Growling Grass Frog

Early evening. Saint Roley is prowling in the low coastal vegetation of the Coorong.

He is starving. The number of things he has eaten is small.

Several half molluscs, a slice of potato, an apple, those wild turnips....

He looks down from the top of a sand dune.

Gaius is sleeping below on a beach towel.

Grawaark!

That will be Gaius's stomach.

But it isn't. The growl is rising from the other side of the sand hill.

Grawaaark! Boing! Grawaark! The growl is moving.

Saint Roley slides down to see where.

He reaches a body of water, not the ocean.

Boing!

A thing lands before him.

Ding-ding!

To cut a long story short, it's a Southern Bell Frog.

Hello, says Saint Roley. Do not be afraid unless you are a worm, insect or small crustacean.

And what if I am a ....... ? The Bell Frog has a slow imagination.

Saint Roley has a fast one.

A muffin? says Saint Roley. That would be an ideal situation. You need not be afraid, as a muffin.

Why not? asks the Bell Frog.

Because you would just be a muffin, says Saint Roley. I know that much. But the best thing about you being a muffin would be that both I and Gaius could eat you. Cut you. Half each.

I'm not a muffin, says the Bell Frog. Who is Gaius?

A natural historian, asleep at present, says Saint Roley. If you stop growling...

I have, says the Bell Frog.

Then while you are quiet, says Saint Roley, you may hear him growling.

Is he a half man, half muffin? asks the Bell Frog.

You don't mean that, says Saint Roley. You mean half man, half frog. And he isn't. He's hungry.

We are all hungry, says the Bell Frog.

Yes, says Saint Roley. We were expecting sandwiches but they have not appeared.

Do they, sometimes? asks the Bell Frog hopefully.

Yes, says Saint Roley. But something must have happened.

Or not happened, says the Bell Frog.

Saint Roley nods.

They are on the same wavelength.

Come with me, says Saint Roley.

They tiptoe up the sand hill and down the other side of the sand hill to Gaius.

Gaius wakes up.

Plshshshfttt! Blows the sand from his nostrils.

Jumping Jupiter! cries Gaius. A Growling Grass Frog!

Saint Roley looks again at the Bell Frog.

So that is his name.