The Drought
ONCE UPON A TIME there was a poison dart frog named Mr. Lepew. He lived with his wife in a cozy leaf house in the rainforest where they were enjoying their quiet days of retirement alone together. Alone because the last of their two hundred and fifteen tadpoles had moved out last spring. However, their days were growing increasingly less enjoyable because of the breath-stealingly dry drought that had attacked the rainforest several months before.
One hot dry morning, Mr. Lepew was sitting on his front porch, rocking and reading, while Mrs. Lepew was sweeping the porch. They were very unhappy with each other because they never could agree on how clean to keep the house or what activities to do in their free time. So, Mrs. Lepew spent most of her miserable days cleaning the house exactly the way she wanted but with only limited cleaning supplies, no water, of course, and Mr. Lepew spent most of his time reading the paper, guessing at sudoku, and scornfully enjoying himself.
After a few furious strokes of her broom, Mrs. Lepew cried, “How can you juth thit there?! The humidity ith completely gone, and I am mitherable!” Mrs. Lepew spoke with a lisp now because the lack of saliva in her mouth prevented her from saying the letter S. “I have got to have thom water or my beautiful blue thkin is going to thwivel up and turn brown!” When she realized her husband wasn’t paying attention, she added, “And then I’ll die!” Mr. Lepew only grunted without looking up from his newspaper. Mrs. Lepew’s eyes bulged, and she said, “Get up right thith minute and go fetch me thom water! Go check the well, the water tree, or – or even Timeleth Hollow! I don’t care where, juth go, or I won’t bother to cook your termiteth for thupper!”
“I don’t like your fried termites anyway,” he humphed. Mrs. Lepew carelessly dropped her broom, which fell with a thump on the dirt floor, and entered their little hut made of banana leaves. A moment later, she returned with a jar of freshly collected fireflies [1] and three golden carrots, her inheritance from her father.
“If you go to Timeleth Hollow, you’ll need thith,” she said without looking at Mr. Lepew. He took the jar but said he couldn’t carry as much water as the carrots would buy. She returned to her sweeping without another word, and eventually the frustrated frog leaned over out of his chair and slowly hopped away, the morning sun glinting off the black speckles on his blue back.
Finding water during a drought was no easy task. It was better to just sit still and do nothing, which required less moisture, but Mr. Lepew’s wife insisted upon constantly cleaning and talking, and exerting energy in other frivolous ways, all of which required water.
First, the haggard husband checked the well near their house but without expectation. It was a large hole, which had been dug by the Chickney Chimps several years before [2]. Realizing they might need another source of drinking water besides the drying River Splatt, Mr. Lepew and his neighboring frogs had lined it with thick leaves to catch and retain the rain. They had even hired the local tarantula to weave a silken web screen over the top as a filter, but it never rained, and the hole/well was still empty.
“Well…no water here,” humped Mr. Lepew. Realizing that his bright blue complexion was growing dryer and more brittle by the second, he picked up his pace until he made it to the shade where he paused to catch his breath. He had stopped going to the Jungle Gym months ago and could tell a noticeable difference in his fitness level, but his marriage was declining even faster than his physique.
Why was his marriage declining anyway? The first few months after their wedding had been the happiest – all sunshine and mosquitos. Now that their multitude of tad poles had grown up and moved away, Mr. Lepew didn’t know what to do with his life. Any entertainment he could scrounge up only made the time pass more slowly, and his wife just cleaned and cleaned and now badgered him to go find water and cleaned some more. His friends were all too busy with their own water predicaments to go fly hunting anymore, so his retirement, which was supposed to be the happiest years of his life, was filled with boredom, never ending thirst, and a wife who worked constantly. He was just a grumpy old toad now, deprived of water and motivation. Life moved on though, and living still required hydration.
After the disappointing dry well, Mr. Lepew hopped toward the river Splat. Instead of a body of water, however, all he found there was a colony of ants playing checkers with the smooth river bottom stones.
Next, the discouraged frog headed toward the Water Tree. The giant tree’s armored bark hid a cool stream of liquid, which uniquely flowed out of its base through a spout attached there by the carpenter bees. Mr. Lepew halfheartedly turned the faucet, only to be showered with dust and dry leaves. “Ugh!” he croaked. “And there’s no water to wash either.” Bodily cleanliness as well as housekeeping was a virtue in Mr. Lepew’s family.
“What do we have here?” A shrewd, chilling voice asked. Mr. Lepew turned to see the fire bellied snake, Shakanda, gazing down at him with her tongue flicking in and out of her mouth. “A nice, tasty frog for my supper!” she waved her head back and forth, trying to force him to make eye contact. Mr. Lepew was too frustrated even to be afraid of Shakanda, who was his only predator in the entire rainforest.
