Clare and the Frog Wrangler

  
​“Miggie, it’s almost time!”

     Reminding Miggie of the frog jumping contest might result in her deciding to walk over to chat with the lady who made peacock feather earrings or taking a stroll to check out the 4H animals, even though she didn’t like cows, or even making a lengthy stop at the beer garden, even though she didn’t drink beer. But it was a chance I had to take if I wanted Fred the frog wrangler to notice me. Fred had soft brown eyes with long eyelashes and a dimple in his right cheek when he smiled. He might need an assistant for his fascinating job, so I was wearing my denim romper and strawberry lip gloss and trying to look capable.

     “I think Lipstick Lily might be one of the first jumpers,” I told Miggie. She looked at me blankly. How could she have forgotten? Fred had been one of the first people we met at the vendors’ camping area. He’d noticed the van, of course, and Miggie. Everyone noticed Miggie.

    My mother tweaked a display of beaded glass earrings into a better position on the surface of her booth. I persisted, “You know, Mr. Pyne’s frog. He thinks Lily could beat Rosie the Ribiter’s record and win five thousand dollars.”   

     Finally, she flipped her blonde hair back over her shoulders, silver bracelets jangling, and said, “Well, then by all means, lead on.” She tugged her suede halter top down and pulled her cutoff denim shorts up, creating a long stretch of tanned leg between the top of her cowboy boots and the bottom of her shorts.

     “Taking a break,” she called over to the couple who shared our booth. The man nodded and waved her on.

     Miggie’s three months on the road last summer had worked out so well, she’d decided to expand into county fairs this year. The Calaveras County Fair and Frog Jumping Jubilee in May was the first fair she’d booked, and Miggie had pulled me out of school to help her set up the booth. I was bummed at missing school and being away from my friends, now that I finally had some, but a fair sounded like fun, even if we did have to live in a van. And then I met Fred.
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     Next to the RVs of the other vendors, Miggie’s Corvair van looked minuscule (my newest word), but it always drew comment from guys who were into cars. Fred was one of them, stopping by where we’d set up our lawn chairs and asking Miggie how old the van was, where she’d gotten it, how it ran. Miggie didn’t know the answers to all of his questions, but Fred, with his broad shoulders, tanned skin and warm brown eyes, was cute enough that she’d tried to answer them. When Fred told us he was a frog jockey and had a championship frog named Lipstick Lily who was going to beat Rosie the Ribiter’s 1986 record, I fell hard. Every free minute of the four days of the fair, I dogged Fred’s footsteps, offering to help him with Lily and making sure I could watch the two of them as they moved up in the jumping trials. Today, the last day of the fair, was the frog jumping finals and I wanted to be there when Lily won.

     Miggie wouldn’t have cared if I’d taken off to watch the finals, but all my careful stalking of Fred had resulted in nothing more than a few good-natured hellos and inquiries about Miggie. Miggie and my strawberry lip gloss was the bait. Fred might notice me if Miggie was around and by the time Miggie decided that a frog wrangler wasn’t her type, Fred and I would be good friends. He would see how helpful and grownup I was. He was way older of course, but I would be twelve in a few months and starting middle school. I would be a great frog wrangler assistant. Maybe I would even get my own frog.
 

Pyne reached into his red and white LunchMate to stroke the bullfrog. Scooping up water from the bottom of the plastic box, he sluiced it down her back. This was it—he and Lily had made it to the finals, and he knew she was going to win this time. She’d come close last May, but this was her year to shine. He peeked from the wings to the Main Stage where Colfax John was leaping like a fool on the tarmac, trying to encourage his entry, Frog R Us, into making a record-breaking jump. Frog R didn’t budge. Pyne shook his head and stroked Lily gently. 

     “That frog is confused,” he told her. “All that jumping around, and screaming is not going to help that frog. That frog is not championship material—not like you, Lily.”  

