Frognapped
Authors: Angie Sage
Frognapped
As told to
Illustrated by
For Katy, Lizzy,
and Laura, with love
“A
raminta, where have you put my frogs?”
What kind of question is that? But last week that is exactly what Barry Wizzard asked me.
I did not answer.
I did not answer because when someone in Spookie House has lost something they always say, “Araminta, where have you put myâ¦?” You can fill in the blank with anything you like
and chances are, someone will have thought that I put it somewhere. I do not know why.
Take yesterday, for instance. Wanda Wizzard, who lives with me in Spookie Houseâalong with her parents, Barry and Brenda, and my aunt Tabitha and uncle Dracâasked me where I had put her green socks. Wanda is supposed to be my best friend, although you'd never believe it from the way she talks to me. So I asked Wanda why she thought I would want to even
touch
her smelly old green socks, let alone put them somewhere, and she just smiled the irritating smile that she has learned from my aunt Tabby and said, “How do
I
know, Araminta?” So I told her they were in the compost heap at the bottom of the garden. She came back hours later with eggshells and moldy carrot tops in
her hair and she didn't ask again.
But Barry did ask again. “Araminta,” he said, sounding snappy.
“Yes, Barry?” I replied politely, even though I just knew what he was going to say. Which he did.
“Where have you
put my frogs
?”
It was very trying. Wanda and I were busy, we had things to do. Wanda was building a house to put some small spiders in so they did not get eaten by the big spiders. And because that was unfair to the big spiders, I was building a house for
them
. Building a spider house is not easy, but Barry did not care because Barry thinks only about his frogs. They are acrobatic frogs, which means they do lots of tricks, like jumping over each other and turning cartwheels.
And, they can do a frog pyramid, which I guess is all right if you like that sort of thing. Barry hasâor rather Barry
had
âfive frogs, and he had names for them all, but I can't remember them as they were silly frog names like Ermintrude and Gonzilla.
Barry stood right in front of me, tapping his pointy blue shoes like he was waiting for someone who was late. “It's not funny anymore, Araminta,” he said.
I finished gluing the roof onto the spider house and then I made sure that I looked like I was thinking very carefully about what Barry had said. “I did not think it was funny in the first place actually, Barry,” I said. “I have better things to do than put a bunch of stupid frogs
anywhere
.”
“You haven't put them in the bath again
and let the water out, have you, Araminta?” he asked.
“No, I haven't. Anyway, it wasn't I who took the plug out. It was Aunt Tabby. I was just giving them a nice swim.”
“The water was hot, Araminta.”
“I was only trying to warm them up. They looked cold.”
“They looked even colder when I fished them out of the drain, Araminta.”
Have you noticed that when someone is annoyed with you they keep on saying your whole name? It is a real giveaway. Aunt Tabby can say as many times as she likes, “No, I am not annoyed with you, Araminta, I am just disappointed, that is all.” But I know she is annoyed because of the “Araminta” part. My uncle Drac always calls
me Minty and he is never annoyed with me, so that proves it.
I could see that Barry was not going to believe me about the frogs, so when Wanda said, “We'll go and look for them if you like, Dad. Won't we, Araminta?” I thought I had better say “Yes, Wanda” and smile like I was very keen to do it.
Barry and Wanda both looked at me in a suspicious way, but there is no pleasing some people.
Â
Spookie House is a huge house. I do not know how many rooms there are because whenever I start counting I am sure that some of them move around, just to annoy me, so that I either count them twice or not at all. Then there are the secret rooms, and I only know
one of those, because obviously the rest of them are secret. The secret room that I do know is in the middle of the house at the end of a secret tunnel and it belongs to Sir Horace, who is one of our ghosts.
So you can see that it was not easy to look for frogs in such a big place. Plus lots of the rooms are full of what Uncle Drac calls junk, but what Aunt Tabby calls “finds”âwhich means she has found a bunch of old furniture, I do not know where. Then you can add the piles of spiderwebs that are stuffed full of enormous spiders, which could probably eat all Barry's frogs for breakfast and still be hungry, and you can see that I did not expect to find any of Barry's frogs in Spookie House.
I was right. We didn't.
But we did find:
one Wellington boot with a family of mice living in it- one elephant's-foot doorstop (I do not know where the rest of the elephant was)
- six pairs of Aunt Tabby's spectacles huddling together in a dark corner behind some moldy curtains on the landing, hoping not to be found
- one crate of odd knitting needles
- five bolts from Sir Horace's helmet
And then Aunt Tabby found
us
.
My aunt Tabby is always creeping around the house trying to catch me and Wanda doing something that she thinks we shouldn't. But she didn't have to creep around to find us this time, because Wanda was yelling so loudly
that it was a bit of a giveaway.
We were right at the top of the house in a little turret opposite Uncle Drac's bat turret. Wanda had a telescope that Brenda and Barry had given her for her birthday, and I thought it would be a good place to go to look for the frogs because you can see for miles out the window. But it is hard it see frogs, even through a telescope. So I told Wanda that she might see more if she climbed on top of one of Aunt Tabby's findsâa horrible old wardrobe right by the window. Wanda is not very good at climbing, but I helped her up, and I was just about to pass her the telescope when there was a loud
crack
and she disappeared. Well, most of her did. I could still see her head sticking out, which looked quite funny, although Wanda didn't seem to think so.
Then she started yelling. When Wanda yells you have to put your fingers in your ears or your eardrums will explode.
“Be quiet, Wanda,” I told her. “You'll frighten the frogs if they're here. Then they'll all hop off and we'll never find them.”
“I don't care about the stupid frogs,” Wanda yelled. “Get me out of here!”
I was shocked. “Wanda,” I said, “Barry would be very upset to hear you call his frogs stupid.”
“Well, you do all the time. Get me
out
! Help, help!” Suddenly there was a thump and Wanda's head disappeared. Now she was right inside the wardrobe.
“Help!” yelled Wanda. “
Heeelp
!”
I tried to open the door, but it was locked and there was no key. I pulled on the door handle and it came right off in my hand.
In between Wanda's yells I could hear Aunt Tabby's footsteps clattering up the stairs from the hall and then thumping up the winding backstairs to the little room in the turret roof. She threw open the door and a hat stand
fell over and landed on her foot. Aunt Tabby did not look pleased. Her hair was sticking up like it does when she is mad and her spectacles were about to make a break for freedom and join their friends by the moldy curtains on the landing.