“I don’t even care,” he cried, a dry cry, of course for he didn’t even have enough liquid to produce tears. “I’m thirsty and brittle and tired of my life. Just put me out of my misery!” He plopped down in the dirt and waited to feel the snake’s sharp fangs in his neck.
Shakanda twitched her tongue, wrinkled her nose, and said, “You are pathetic, Mr. Lepew. You could at least appreciate my new line! I’ve been waiting weeks to use it, but no one has come for a chase since the tree ran dry,” she whined. “Speaking of which, I haven’t had a proper drink in weeks, and I can’t eat anything either because all the animals beg for their lives so pitifully that I just don’t have the heart to kill them!” Mr. Lepew sat indifferently, listening. Her red, yellow, and black pattern appeared dull, and she seemed thinner since his last flight from her. [3]
“Nothing tastes good either,” she went on. “You look like a sack of dirt, yourself. It makes my stomach turn.” The frog didn’t know whether to be relieved or offended.
“Maybe you should become a vegetarian,” he smiled humorlessly.
“You’re testing your luck, Mr. Smarty Pants. You may be dry, but I haven’t eaten frog legs in quite a while.” Shakanda glared at him for a moment.
After an awkward silence, Mr. Lepew sighed. “I guess I’ll go to Timeless Hollow then.” “You mean that slow place with the sloths?” asked Shakanda. “I can’t stand that place! The furry gate keeper always insults my scales, so I quit going there weeks ago. Mr. Lepew shrugged and hopped slowly away, wondering how he had survived the encounter without fighting or fleeing. This drought is going to destroy all of us, he thought, shuddering.
Proceeding through the forest only provided more depressing thoughts – brittle brown leaves, dusty dirt, and worst of all, murky brown animals who had changed to match the scenery. Any social hierarchy that had existed before was now dead in this uncharacteristic desert, and it was about to bury them within itself.
Suddenly, the air changed, and time slowed. Brown leaves shifted to green vegetation, and the scents of fresh fruit floated on the light, refreshing breeze. Timeless Hollow, the land of the sloths must be close. Then his move m e n t s s l o w e d t o a c r a w l . A healthy sloth with long golden hair lethargically hung upside down from a tree branch. He held a small notepad and pencil in one claw. [4]
“C a n I h e l p y o u ?” he asked in a high smooth voice.
“I n e e d w a t e r , a s m u c h a s t h e s e a r e w o r t h ,” Mr. Lepew held up his jar of currency. After painstakingly counting the number of fireflies, the gate keeper wrote something in his notepad and replied, “Y o u m a y h a v e a s m u c h a s y o u c a n c a r r y , l i t t l e f r o g . J u s t g o t o t h e t h r o n e r o o m w h e n e v e r y o u a r e r e a d y .” This short exchange took nearly ten minutes, and Mr. Lepew decided to stop by the river on his way to the leafy palace.
After an hour or so of sluggish hopping, Mr. Lepew finally made it to the river at the center of Timeless Hollow. Glorious, sparkling water gushed down the twin falls and swept along rocky banks, while a rainbow splashed on the surface.
Mr. Lepew looked at everything within range of his eyesight since it took so long to turn his head. The previously glaring sun now smiled through the bright leaves, casting sparkling diamonds upon the river’s face, and the tree trunks shone with dew and sported healthy bark. Large fish populated the river, swimming about careless of any potential predator besides the folivore sloths. Unable to withhold himself, Mr. Lepew stepped one webbed toe into the river, then another, and then he submerged his entire dry, cracking body down into the cool, refreshing water. It was glorious. He could feel each pore open wide in anticipation as the rich liquid seeped inside. He could even feel his heart cooling off again. Because his blood had grown so warm, he had almost forgotten that he was a cold-blooded creature. Oh, it was so worth the time! thought the melting frog. But in addition to relief, he felt a wash of guilt, realizing how thirsty his wife must be this very moment while he basked in delightful wetness. After dragging his soaked self out of the bath, Mr. Lepew hopped with new determination toward the throne room.
The sloth king sat in a shelter made of his favorite flavor of leaves. It was thick enough to keep out the rain, which mercifully still fell here, but sparse enough in places to host the sun’s rays. He lounged upon a stone throne and looked at Mr. Lepew with a lazy countenance. Without speaking, the large sloth lifted one hand in the direction of his servant, while munching on nuts out of the other hand. The servant chose a hollow nutshell from the pile strewn across the room and held it under an opening in the rock to the left of the throne, from which flowed a narrow stream of water. He paused once to refill the king’s golden goblet before filling the shell completely. Mr. Lepew then covered the shell with a thick leaf, sealed it with some mucus from his newly hydrated skin, and loaded it onto his back for the trip home.
