Jennifer Murdley's Toad

by Bruce Coville

  “It won’t!” said Jennifer sincerely. Looking around nervously, she tucked the box under her arm and began to walk toward her house.

  “Where are we going?” asked the toad.

  “Home.”

  “Good. This box is uncomfortable. I trust you have a nice place ready for me.”

  “Not exactly,” said Jennifer, feeling uncomfortable herself. “After all, I didn’t know you were coming.”

  The toad sighed heavily.

  “But I’m sure we can fix something up,” added Jennifer quickly.

  “I certainly hope so,” said the toad.

  Jennifer entered the house quietly. For one thing, she wanted to get the toad settled in her room. For another, she didn’t want to face Skippy any sooner than she had to.

  She could hear her father out in the garage, twanging away at the piano he was restoring.

  The rest of the house was silent.

  She took the toad up to her room and let him out of the box. He was a handsome specimen, almost as large as the palm of her hand. His bumpy skin was not the typical dusty brown, but instead seemed to have all the colors of well-grained wood. His eyes were bright and clear, and his legs were strong. All in all, a fine figure of a toad. Jennifer said so.

  “Why, thank you,” responded the toad. “I’m glad you have an eye for bufine beauty.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “My toadlike qualities.”

  Jennifer paused. She had never particularly thought of “toadlike” and “beauty” as words that belonged together. “What kind of a cage would you like?” she asked, in an attempt to change the subject.

  “Cage?” croaked Bufo. His eyes bulged out as if he were being squeezed. “Cage? What is this—a home or a prison?”

  “I don’t understand,” said Jennifer, taken aback by his reaction. “You were in a cage at the magic shop.”

  Bufo hopped across the desk, pointed a finger (Or is it a toe? she wondered) at Jennifer, and shook it under her nose.

  “That was a temporary condition,” he said fiercely. “If we are to get along, you had better understand that I am not a pet. I am, for the moment, a guest. Possibly a friend. Certainly a responsibility, since you removed me from the shop. But I am most certainly not, never have been, and have no intention of ever becoming”—at this point he shivered, as if the words left a bad taste in his mouth—“a pet!”

  “But—,” began Jennifer.

  “Moreover,” interrupted the toad, “I did not think of my place in the shop as a cage. It was my apartment. Tiny, true, but my own. It’s all a matter of how you look at things. And we are not going to look at my home here as a cage. Nor are we going to look at me as a pet! Is that clear?”

  “Perfectly,” said Jennifer, who was beginning to wonder if having a talking toad was going to be much fun.

  “Good. Then let’s try this again. A comfortable terrarium would be just fine. A big one, please—I’ve been feeling cramped long enough. A cozy armchair would be nice, too. Do you have one that would suit me?”

  Jennifer thought of the pile of doll furniture buried in one corner of her closet. It had been there ever since the event that her family still spoke of as “Dad’s Great TV Tantrum.”

  Actually, the tantrum hadn’t been entirely Mr. Murdley’s fault. He had been driven to his act of destruction when he entered the living room one Saturday morning and saw Jennifer staring at the TV set with tears rolling down her cheeks.

  Wondering what his daughter found so moving, he turned to the screen, where he saw a commercial for an impossibly beautiful fashion doll.

  “That was when I lost it,” he explained later that afternoon. “I was just sick of that television telling Jennifer that only beautiful people matter. I love her too much for that.”

  Which was why he had bellowed with rage and thrown his coffee cup through the TV screen.

  The next morning Mr. Murdley had appeared at Jennifer’s door, holding a bumpy, brown rock that appeared to be almost perfectly round.

  “What’s that?” asked Jennifer.

  “A geode,” he said, turning the rock over so that she could see the beautiful crystals inside. They sat and talked for a long time about appearances. Later that afternoon they buried a Barbie doll in the backyard, under a tombstone that said Beauty Victim.

  It was around then that Jennifer had put away most of her doll furniture.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t as simple to put away her impossible desire to be beautiful.

