The Far Reaching Squeeze

Squeeze him! cries Terence.

Quiet-tartus is looking distressed

What did Gaius say? asks Vello.

Squeeze him, says Katherine. It won't make him wise. It seems the story is mythical.

That was obvious, says Vello.

Guk-guk, says Quiet-tartus.

I'll squeeze you, says Terence.

No! says Katherine. 

I'm doing it, says Terence.

He presses down on Quiet-tartus's swollen stomach.

The toadstone pops out of Quiet-tartus's mouth with a thwop!

And coninues travelling, due to momentum.

Crash! It hits the windscreen of the taxi.

Merde! cries the taxi driver. Throwing stones in a taxi is forbidden!

Apologies, says Vello. Fortunately your windscreen is not broken. 

I could have been hit in the back of the neck, says the taxi driver. 

You could have died, says Sirene.

Exactement, says the taxi driver.

But the little crapaud would have died if Terence had not squeezed him, says Sirene.

The taxi driver scowls at Sirene in his rear vision mirror.

Who is she to compare his welfare with that of a frog?

We're nearly at our destination, says Katherine. Let us out here, if you like.

I do like, says the taxi driver. And it will cost extra.

It will not, says Vello.

The taxi stops. They get out. Vello pays the regular fare and no extra. They walk to the café where N F S and David are waiting. Terence is holding the frogs.

All is well, I see, says David. 

You don't know the half of it, says Vello. The frogs were being held in a cruel hospital, and no sooner had we assisted them to escape than this one here swallowed a toadstone thinking it would benefit him in some way but it caused him to swell alarmingly, so Katherine called Gaius...

....who was asleep, says Katherine. And Gaius suggested we squeeze him, after admitting that it was partly his fault.

How so? asks David.

He wrote about the power of the toadstone years ago, says Katherine, but he has since revised his opinion.

Better out than in, says N F S.

So we thought, says Vello, but Terence performed the squeezng operation, and nearly broke the windscreen of the taxi. We had to get out and walk the last few hundred metres.

Dear me, says David. You have had a time.