Grendle Green by Brian Doswell (best classic novels .TXT) 📕

big black rock where they all lived. Then he remembered that he was on his first adventure. He remembered being trapped in a waste paper basket, and he remembered the boy with the bicycle. He thought about going home to see his one hundred brothers and sisters and then he thought that no one would miss him and he would rather carry on with his adventure. Above all, he wondered what else he might find to do today.

He had slept very well and now it was time to get up. He stretched his legs out one at a time. He liked to stretch when he woke up because it made him feel strong and ready to hop about. He hopped down to the edge of the pond to try to catch his breakfast. He fancied a shiny bright dragonfly because they look very good and taste even better, if you are a frog. Although Grendle was green all over, he had very big black eyes. If you saw him in the grass you might just see a big green ball with two big black spots on the top of his head. Grendle chose to hide under a twig that had just enough leaves to disguise him and just enough leaves to allow him to see if there were any dragonflies about. He did not have to wait long before a pond-skater bug came by skating on the surface of the water. Pond-skaters are so small and light that they can walk on the water without falling in. When Grendle stayed very still, it was almost impossible to see him in between the blades of grass. He waited until the pond-skater came close enough and then, out popped his sticky tongue and in popped the bug. Grendle quite liked pond-skaters for breakfast, but they were so small that he needed at least two or three to make a proper meal. He waited a little longer and, sure enough, along came another one. Grendle sat very still until the bug was in range of his tongue, and then pop, it was gone.

Grendle said, “Now I am ready to carry on around the pond.”

He set off in the same direction as he had been going on Monday. He kept the pond on his right and the path on his left, and tried to remember how to hop in a straight line. He was still going round in circles, but not as much as he was on Monday morning. Sometimes he got a bit close to the water and sometimes he got a bit too close to the path. He did not mind being near the water because he quite liked to swim, but he was not too sure about the path because there were all sorts of strange things on the path. He remembered the boy on the bicycle and wished that he could ride a bicycle. He thought that he could manage the pedals because he had very strong legs, but he did not see how he could manage to steer because frogs have very short arms.
Suddenly he heard a loud crunching sound on the gravel path. It was a new sound that he had not heard before. He sat still in the grass and opened his big black eyes as wide as he could. The noise was definitely coming closer and he was a little bit scared, but he knew that if he sat still no one would find him. He waited for a few seconds and then a big dark shadow whizzed past him so fast that he almost fell over with surprise. He had absolutely no idea what the shadow was, but he wished that he could go as fast as that. He was still trying to decide what it was when he heard the noise again coming back from the other direction. He shrunk back down in the grass and waited. The noise got louder and louder and then, whiz, the big shadow went past again. This time he managed to see that the shadow was actually a girl on a skateboard.

Grendle decided that he would like to ride on a skateboard, but how could he manage to do it?

The girl went up and down on the path several times and each time that she went by, Grendle became more determined that he would learn how to go as fast as that.

The girl went past one more time but this time she stopped, just a few meters away, and hopped off the board. Grendle thought to himself, “I can hop like that. I think that I will try to hop onto the board just to see what it is like.”

When he was sure that there were no people on the path, Grendle hopped as quickly as he could, from his hiding place in the grass, to where the girl had left her skateboard. When he got close enough he realised that the board was on big wheels and it took one of Grendle’s biggest ever hops to get onto the skateboard.

‘Plop’, he landed right in the middle, but the skateboard did not move.

Grendle wondered why the skateboard was not moving. He did not know that you have to push off with one foot before it starts to go, and anyway, his legs were not long enough to reach the path. He knew which was the front of the board and so he hopped up to the front and looked over the edge. It seemed a long way down to the path for a little frog. He decided that if he could not make it work then he should get off the board and carry on hopping around the pond.

If he had looked over his shoulder he would have seen the girl come back to her skateboard and kick off for another ride along the path, but he didn’t.

If the girl had not been in such a hurry, she might have seen the little green frog sitting on the edge of her skateboard, but she didn’t.

Suddenly the board took off racing along the path, as fast as any skateboard can go.

Grendle hooked his toes around the edge of the board and hung on as the wind rushed past his eyes. He was absolutely sure that no frog had ever travelled so fast before. This was wonderful, he was the world’s fastest frog. What an adventure this was going to be.

Grass and twigs flashed by as he hurtled along. The noise of the wheels on the gravel path drummed in his ears and he loved every minute of it. He decided that he would stay on the skateboard all day and see just how far it would take him, but no sooner than he decided to stay, the girl stopped the board and whirled it around in the opposite direction. Grendle was not prepared for the sideways movement of the board and forgot to hold on tightly. When the board was halfway turned round, the girl kicked on the gravel and the board shot away again, but this time Grendle was thrown off the board into the long grass on the side of the path.

Grendle spread his arms and legs out as he flew through the air. He knew that he would land without hurting himself because he was a frog and this was just like the biggest hop he hade ever done.

“Phew,” said Grendle, “I can’t wait to tell my one hundred brothers and sisters how to ride a skateboard.”

The ride had made Grendle tired and he decided that it was time for a snooze. His first priority was to find out where he was. He had come a long way on the skateboard, but he had stayed on the path so he should still be somewhere near the pond. He looked around and found a large stone just nearby in the grass. He hopped over to the stone and hopped up to the top where he could see all around. He soon found the pond. He hopped down from the stone and made his way to the water’s edge where it was cool and he could find something to eat. Grendle decided that skateboarding made you especially hungry and he would have to catch at least five flies before he went to sleep.

Tomorrow he would wait for the girl with the skateboard and perhaps she would take him for a ride again.


Wednesday

On Wednesday, Grendle learns how to play baseball and saves a boy from falling into the pond.

On Wednesday morning Grendle woke up with a bruise on his nose. He had been sleeping under a large oak leaf at the very edge of the pond and so he leaned over to look at his reflection in the water. His big black eyes focused on his reflection and he was sure that he could see a lump on the tip of his nose.

“Oh dear,” he said, “I wonder how I managed to do that?”

Then he remembered his ride on the skateboard and how he managed to get off. He thought that he must be the fastest frog in the world. Certainly none of his one hundred brothers and sisters had ever ridden on a skateboard and none had ever travelled as fast as that. Grendle puffed out his chest with pride, this was turning out to be the best adventure ever.

Grendle had five flies for breakfast. That was three flies more than usual, because he knew that he was going to be carrying on with his adventure, and he did not know if he would have time for lunch. He soon forgot about the bump on his nose as he hopped along in the green grass between the path and the pond. The sun shone down on him and he wondered if all the grass in the world looked the same and how would he know where he was going. He decided to find a place where he could climb up and look over the long grass so that he could see what else there was to do in the park.

He soon found an old broken stick that was stuck in the mud. The stick was not really very big but as Grendle was very small, it seemed big to him. He decided to climb up to the top of the stick and look all round in a circle to see what was going on in the park.

From the top of the stick, he could see across the pond. There were lots of dragonflies hovering above the water. Grendle liked to eat dragonflies, but they were a long way from the water’s edge and he knew that he could not catch them now. Grendle turned round to look at the wide open space of grass on the other side of the path. There was a man on a big tractor cutting the grass, with showers of green clippings shooting out behind him. Grendle liked the man on the mower because when he cut the grass around the