  “Did you hear me?” asked Bufo, interrupting her thoughts.

  “Yes, I have a chair you can use,” said Jennifer. “And I think there’s a ten-gallon tank in the basement that I can turn into a terrarium. How does that sound?”

  “Crummy. But if it’s the best you have, I’ll live with it.”

  “Wait here. I have to see if I can use it.”

  Jennifer knew her mother wouldn’t be home from her law office for another hour or so. That was just as well, since her dad was more likely to give the go-ahead on the terrarium anyway; he was considerably less concerned about dirt and messes than her mother was.

  Her father was still in the garage, his head buried in the back of the piano. The youngest Murdley, Brandon, was squatting next to the piano, playing with a bug. When he saw Jennifer he stood and hugged her leg.

  “I’ll be four soon,” he said, as he had every time he saw her during the last week.

  “I know, Bran,” she replied, tousling his blond hair—which she would have given her right arm to have instead of her own limp, mouse-brown mess.

  She waited a moment, then rapped on the side of the piano.

  “Hello?” came a muffled voice from within.

  “It’s me, Dad. I want to know if I can have that old fish tank in the basement.”

  “What for?” Mr. Murdley asked, without removing his head from the instrument.

  “I want to make a terrarium.”

  “No problem,” said Mr. Murdley. “Brandon, hand me a small Phillips head screwdriver, would you?”

  Brandon let go of Jennifer’s leg and began pawing through the toolbox. After a moment he pulled out what his father wanted and stuck it into his outthrust hand.

  “Thanks, pal,” said Mr. Murdley.

  “That’s okay,” Brandon replied, returning his attention to the bug he had been playing with when Jennifer walked up.

  “Don’t eat him, Brandon,” said Jennifer.

  “I don’t do that anymore,” he said firmly, picking up the bug and balancing it on his fingertip.

  Hoping Brandon had really reformed, Jennifer headed for the cellar. She found the tank behind a stack of empty boxes. After lugging it upstairs, she washed it out in the bathtub, working carefully so as not to crack the glass or scratch the tub. Her shirt was soaked by the time she was done.

  “Well, where have you been?” asked Bufo, when she reentered the room. “I was beginning to think you had run off and left me.”

  “I might consider it if you can’t be a little more polite,” snapped Jennifer. “I’ve just about drowned myself trying to clean this stupid tank for you. Honestly, sometimes you remind me of Sharra.”

  Bufo looked taken aback. “Who’s Sharra?”

  “This snobbette I go to school with. She’s so stuck up she thinks she sweats perfume.”

  “I don’t sweat at all,” said Bufo smugly.

  Deciding to ignore this comment, Jennifer asked, “What do you want me to do with this tank?”

  Bufo’s wide mouth curved in a toady smile. “Make it homey.”

  Ninety minutes later, Jennifer stood in front of the tank, trying to figure out where to put the last of the plants she had dug up out back. Her wet shirt was now covered with splotches of mud. A smudge of dirt ran across her right cheek to the tip of her nose. But the terrarium was looking good. A ceramic bowl formed a pool in the back corner. Next to it sat a blue chair that had once belonged to Barbie and Ken.

  As Jennifer was reaching into the t
ank with a six-inch-wide beach umbrella, the door opened and Skippy walked in.

  “Whatcha doin’?” he asked.

  “Making a terrarium,” replied Jennifer, annoyed that he had come in without knocking. She was also nervous; she wondered how mad Skippy was about the underwear incident. He had been hard to figure out ever since he started sixth grade.

  “Where’d you get the toad?”’ he asked, walking over to her desk and grabbing Bufo around the middle.

  “Put him down!” cried Jennifer.

  “Hey, don’t get hyper,” replied Skippy, lifting Bufo into the air. The toad’s legs dangled from the bottom of Skippy’s fist and his chin peeked over the top; his face seemed to waver between fear and rage as Skippy raised him to look more closely.

