No Frogs On The Table

Would you like to see our frogs now? asks Mariposa.

I would indeed, says Gaius. Where do you keep them?

In our frog room, says Mariposa.

Bring them here, says Pedro Vicente Maldonado. I don't think Gaius needs to see your frog room.

Mariposa and Pescado run off to the frog room, to get their frogs.

They come back minutes later, each holding a small Andean marsupial tree frog in cupped hands.

Plonk. They place the tree frogs on the mahogany table.

Off! says Pedro Vicente Maldonado. No frogs on the table.

Gaius picks them up.

Mariposa wipes her hand across the table.

Sorry, dad.

Gaius looks closely at the Riobamba tree frogs. One has a bulging dorsal pouch. He pokes it gently.

Pfff!

Hm. Fascinating, says Gaius. Gastrotheca riobambae. Skin smooth but granulated below. Length about 45 millimetres. How long I wonder until ......

Pfff! says the female Riobamba tree frog.

She's called Piffy, says Mariposa. And Pescado's is called Pi-face.

Children, says Pedro Vicente Maldonado, smiling indulgently.

Saint Roley tiptoes up to see the tree frogs. His stomach growls.

He hopes devoutly that there will be molluscs for dinner, or at least some type of seafood. What is encebollado? He doesn't like to ask.

Poor froggies, says Mariposa. They're on the list of Threatened Species.

The IUCN List of Threatened Species, says Pescado.

Learn that, Cherry, says Terence.

Cherry learns it. IUCN.

Threatened species. Gaius spares a fleeting thought for Arthur, who has taken a train ride instead of booking a hotel.

But Gaius does not know the half of it.

Arthur is still wedged against the sapling, on the perpendicular mountainside below the train track.

It's the sort of extremity he likes.

Ah ça! The clock of life stopped just then
I'm no longer in the world
theology is wrong
the sky is below me
and hell rumbles up there somewhere
what shitty thoughts we have, in the country.

Yes, he ought to write that down.

He starts crawling up the perpendicular hillside.

It is thorny, rough and the stones are unreliable.

This might take some time.