Jack was kneeling next to the little brick wall in the garden, looking at something on the ground. “What’re doing?” Poppy said. Jack said, “Shhhh!” and kept looking.
Poppy came up behind him and she looked to. “It’s a snail,” Jack whispered and he pointed. “Oh,” Poppy said. “It’s moving!” And sure enough, the snail was heaving and weaving and tugging and mugging along the bottom of the wall. ‘“It’s very slow,” she said. But Jack said it was doing the best it could and anyway, it was leaving a beautiful silver trail as it slithered and rolled along. A slimy snail sign.
Poppy told him, “Jack, this is boring. Let’s go and see some stuff on the hill. Things move and crash around up there. Not slow like your little friend with those two funny feeler things on his head.” Jack said it was a lady snail, not a ‘him’, but he was getting a bit bored too. “Let’s ask mum about the hill,” he said. And they went inside.
Actually mum had been watching them. She was in the kitchen making herself a coffee and looking out the window. “What has Jack found in the garden?” she was thinking.
So when the kids came in and told her about their snail and asked her about the hill she said, “Certainly. There’s plenty of interesting things up on that hill of yours,” mum said. “Take an apple with you. And don’t be too late back.” “Mum,” Polly said, with a grin, “we’ll be back before Jack’s snail has reached the end of the little wall!” Mum smiled and she poured her coffee.
Jack and Poppy went skipping out the gate, along the footpath and onto the hill. The wind was blowing but it was sunny and warm. “A good day to fly a kite,” Jack told Poppy. “Or a good day to find a sunny spot and curl up with a book,” Poppy thought.
And on and up they went. The wind was making a rustling, bustling sound in the long grass, the sun was warming their arms, and high up little puffy clouds were twisting and sliding across the blue blue sky. Jack and Poppy were so busy taking all this in that they forgot to check where they were going. And they walked off the track! They missed that place where the path went to the left. Instead, Jack and Poppy went to the right.
This was a part of the hill they’d hadn’t been to before. It was unfamiliar. The trees and rocky places looked strange. Poppy stopped. Jack said, “Do you think we’re lost?” “No!” Poppy said, but she was just trying to cheer Jack and herself up. Because actually she didn’t know where she was.
They stopped. “We need to go back,” Jack announced. “Yes, but where is ‘back’?” Poppy wanted to know. Then she said, “Jack you’re right. We’re lost.” “I agree,” Jack told her,” but only a little bit lost.”
Then he looked at Poppy and smiled, “We might have to build a small house and stay up here for the rest of our lives, Poppy.” Poppy was smiling now, too. “Yes. No more school. We’d spend all our time making a garden and cooking our own food.”
“No, no,” Jack told her. “Mum and dad would come searching. They’d look and look and they’d stumbled across our wee house and rescued us from here!” And he swept his arm around in a big circle … then suddenly he stopped. With his arm stretched out like a statue. He was staring at a small rocky wall in the bush nearby.
A little bush was half covering the rock but Jack had seen something. He said, “What’s that?” Poppy was staring too now. “Jack, it’s a cave,” she said. “A tiny cave.”
Jack moved carefully and slowly forwards. There was a dark hole in the rocky wall. It certainly looked like a cave. “This is exciting, Poppy,” he whispered. “We’re explorers!” Poppy wasn’t sure about this but they pushed past the low bushes and sure enough, it was a cave. A small tunnel cave that went straight into the hillside.
“Wow!” Jack said quietly. “Poppy this is a real cave.” Poppy could see that, but she was getting nervous. She put her hand in front of him and said, “Don’t go inside, Jack.” They stood and looked into the dark hole. It was big enough for them to go inside if they bent down low, but it was gloomy and Jack said he wouldn’t want to go inside without a torch.
Then Poppy grabbed onto Jack’s elbow. “What’s that!” Her eyes went big and wide and her mouth dropped open. She was staring into the dark. Jack said, “What’s what?” But now he was getting nervous too. Poppy said, “Listen!” And they both stood stock still. Not moving a muscle. Holding their breath.
“There! Did you hear it?” Poppy said in a raspy whisper. Jack nodded. There was something inside the gloomy dark and it was breathing. Slow, heavy breathing. Poppy and Jack started to move backwards very slowly and quietly. Maybe the thing inside heard them, because its breathing suddenly changed. It coughed. Poppy jumped. Jack put his hand on her arm.
Then, there was a slithering withering sort of sound. Like something dragging along the floor of the cave. Jack and Poppy couldn’t move. They were rooted to the spot like two little trees. They felt the hair on the back of their necks standing up. Something was coming out of the darkness.