     He was right. After one particularly fierce scream of “Go, Frog R, go!” from Colfax John, Frog R Us pivoted away from the source of confusion and gave a single mighty leap for freedom—off the hot, sun-struck stage and back to the dark, coolness of the stage wings. Colfax John smacked his forehead with one meaty palm and screamed out a word that started with “Sh” and was quickly strangled into “Shaving cream” for the benefit of the families in the crowd.
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     Lipstick Lily was championship material. Pyne had cultivated her for a year and a half, keeping her in the fenced pond he’d created in the gully behind his mobile home in Tulare. Lily’s gated community, Pyne called it. He supplied her with the freshest and biggest insects, and she had regular workout sessions to keep her in shape. He kept a few extra frogs in the pond for backup, and as company for Lily, but she was the biggest and the best. She was a winner, no doubt about it. 
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     “From Tulare County, California, number 16—Frog Jockey Fred Pyne and his frog, Lipstick Lily!” bellowed the sweat-soaked emcee.

     Pyne swaggered out to the tarmac, waving to the crowd. As he held Lily up for their acclaim, he caught sight of the blonde with the Corvair van edging her way past sunburned knees on the bleachers in front of the stage. Her lacy red thong peeked above low-riding denim cut-offs when she climbed up to the top seat, squeezing his heart. In a daze, he set Lily down on the tarmac with great gentleness, his mind still seeing the red thong.

     The crowd waited patiently to see what fancy technique Pyne would use to encourage his frog. After he began, they would let loose with whistles and calls of encouragement—those who believed they were helping—and with hissing sounds from those rooting for other frogs. Pyne snuck a quick glance up into the bleachers, making eye contact with the woman as she shook her long hair back and smiled at him. His view was momentarily blocked by a tiny dark-haired girl in denim romper overalls and red high-top sneakers, sliding past her mother. The kid with all the questions. 

     At a unified gasp from the onlookers, his eyes flew back to Lily. She was gone, taking champion-sized leaps down the grassy embankment behind the stage—straight toward a bright turquoise trailer with the words, “World’s Largest Live Anaconda” scrolled across it in gold lettering scrolled across it.

     “No, Lily!” Pyne shouted, casting aside all thought of red lace thongs. “Stop!” 
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     Charging down the embankment after the frog, Pyne tripped and rolled to the bottom of the slope as Lipstick Lily, in the perfect record-breaking jumps he’d known would win the championship, soared over the top of his head and landed with a thump on the dirt path directly in front of the trailer. She took one tentative hop and then another, alighting on the platform just outside the open entrance to the snake pit.

     “Not the snake, Lily, not the snake!” Pyne attempted to apprehend his freedom-seeking frog, but there was something wrong with his knee. Desperately he called, “Stop her,” hoping somebody, anybody would.

     Faces turned toward him: surprised, concerned, frowning. One of them had an enormous cloud of pink cotton candy in front of it. As if his words had finally alerted her amphibian brain to the reptilian danger, Lily leaped—this time directly into the sticky pink cloud where she stuck like a fly on a bug strip.

     An ear-piercing shriek of “Eeeeuuuu!” accompanied Lily’s flight aboard the cloud as the cotton candy’s eight-year-old owner flung her violated treat as far from herself as she could. A captive cushioned in the sticky mound of spun candy, Lily sailed through the air and landed in a puff of red dust not far from where Pyne was still attempting to stand. 

     Panting with exertion, but finally upright, Pyne seized the cotton candy stick with one hand and, his frog with the other. Lily squirmed, miring herself deeper into the candy quagmire, but Pyne tightened his hold and extricated her.
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     Holding the frog up to his face, Pyne assessed the damage. The pulse in Lily’s throat was beating like a jackhammer. Her normally smooth, moist skin was dry and sticky. Wisps of cotton candy clung haphazardly to her body. Her bulbous eyes shone reproach at him and she pushed her front feet against his encircling hand, turning her head away from his gaze, struggling to escape once more.
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     Pyne became aware of the crowd of onlookers surrounding them. Some of them were laughing. The cotton candy owner was crying and a woman, presumably her mother, fixed Pyne with a rocket launcher glare designed to fry his brain. He looked back up toward the stage. The emcee and two frog wranglers were peering down at him. Seeing him standing, albeit unsteadily, and holding Lily, they turned back to the task of determining this year’s Calaveras County Frog Jumping Champion.