  “He’s a pretty good old toad,” he said, bringing Bufo’s warty nose close to his own freckled one. “What do you want for him?”

  “Nothing!” snapped Jennifer, grabbing for Bufo. “He’s not for sale.”

  “Cool it,” said Skippy, raising Bufo over his head, where Jennifer could not reach him. “After today, you owe me. And I say this toad is mine.”

  Still holding Bufo, he headed for the door.

  “Skippy!” Jennifer cried. “Wait!”

  Her brother ignored her. But as he was about to leave the room, Bufo uttered a sound that made Jennifer think of nails scraping down a blackboard.

  Skippy stopped and looked at the toad in surprise. “I never heard a toad make a noise like that before,” he said.

  Bufo made the noise again, even louder. Skippy dropped him and stepped back. The moment Bufo hit the floor, he scrambled over to Jennifer, who scooped him up. He crouched in the shelter of her hands, glaring at Skippy.

  “That toad is weird,” said Skippy, looking at his hand, then rubbing it nervously on his jeans. “Are you sure he’s not sick?”

  “He’s not sick, he’s just special,” said Jennifer. “And I can’t give him to you because he’s for a school project.”

  “Well, you still owe me,” said Skippy. “You promised to keep your mouth shut about wearing my underpants.”

  “I only told one person!”

  “Telling one girl is like telling the world!” Jennifer was furious. She knew Skippy’s friends gossiped at least as much as hers did, but after today’s disaster she was in no position to argue the point.

  “I’m sorry,” she said sullenly.

  “That’s not good enough. Say it.”

  “No. Let me pay you back now.”

  “Give me the toad?”

  “No!”

  “Then say it!”

  “No!”

  Skippy began to reach for Bufo. “Say it, or I take the toad!”

  “All right! I owe you!”

  Skippy gave her a grin that she knew all too well. “Good. You can keep your old toad.”

  He left the room, slamming the door behind him.

  “What a disgusting creature,” said Bufo.

  “Oh, shut up,” snapped Jennifer. She was worried. To say “I owe you” was sacred in their family, a binding obligation for a favor that could be called in at any time. And Skippy was brilliant at finding the least pleasant way possible to have her cancel her debts.

  “You just better be worth it,” muttered Jennifer, depositing the toad in his tank.

  Bufo, a shocked expression on his face, turned his back and went into a corner to sulk. Jennifer was trying to decide if she should try to talk him into a better mood, when Brandon appeared at her door. “Let’s play phone,” he said, holding up the red plastic phone she had given him for his last birthday.

  “I’m sorry, Bran,” she said. “I don’t have time to play right now. I have to . . .”

  Jennifer stopped. She stared at the phone her little brother was holding. It was small and made of red plastic. It had pictures of cartoon characters on the buttons.

  And it was doing something it had never done before.

  It was ringing.

  THREE

  Vocal Exercises

  Brandon and Jennifer stared at the phone in astonishment.

  It rang again.

  “I didn’t know it could do that!” cried Brandon, his voice filled with delight.

  Jennifer was not as thrilled. Remembering the time Skippy had put a tape recorder under her bed and convinced her that her room was haunted, she said, “Brandon, did Skippy fix up that phone to fool me?”

  “Uh-uh, no, honest!” replied Brandon, his eyes wide with innocence.

  Ring!

  Jennifer was not entirely convinced. Skippy had four basic ways of dealing with Brandon. They were—

  a. ignoring him

  b. tormenting him

  c. using him shamelessly

  d. playing nicely with him

  Though “playing nicely” was clearly at the bottom of the list, Brandon adored Skippy, and desperately wanted to please him. So even though Brandon also loved Jennifer, it was not hard for Skippy to pull him into pranks directed against her.

  Ring!

  “I better answer it,” said Brandon, reaching for the receiver.

  “Wait!” cried Jennifer. She stared at the phone nervously. Surely the ringing had to be a prank set up by her obnoxious older brother. And yet the world had already shifted for her that afternoon. Given the fact that she had a talking toad, the idea of a toy phone that actually worked wasn’t as farfetched as it should have been.