Then they saw it. A frog! A great big, enormous, green, fat, heaving, wrinkled frog with a massive mouth right across his face and two enormous flabby red lips. It heaved itself to a stop and stared at them. And coughed. Again.
“It’s only a frog!” Jack was jumping around and clapping his hands. “Poppy I got such a fright!” And Poppy started to smile a little but she kept her eyes glued to the frog. It was so big. She said, “Jack, I thought a monster was coming!” Then she laughed and Poppy did a little I’m-not-scared-now skipping dance.
Then Jack stopped. He took hold of Poppy’s elbow. ”What are we going to do now?” Poppy said she thought they should let other people know. “We should tell them it’s only a frog in the cave,” she said. “Then they won’t be scared.”
Well, Jack wanted to know how they were going to warn people. “We can’t be here forever and forever warning people,” he said. “Day after day. Standing at the cave. And when someone comes and finds it, we tell them it’s only a frog. Anyway, where would we get our breakfast each morning if we’re all the time up here?”
Poppy said Jack was right and they both had a think.
While they were thinking, the big frog was also thinking. It made a decision. The frog made a ponderous shuffle. He slowly heaved and humped and dragged and turned his big nobly, bloated, floated body around on his fat green legs and began to slowly pull himself back into his dark secret cave. He left the bright sunshine behind and slithered and scraped his way back into the gloom.
As he went he made that same dragging and gagging sound, until he was completely out of sight, somewhere deep in the dark cave. The dragging scraping sound got smaller and smaller and more and more distant. Then Jack and Poppy heard him give a small ‘burp’ sound and then there was quiet.
“He’s probably sitting on his nest now,” Jack said. “Down deep in the dark.” Poppy nodded, but she wasn’t really listening to him. She was thinking. Then she turned to Jack. “We can make a sign!”
“What sign?” Jack wanted to know. “do you mean a sign, a note, that says, ‘The frog is on his nest. Please do not disturb?’“
“No!” Poppy chucked. “A real sign, Jack. We can make it read, ‘This way to the frog in the cave. He will not hurt you if you are kind’. Something like that”.
And Jack said that was a good idea, but where were they going to get the stuff to make the sign. “Well, I’ve got my drawing pad in my pocket,” Poppy said. “We could write on that.” “Yes!” Jack said. “We could tear a page out of your drawing pad and stick it on a tree.”
So they did. Poppy knew how to make the words on the paper and Jack found a suitable branch on a little tree. They put the sign up and stepped back to look at it. “Looks good,” Poppy said, smiling. “Luculent, [lu-cu-lent] I think.” Jack thought so too.
Then he stopped. He had a thought. “Poppy, we’ve got this part sorted, but we’ve still got the other thing to fix.” She said, “You mean, we’ve got to find our way home?” Jack nodded. Poppy said that since they’d been able to find the cave and the frog they’d be able to find the way back to the path. So they both set off.
They pushed through the ferns and stumbled around trees. They walked through muddy puddles and ducked under wriggly vines. And just as Jack was beginning to think they really would have to build a house and live on the hill forever and ever … they saw their path! “There it is!” Poppy shouted. “Hooray!” Jack said. “We’re going to get home after all!”
They jumped onto the little path and soon they were running fast down the hill. They dodged around big rocks and sped through long grass. The little bushes on each side of the pathway flicked and flacked at them in a tickly sort of way as they ran down. It was so good! And soon they were racing at the bottom of the hill and scooting along the footpath and banging the garden gate behind them and stamping and panting into the kitchen.
“Mum!” Jack yelled. “We found another creeping and crawling thing.” Poppy tumbled in and said, “It was so big and creepy, mum. I thought it was a monster!” “But it was only a frog,” said Jack. “And the darkness made us think it was a monster.” Mum threw up her hands and laughed and laughed. “Kids. Kids. You’re talking all at once and all jumbled up.”
So Jack and Poppy slowed down and they explained without any jumbling or mumbling and finally mum said, “Well. Fancy that. A frog. I’ve never heard about a frog cave up there. Very unusual. A good idea to leave your sign. Now people will know.”
She reached up and opened the high cupboard. “You know, you could say that’s what God did when something unusual happened to Mary; when Jesus was going to be born.” Poppy looked a little bit puzzled. She knew about Jesus being born because Dad and Mum usually read Bible stories to them at bedtime. But she couldn’t remember anything about a sign on a tree. Mum smiled and said, “God sent a message to Joseph. A bit like a ‘sign’ or a ‘note’ to him. In a dream. In it God said to him, ‘Everything’s OK.’”
And while Jack and Poppy were thinking about that, mum took down the hot chocolate and two mugs and put the jug on. Then Jack and Poppy looked at each other and grinned.