Trouble at the Froggy Pond
On a windy spring day, when the lake was too rough and cold to swim in, we decided to go to the Froggy Pond.
I say we, because I was one of a we: my sister Janie, just older; and my cousins, both younger and older. We never did anything alone at the cottage — we ran in a pack. Grandpa called us ‘the sprats’ or ‘the doobies’, depending on our age. I’d only recently become a sprat.
In the spring, the muddy edge of the Froggy Pond would be black with tadpoles. Our plan was to scoop them up into our hands, and pour them into jars. Once we caught enough, we would bring them back to the cottage in hopes of nurturing the wriggling black polliwogs into tiny green frogs. That is, if we didn't forget about them and find them days later floating bellies up, grey corpses in pails of stinky water.
To get to the Froggy Pond we crossed the lakeshore road and traipsed down a scruffy street, mysteriously named, Melody Lane. Then looking both ways, we ran across the two-lane road that separated the golf course from the old hotel property. The pond was to the east, and out past the third hole of the golf course. To reach it we trudged our way down to the end of an unpaved street with newish bungalows, their yards devoid of trees.
Beyond the gravel road was a footpath leading into the bush. As we approached, a little gaggle of kids with old mayonnaise jars, we heard firecrackers up ahead, and halted in our tracks to listen.
After a few moments, when there were no more blasts, Janie urged us, “Come on.” And she proceeded onto the path and toward the bush.
I was scared, but crept along, across the field like a caterpillar, following Janie and the others toward the Froggy Pond.
At the edge of the bush, all seemed well, and I fell into my usual custom of collecting a few strands of elephant-leg plants, while Janie and an older cousin practiced blowing reed whistles with fronds of meadow grass.
The bush was shady and cooler than the road and the open field. All around the Froggy Pond, saplings and shrubs grew wild and thick and as we drew nearer, I caught sight of the green pool, mirroring glances of sunshine like sparklers on its surface.
Suddenly, a volley of wild west pistol shots exploded, more firecrackers. The cherry-bomb kind we weren’t allowed to have. Then boys’ voices, hooting and cackling.
We froze. And turned back toward home. Even Janie dared not advance any deeper.
Spring turned into summer.
We swam night and day in the lake.
The summer turned into the school year and time churned past.
By the following spring, we sprats had grown legs, and began venturing further and further away from our cottage property. Not to the golf course or to the Froggy Pond to the south, but east, toward town.
A gang of boys, perched on their banana seats of their bicycles, hung around outside the Blue Dolphin fish & chips store smoking cigarettes. They eyed us, and we eyed them, but no one talked, until someone did.
They asked if we smoked and then shrugged with indifference when we didn’t.
Amid awkward comments and embarrassed rejoinders a realization of who these boys were began to occur to me. They had firecrackers in their pockets, and matches. There was boasting about blowing up frogs. These were the boys from last summer. These were the ones we were afraid of. We never told them we called it the Froggy Pond.
On the way home, Janie and I wrote our initials with sticks in the wet cement outside Horvath's Television and Antenna. We didn’t dream we’d get in trouble, but we did. Somehow, someone knew it was us.
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