  Too bad we don’t have a toy answering machine, too, she thought. Because what bothered her even more than the fact that the phone was ringing was the question, Who’s calling? Of course, it could be Mr. Elives, with some last-minute instructions for her. Maybe he was even calling to tell her to bring the toad back. All things considered, that might be a relief.

  Ring!

  The more she thought about it, the more she figured it must be Mr. Elives. Who else could make a toy phone ring?

  “Brandon,” she said, “hand me the phone.”

  He shook his head. “It’s my phone. I wanna answer it.”

  Jennifer hesitated. It might be a relief to let Brandon answer it. Yet somehow it felt like a cowardly thing to do. “Bran, I really think you ought to let me answer it.”

  He shook his head stubbornly.

  It didn’t make any difference; the phone had stopped ringing.

  “Phooey,” said Brandon.

  It took Jennifer nearly a quarter of an hour and a promise of an ice-cream cone to convince Brandon to leave the phone in her room. When Brandon decided to go see what their father was up to, Bufo scrambled over the top of the terrarium and onto the desk. “Why didn’t you answer the phone?” he demanded.

  “I was afraid. Besides, if you were so eager to have me answer it, why didn’t you say something?”

  “I try to keep the number of people I talk in front of to a minimum.”

  “Why?”

  Bufo shrugged his warty shoulders. “People find my talking hard to deal with. It tends to frighten them.”

  Jennifer nodded, remembering how startled she had been when Bufo had first spoken to her.

  “And since fear makes people hostile, I don’t talk very much.”

  Jennifer snorted.

  “At least among people I don’t know,” said Bufo, sounding defensive. “Anyway, since you didn’t answer the phone, the least you can do is read the note Elives gave you. I’m dying to know what he has to say.”

  In the flurry of events since she had first learned that Bufo could talk, Jennifer had forgotten the note altogether. Now she fished it out of her jeans pocket. The yellowed paper crinkled in her hands as she unfolded it. Across the top in fancy letters were the words, “In Regard to Toads.” At the bottom of the page was a picture of a toad. It looked smug.

  Between the title and the toad was a handwritten note. The script was thin and spidery. To Jennifer’s surprise, the note began with her name. That disturbed her, since she was certain she had never told it to the old man.

  Feel
ing a little shiver in her skin, she read on.

  Murdley,

  As I am sure you have learned by now, the toad with which you have been entrusted has the gift of speech. Whether or not he has the gift of silence is another question. I expect things will be considerably more peaceful around my shop now that he is gone. I am old, however, and prefer my solitude. Perhaps you will enjoy his perpetual chatter.

  Be that as it may, you must not chatter about him. Which is to say that I must forbid you to discuss him with others. At this point in the turning, the world is fairly hostile to magic. Indeed, you may well find that you are accused of truck with the devil should anyone learn that you have such a creature in your care.

  And make no mistake, he is in your care, since—for reasons that have not been made clear to me—I have been requested to pass him to you.

  Jennifer paused in her reading. “For reasons that have not been made clear to me.” What in heaven’s name did that mean?

  “Well, what does it say?” asked Bufo impatiently.

  Jennifer started to answer, but the next lines in the note had caught her eye.

  Here are your instructions:

  First, do not tell the toad what is in this note. He is exceedingly nosey, and a bit of mystery will do him good. Tell him I have forbidden you to repeat what is said here. He will accept that. Not happily. But he will accept it.

  Second, do not speak of his existence to anyone without my permission. The toad himself may make his presence known; there is little we can do about that. You, however, would be well advised not to follow his example.

  Third, be wise, wary, and watchful. I do not know why Bufo has been sent to you, but you may be certain that there is a reason. There may be danger involved.

  Fourth, remember that not everything is as it seems: the inside is not the same as the outside, endings often hold beginnings, and most mirrors are mere errors.