     Pyne fished in his jeans pocket and came up with two dollars which he held out to the cotton candy owner. Her mother snatched it quickly and Pyne limped his way around to the Frog Spa under the Main Stage.

     Inside the dark, cool basement, long rectangular tanks formed a maze. Floating within the tanks were the rental frogs that fairgoers used in the just-for-fun contests held on the Lily Pad before the main competition event.

     Lily was still squirming, trying to get away from his grasp and keeping her head turned firmly away from him. Pyne looked around, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dim light, and spotted his friend Kevin transferring a gigantic frog from a burlap sack into a forty-gallon tank. Kevin looked up when he limped over.
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     “Hey, I thought you were still upstairs. How’d she do?”

     Pyne said, “She’s hot. Can I put her in your tank and cool her down for a minute?”
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     “Sure.”

     Pyne slipped Lily into the cool water. She dived to the bottom of the tank behind some aquatic plants. Kevin raised his eyebrows questioningly. Pyne sank down on a stool in front of the tank.
 
 
I watched in horror as Lily jumped off the stage. Fred took off after her and then vanished behind an embankment. I scurried down the bleachers, determined to catch Lily and show Fred how helpful I could be. Shoving past knees and over benches, I stepped on someone’s hand. I heard a loud scream and a few curses. Arriving on the ground wobbling and weaving, I sprinted around the Main Stage toward the Anaconda trailer, just in time to see Lily jump into some little kid’s cotton candy.
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    By the time I reached Fred, he was struggling to stand. I tried to help him, but he didn’t even see me as he finally stabilized and picked up the cotton candy stick. Pulling Lily out of the pink stickiness, he held up out his cotton-candy wearing frog in front of disbelieving eyes. Without a word to me, he limped back to the Frog Spa and disappeared inside. I followed, asking if Lily was OK and why he was limping.

     I received no answers—in fact Fred didn’t seem to have heard me at all. He asked one of the men to borrow a tank and he slid Lily into it. Then Miggie entered the dimness of the Frog Spa. Fred looked over at her. I knew that look; Miggie always got that look.

     A splash from Lily’s tank startled me. Fred, his jeans now soaked with water, was staring at his frog who was sitting on a rock, just out of the water. Her bugged-out eyes glared back at him.
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     “Lily, what’s with you, anyway?” Fred stood up and grabbed a rag to sponge off his pants, still checking out Miggie. It was the towel the other man had been using to wipe out tanks and one side of it, the side Fred was holding above his jeans, was covered with algae and frog poop. I started to offer a warning, but Fred’s attention was fixed on Miggie. I closed my mouth. 

      A swath of greenish brown goo spread across Fred’s jeans as he swiped it over his leg. At my “ick” of disgust, he looked down, saw the mess and flung the slime-covered towel to the ground before shooting another look toward Miggie who was still lazily winding her way through the maze of tanks.

     The man who had been using the towel snickered and handed Fred a paper towel. He snatched the towel and began scrubbing at his jeans. Pieces of disintegrating paper added to the mess on his pants. He looked frustrated and angry.

     Figuring it was my last chance to get his attention, I stepped up to the tank and said, “How do you know if it’s a boy frog or girl frog?”

     Fred looked around, startled, apparently noticing me for the first time. Making eye contact and licking my strawberry flavored lips, I repeated my question.

     “Uh . . . it’s the ears,” he managed, shooting me a look from the corner of his eyes. He continued to hold the shredded paper towel as he peeked toward Miggie who was doing a lot of unnecessary booty-swaying along her way toward us. Miggie as bait was much better than strawberry lip gloss and a helpful attitude, but it was not going to do me a bit of good. Miggie was too much bait.

