena had been set up where some frogs were busy ice-skating and to one side there was another, smaller arena where two teams were playing a furious game ice hockey.

The two friends watched the ice hockey for a few minutes and then Herring Gull Harry turned to Errol saying, “I don’t think that that is for me.”

“Nor me,” agreed Errol.

They hopped over to watch the ice skating and saw that someone had painted on the ice that there would be an ice skating competition taking place on New Year’s Eve – all competitors welcome.

The two frogs read this and then looked at one another and saw that they were thinking the same thought.

“Shall we?” said Errol.

“Why not,” said Herring Gull Harry. “It will be frogtastic and I like the idea of winning a year’s supply of fly and mosquito cookies.”

So, the two friends made their way home to find their ice skates.

Chapter 2: In A Pickle!

One minute Errol was hopping down the street and the next – well, he’d slipped on some black ice and went flying through the air and was now lying splat surrounded by a high wall of snow. He got his breath back and sat up. He was cold and wet and his scarf lay limply around his throat making him feel even colder. From where he was sitting, the sky seemed to be a slightly different colour of white from the snow.

He stood up gingerly and tried to hop out of the snow drift but the wall of snow was too high. As he was lying half out of the snow drift with his legs still in it, he decided to slowly heave himself out of the snow drift.

He was now very, very wet and cold too so, to warm himself up again, he decided to hop as quickly as he could to Herring Gull Harry’s house and knocked on his front door.

Chapter 1: The Snowdrift

It was that time of year again, froglettes. The days were shorter and the nights were even longer than usual. In the small town of Marblefish it had been snowing all day every day for the last week without stopping and now the snow lay like a thick carpet over the countryside. All the rivers and ponds too had disappeared too under a thick blanket of ice.

Today it was Boxing Day and it had finally stopped snowing. Having been house-bound for a week, the doors gradually started to open and animals appeared in the streets again, glad to finally get out and about.

Errol was no exception. He wrapped his red scarf around his neck and opened his front door full of excitement. He shivered as he hopped out into the cold air that greeted him, closed his front door and just as he was about to make his way over to Herring Gull Harry’s house, he somehow managed to hop straight into a snowdrift that was just lying there, waiting for him in the street.