When I first spotted the frog, I was in the middle of class.
For a few months, Miss Weaver had been my teacher, and she was famous in Stagwood for her towering mane of black hair. I had heard tales about her before the new school year began, and after the first week, I discovered they were all true. She wore the same thing every day; her slacks and jacket alternated in color, but they were always striped. Additionally, she was so dull that it was impossible to pay attention to her. Something so dull that you close your eyes unintentionally: that's boring. However, the stories were the most challenging obstacle. She was completely engrossed by stories of her past students who had achieved notoriety. At first, they were mildly amusing, and by the end of the first week of school, she had settled into a pattern of wearing the same clothes repeatedly.
By that time, I had memorized every tale. The professional football player who was good at math. This politician was a faculty favorite. I had it all figured out. I didn't pay much attention in class because I was too busy doodling my notebook. In most of my courses, I drew worlds and made up animals to inhabit them. They had feathers where scales should be, fur where horns shouldn't be, and wings all over the place. They were strange, and I wanted to tell a tale about each of them. That day, though, I could not even reach the first set of wings. I had just begun when the frog appeared and altered the course of my life irrevocably.
It was a moment of great boredom when I saw it. Its little green face was pressed up against the window nearest to me. My pencil halted dead in its stubby tracks. I couldn't stop looking at the frog, and it couldn't stop looking back. We were locked in a staring contest with uncertain stakes. Maybe some frogs blinked, but with their eyes smushed against the glass, this one didn't. There were frogs everywhere in Stagwood Forest, which was right beyond the schoolyard, yet they never bothered the students. I knew immediately, in a way that I could think better than I could speak, that this frog was different.
I tried tuning back into Miss Weaver, hoping to catch the tail end of her account of how she met the now-famous comic Martin Shandals. Martin had switched schools halfway through the year, so I always felt one shouldn't count. Long division was what we were supposed to be studying, but she kept thinking about Martin. I knew precisely what horrible joke she would end the story, much less about long division.
Whenever he played up in class, I'd say, 'we've got a true comedian on our hands, don't we?' Wow, I was right! She said, giggling.
I should have known that Miss Weaver wouldn't have missed the frog. To my knowledge, no one did. To be sure it was still there, I glanced again, and this time I saw something metallic. It totally diverted my attention away from school and Miss Weaver and Martin Shandals. No one could deny that the frog was sporting a pair of little eyeglasses.
I was tempted to give it a speech about how frogs don't need to wear glasses. The fact that it didn't recognize that as a given upset me. Plus, it had been looking at me for five minutes straight. To me, it didn't sound pleasant. Can a frog even have bad manners? I couldn't say for sure. The bigger mystery was why I was the object of its fascination.
As a child, I was never the center of attention. My report cards always included the comment, "needs to participate more," written by my teachers (with a smiley face to make my parents feel better). I have never intentionally stood out or gotten into any scrape. I am blameless. A few years ago, I accidentally peed my trousers because my zipper had gotten stuck in the bathroom at the last minute. I tried to convince everyone that I had fallen into a puddle at recess. The custodian, Mr. Salazar, ran outside with a mop and brought me with him to point out the puddle. I guess that we lost a half-hour looking around at the dry gravel. Luckily, my mom dropped off some new clothes, and nobody noticed my wardrobe change (or it hadn't rained in weeks).
That's the way things went. No one mentioned my name, whether I accomplished a remarkable feat or sneezed myself out of a chair. All those things had happened to "some kid" in school, as far as the administration was concerned. In that case, why would a frog wearing glasses hop onto a window sill and stare at "some kid"?
However, the situation was very different when it came to teachers. When Miss Weaver resumed her lesson, it didn't take her long to figure out that I wasn't paying attention. She used me as a scapegoat by bringing me up to the chalkboard.
She sat down at her desk and said, "Since you don't feel the need to listen, why don't you solve a problem on the board instead?"
As soon as I heard that, my stomach did a complete 180. Then it did a flop. The problem would take a minute or two to solve, and being in front of the class always made me uneasy. How could I be supposed to achieve anything when a spectacled frog was looking me down?
I stepped to the right of the equation on the board to check on the frog with a glance. Despite the distraction, I did my best to focus. When I got to the halfway point, I noticed that the frog had made its way to the front of the classroom. The window near Miss Weaver's desk came to a halt. A few seconds passed before I realized what it was up to. Seeing it made no sense to me at all. The creature was attempting to open the window by itself.
Getting to a solution has gotten quite tricky. I made a mistake and then quickly erased it. The window was wide open when I returned to check on it. Why should that surprise me? Of course, a frog with glasses would also be very strong. Just a crack of an inch allowed it to squeeze through. I dropped the chalk, and several of my students laughed. I bent down to pick it up. I tried to convince myself that the frog would be gone when I stood back up again. The answer is "no." I'm just going off the feeling that it's there.
To my surprise, the frog had relocated to Miss Weaver's left shoulder as I stood straight.
This was a brave frog.
No one else in the classroom could see it because of her head, and I understood that I was still alone in this. Either the frog was real, or my imagination had overdone itself. Miss Weaver likely didn't notice because the shoulder pads inside her jacket were enormous and fluffy, making it less likely that she would have felt anything. When she took breaks, the rumor was that she would use them as cushions for her head. Everyone was unaware that Miss Weaver was harboring a frog on her shoulder. And here I was supposed to be practicing mathematics.
I could make out more of the frog's features now that it was within viewing distance. It didn't look like some new species of frog to me. It looked like every other frog I have seen (except for the spectacles) (except for the glasses). My curiosity peaked as to whether or not their contacts were frog-sized. However, now was not the time to be concerned with frog eyes. A frog eye doctor would be better suited for that task.
When I started drawing, my mind would wander and lose track of time. Perhaps that was my overactive imagination, I told myself. For the last time, I defended my imaginary justification for the frog's being in it. I concentrated hard, finished the problem, and put the chalk down. There was no way that a frog existed. I shook my head decisively.
When I turned to Miss Weaver, I saw the frog staring at me directly and nodded. A second later, it vanished inside Miss Weaver's hair.
Reference : http://www.freechildrenstories.com/guardians-of-lore
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