     Spitefully I said, “Frogs don’t have ears.”

     Fred stood up straight, watching as Miggie arrived at last. Staring at her chest, he said, “They have ear holes instead. Males have much larger ear holes than females, but females are bigger, um . . . all over.”

     Another splash sounded from within the tank. Lily had dived from her rock and swum to the bottom. It looked like she was, in Grammie-speak, “throwing a humble.” That’s what Grammie called it when Barty or me got mad and wouldn’t talk to anyone.

     Miggie rested her fingertips with their pink glitter nail polish on my shoulder. “So when you see two frogs together, the little one on top is the boy?”
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     I shook off her hand and gave her a withering glare. Fred looked at her too. Miggie’s clear green eyes gazed back calmly. I could see Fred going under and sinking fast.
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     I transferred my disgusted attention from the performance in front of me back to Lily. At my gasp, Fred, his friend, and even Miggie, looked at Lily who had catapulted herself out of the water. Dangling by her armpits over the rim of the open tank as her back feet pushed and slid down the glass side of the box, she looked as if she was trying to escape.

     “Lily, what the hell--” Fred reached down and captured Lily, bringing her near his face to peer closely into her eyes.

    Thwap. Lily’s long, sticky tongue shot into Fred’s open mouth and slapped against his tongue. She retracted it a nanosecond before his lips instinctively snapped shut.

    I choked back horrified giggles at the look of sick disgust on Fred’s face. Miggie made an abrupt about-face, short-shorts swinging around as she tried to tug me away. Doubling over, trying not to laugh, I slipped out of her grasp and Miggie sailed out into the sunshine. 

     Back at the tank, Lily’s dark eyes bulged as her round body wriggled in Fred’s hand.

     Guffaws echoed throughout the basement. The man who’d handed Fred the paper towel held tightly onto a tank with both hands for support as tears of laughter rolled down his face. He released the tank and doubled over, still roaring. He stamped one foot and held his sides as he laughed.
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     I saw his red-faced struggle to get words out between shouts of laughter. “First . . . she drenched you. Hahaha. Then, ahahaha, she frenched you. Ahahahaha!” He lost it completely after that one, sliding down weakly onto the stool, still shaking with laughter.
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     I could barely stand as bubbles of laughter fought their way up from my stomach. I didn’t want to embarrass Fred any further, but the snorts and chortles from the man on the stool were too much for me. Screams of laughter erupted from my mouth every time I thought of Lily’s sticky tongue and “first she drenched you and then she frenched you.” My stomach hurt, tears poured from my eyes, but I could not stop laughing.

     Fred appeared surprised to find that he was still holding the bullfrog. Lily hung passively in his grasp, her dark eyes meeting his with an innocent look. His hand twitched as if he wanted to squash her like an overripe fig. Her back legs hung down below his encircling fingers. Her upper legs rested lightly on top pf his fingers. Her eyes gazed into his trustingly. An endless moment passed. My laughter dried up as I held my breath. 

     Fred let the shreds of paper towel flutter away and used his other hand to fold up Lily’s dangling legs beneath her, cupping her bottom securely. He loosened his fingers and used them to support his frog as he gently placed her back into the tank. He glared at the man on the stool who was still chuckling. He glared at me before stalking out of the Frog Spa. I let my breath out in a whoosh. Lipstick Lily would live another day. Maybe she’d even be the champion Fred thought she would, but it wouldn’t be with my help, with or without strawberry lip gloss.


 
After the Calaveras fair, Miggie and I took off for the Sacramento County Fair. I argued for going back to Placerville first so I could finish up sixth grade. Weary of my relentless nagging and eager to get to the fair, Miggie dropped me off with Grammie before going on to Sacramento. The next time I saw my mother, both of us had changed.