By the time he exited Timeless Hollow, the sky had darkened considerably, and even once he was free of the lethargic trance, he moved carefully to preserve every drop of his treasure. The stars twinkled brightly in a dry sky by the time he reached his little house in the brush. It was lit from within by more jars of fireflies [5], but Mrs. Lepew was nowhere to be found. The house was quite clean though, and a supper of grilled termites and wilted salad sat uneaten on the table.
“I’m home!” Mr. Lepew called less gruffly now that he felt renewed by his swim. There was no reply. Finally, he returned outside to his bundle, wondering what could have happened to his parched wife! Had Shakanda attacked her in his absence?! Or had she shriveled up and died like she told him she would this morning?
A sound like sandpaper rubbing against dirt emitted from his right. Confused, the blue frog moved cautiously forward.
“It’s me,” croaked something in the dirt.
“Oh, my dear!” Mr. Lepew was slightly ashamed at how smooth his own voice was, and he immediately scooped up some water in his webbed hand and let it trickle across his wife’s thin, dehydrated skin. It dried almost immediately as the water soaked deep inside. So, Mr. Lepew mixed some of the precious liquid with the cooling dirt and made a paste, which he then laid across every inch of his wife’s body. Mrs. Lepew was very grateful for the relief, but she refused to go inside her clean house covered in mud, so Mr. Lepew brought their supper outside, and they ate under the stars before drifting off to sleep to dream watery dreams together.
The next morning, the female half of the couple said to her husband, “I feel much better this morning, but I think you ought to go back to Timeless Hollow and bring me back some more water. And anyway, why didn’t you come home right away, rather than making me work myself sick yesterday?”
After a thorough explanation of the previous day’s events, Mr. Lepew apologized. “I’m sorry I’ve been so grumpy throughout this drought, and for the last several years too. I haven’t been the husband you needed, and I almost let you die! Please forgive me. I’ll never put my happiness or hydration before yours again!”
“I’m sorry too,” replied Mrs. Lepew. Her voice sounded much better this morning. “I’ve been so concerned about a clean house, I forgot to appreciate the frog right in front of me! Please forgive me!”
After forgiveness was given on both parts, the couple decided to take a vacation. They packed enough food for a week, and together they hopped to Timeless Hollow for the honeymoon [6] they had always wanted. They caught as many fireflies as possible and even gave up their gold carrots to the sloth king in exchange for a blissful week in his kingdom. For days, the happy couple swam in the river, basked in the sunshine, and feasted on fresh juicy pineapples, mangoes, oranges, and most of all, passion fruit. At the end of the week, they returned home only to decide to permanently move to Timeless Hollow, but it turned out that they didn’t have to because that night it rained.
THE END
[1] The sloths who ruled Timeless Hollow sold their bountiful resources in exchange for anything light-producing, shiny, or sweet. Since food was scarce outside of the hollow, most customers only had access to bright or shiny items.
[2] Several years earlier, the Chickney Chimps set out on a rampage to find gold in the rainforest. They were completely unsuccessful, and they didn’t bother to fill in the holes they dug in the process. The Chimps were unaware that the gold in that area had already been found and horded by either the sloths or the greedy gorillas. (Mr. Lepew, however, had managed to save his wife’s inheritance of gold carrots, which her father had bartered from a foreign rabbit).
[3] Mr. Lepew typically encountered Shakanda once a week when he took the risk to check the Water Tree. Sometimes, his fellow frogs would join him, and they would take turns being chased by the snake, so they could all get what they needed. Now it was every frog for himself.
[4] The sloths initially took over Timeless Hollow because no other animal could stand the extremely slow-moving time there. Sequentially, the drought could not affect the Hollow as early as it did the rest of the rainforest. And because the other rainforest dwellers ridiculed them for establishing a kingdom there, which none of them respected, the sloths took advantage of their resources after the drought, posting gatekeepers and charging revenue for the smallest amount of water. Now, the respect they gained was out of fear of death by dehydration.
[5] Poison dart frogs can catch fireflies quite easily, but because of their inability to digest them, they use them instead to light their homes.
[6] Honeymoons are a favorite dessert in the rainforest. Their primary ingredients are honey, cream of sconk, and juicy poshmelons.
Bethany Nichols is a senior English student at Louisiana Christian University, and she has recently published one of her works in LCU’s undergraduate journal, lowercase. Bethany looks forward to writing and illustrating more children’s books in the future.