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

think that I had better do some exercise.”

Hopping and swimming was the best exercise for a frog and Grendle was very good at both. At first he hopped for ten minutes and then he jumped into the pond and swam for ten minutes and then he did it again. Swimming was especially good fun but it was quite tiring and now he needed to rest. Grendle hopped out of the pond onto the grass and found a nice warm patch at the bottom of a tall fir tree where he would be safe while he dried off and slept in the sun.

He had only been sleeping for a little while when he was woken up by a strange noise, a noise that he had never heard before. He thought that the noise sounded like two sticks rubbing together.

“Scrape, scrape, scrape,” went the noise, and then it went again. This time another noise joined the first one from the other side of the tree. Grendle thought at first, that both noises sounded the same, but then he listened more closely. After a while he realised that the two noises were having a conversation and so they must be two separate things talking to each other, but what could they be?

Grendle opened one big black eye and looked around. He was careful not to move to suddenly unless he frightened the thing away. At first he could not see where the noise came from, and so he looked again with both big black eyes. This time he looked upwards into the branches of the fir tree, and there it was. A long beetle sat on a twig rubbing its back legs together very quickly. Grendle did not know that these beetles were crickets. Not the sort that play games of cricket, but the sort of cricket that lives in trees, especially pine trees. Every time the cricket rubbed its legs together it made the scraping noise.

Sometimes it made a long noise, “scraaaaaape”, and sometimes it made lots of quick noises, ”scrape, scrape, . . . . scrape scrape, . . . . scrape, scrape.”

Grendle sat quietly in his nice warm spot in the long grass and listened to the noise. Soon he could tell the difference between the two crickets, but he still did not understand what they were saying. The noise carried on for several minutes and Grendle was sure that the two crickets were talking to each other. The problem was that they did not seem to have very much to say because they kept on repeating the same thing. He thought that they must be singing the same verse of a song and he tried to imaging how their voices would sound if there were some music playing.

Grendle liked singing. He especially liked singing with his one hundred brothers and sisters. When they all sang together they made a really loud noise which was a lot of fun. Grendle listened closely to the sound of the crickets in the tall pine tree and decided that he could join in with them. He tried a few croaky, froggy noises and then he tried a few more and soon he was ready to join in.

“Scrape, scrape, croak, . . . .Scrape, scrape, croak,” became the song.

On one verse Grendle decide to add an extra bit into his voice; “Scrape, croak, scrape croak, croak, croak, scrape.”

It was quite quiet in the park except for the sound of the crickets and when Grendle joined in the song everyone nearby turned round to see who the wonderful singer could be.

Some people who were sitting on a nearby bench stated to laugh at the noises and Grendle thought that it must be because they were enjoying themselves. The more they laughed, the louder he sang.

Grendle thought that this was the best fun that he had had all day.

The people sitting on the bench had a little dog with them. This little dog was a Pekinese dog with lots of tuftty hair that fell over her face and flopped in front of her eyes. She had little pink bows of ribbon tied in the hair above her ears which stuck up in the air when she heard Grendle join in with the singing crickets. The little dog turned her face up to the lady who held on to her lead and smiled but she did not get any response. The lady seemed to be laughing at the noise and not paying any attention to the little dog, so the little dog shuffled around under the bench to see where the singing was coming from.

The little dog could not see Grendle hiding in the long green grass under the tall pine tree, nor could she see the crickets hiding in the thin pine needles high up in branches of the tall pine tree, but she could certainly hear their song. She inched forward to stick her nose out from under the bench and started to clear her throat.

The little dog said, ”If they can sing on a lovely sunny day in the park, then so can I.”

And so she did.

“Scrape, scrape, croak, woof, woof, woof . . . .Scrape, scrape, croak woof, woof, woof,” soon became the brand new song.

The people laughed even more as the quartet sang their song in the warm afternoon sunshine. Then for no reason at all the crickets decided to stop singing. Grendle paused for a moment and decided that he would carry on, but it was not the same without the rhythm of the crickets and so he stopped singing too. The little dog wanted them to start again and so she goy up from underneath the bench and ran round in circles until she got totally tangled up in her lead and fell over in a heap beside the lady on the bench.

It seemed that concert was over for today. The lady got up and the little dog followed her out of the park. The crickets went to sleep in the top of the tall pine tree and Grendle thought that it was time for him to have a little snooze as well.

“Having adventures is a very tiring business.” said Grendle, as he nodded off into the soundest sleep ever.


Friday

On Friday, Grendle escapes injury in an almost fatal collision between two strollers. He makes friends with an enormous fluffy cat who almost mistakes him for a tasty morsel, and finally, he arrives back at the big black rock, with such a wonderful story to tell.

Friday morning was an especially warm day in the park. The sun came out very early and the long green grass around Grendle was covered in a fine coating of dew, which meant that Grendle could have his morning drink without having to get out of bed. He just sat where he was and flicked his long sticky tongue around until he had drunk enough, and then he hopped down to the edge of the pond and plopped into the water for his morning swim.

When he had swum around for five minutes, Grendle hopped out of the water, sat under the shade of a big old leaf and thought about his adventure since leaving his home under the big black rock.

On Monday, he had learned how to hop in a straight line, and met the boy with the bicycle. He wished that he could ride a bicycle.

On Tuesday, he had a ride on a skateboard and decided that his little froggy legs were much better suited to skateboards than bicycles.

On Wednesday, he very nearly had a proper game of baseball with the boys in the middle of the park. He was sure that one day he will become a very good batter and the boy did say that Grendle had saved his life so perhaps he would let Grendle play the very next time that they came to the park.

On Thursday, Grendle had practiced singing with two crickets and a small dog. Grendle liked the crickets because they sat still up in the tall pine tree, but he was not too sure of the little tuffty dog who might just get too excited one day and eat him by mistake.

“Today is Friday,” thought Grendle, “I wonder what will happen to me today?”

Grendle started the day with a really long hop, that is to say he hopped for a really long time. As soon as had had finished his breakfast Grendle hopped until his strong back legs were getting tired and then he sat down on the grass for a rest.

The sun was nice and warm on his back and Grendle thought that he might just have a little snooze. Grendle normally slept at night when it was dark when there was no one moving about and he was safe in his bed until morning. When he had a snooze during the day he preferred to hide under a leaf just in case anyone tripped over him when they were not looking where they were going. Unfortunately for Grendle, there were no big leaves on his side of the path and so he decided to go a little bit further on to where he could cross the path and explore the big area of grass in the middle of the park.

Grendle did not like hopping on the gravel path because the small stones were very hard and Grendle’s feet were very soft. He chose a place where the path was not very wide and stated to hop.

By now Grendle was getting very tired, he had hopped for a very long time and now he was hopping on the small, gravel stones which were not very comfortable for him. He should be looking where he was going, but he was not. He should have waited until the path was clear, but he did not. He just hopped out into the middle of the path without looking left or right. It was lucky for Grendle that there was no boy on a bicycle, nor was there a girl on a skateboard going so fast that she might have run him over. He was also lucky that there was no baseball going on and no hard, round ball about to land on his head.

But, there was a lady pushing a stroller along the path, and, to make matters worse, there was another lady pushing an other stroller along the path in the opposite direction. Grendle hopped along without looking up until one of the ladies saw him on the path and swerved her stroller so that she missed him. At the very same moment, the other lady saw him and swerved her stroller the other way.

Grendle hopped two more of his biggest ever hops on to the grass in the middle of the park and then he heard the “bang”.

Now that he was safely hidden in the grass again Grendle turned round to see what had caused the noise. There were two ladies on the path with their strollers bumped into each other. The two babies were laughing and one said,