The Hop (6 page)

TAYLOR HANDED EVE A GLASS OF ICE WATER, then sat beside her in the hammock. Her grandmother smelled like ginger soap, but she also smelled a little like the doctor's office.

“Hey!” It was Taylor's mom on the deck, waving. What was she doing here? She said she had to spend the rest of the weekend at the office.

She came loping down the hill. She kissed Eve on the head, her hand resting on Taylor's shoulder, which she gave a little squeeze at the same time. Then she patted the big canvas bag she was carrying over her shoulder. “I thought we might have a nice lunch on the deck.”

Taylor smelled egg rolls.

They walked up the hill very slowly, under the arch made by serviceberry trees: Taylor's mother in front, then her grandmother, then herself. Taylor fought back the urge to put her hands on Eve's back and give her a little push so she would go up the hill as fast as she used to.

Eve stopped and looked at the foxglove bed. “I hate to see grass get started in there,” she said. “Once it takes hold, the bed is ruined.”

Taylor dropped to her knees, hooking her fingertips into the moist earth, trying to get hold of the little knot just above the roots. “I'll pull it.” But the grass was harder to pull than she thought it would be, and came out with a tearing noise. An acrobatic earthworm curled up and wriggled out of sight.

As she worked, she felt her mother and grandmother waiting on the deck.

“Come on, Taylor, while the food's still hot,” her mother called.

Sitting at the table under the big green umbrella, they ate Mongolian beef and sweet-and-sour pork out of cartons, and dipped egg rolls into little clear cups of spicy mustard sauce. Taylor's mom made her stop and go in and scrub her hands when she noticed the soil packed under her fingernails.

When Taylor came back, her grandmother, who had left most of her food uneaten, said, “I was just talking to your mother about the Reno trip.”

Taylor stopped mid-bite. So that's what her mother was doing here at lunchtime on a Saturday. Taylor felt her face turn hot. Her mother and her grandmother were ganging up on her! And they'd worked fast. Eve had mentioned the idea to Taylor only yesterday.

Her mother smiled too brightly. “I think it's a wonderful idea, honey. Your dad and I have always wanted you to come with us. Everybody brings their kids.” She laughed. “I think our band friends think we're a poor childless couple. There'll be so much for you to do. They have activities and even field trips.…”

Her mother was jabbering on, but Taylor looked at her grandmother. Eve's gaze was sad but firm.

Taylor took a deep breath. “Fine,” she announced, cutting her mother off. “I'll go.” They were leaving the week after the city council meeting, so she would already have been on TV.

Her mother looked so hurt at Taylor's tone that Taylor muttered, “I've always kind of wanted to anyway.”

Liar, liar, pants on fire.
Taylor couldn't look at her grandmother. Nobody could look at anybody.

As she dabbed up flakes of egg roll and licked her finger, which now tasted like soap and had spoiled the whole lunch, she heard the awful earthmoving machine start up.

She just hoped the man didn't do too much damage before next Tuesday, when she would have a chance to tell the world what he was up to before it was too late.

And then with a flash of understanding, Taylor knew why her grandmother wanted her to go to Reno. Taylor's stomach hurt to think about it. Eve didn't want her to be there when the pond got filled in.

THE SKY LOOKED LIKE WINDY WATER. The puddles in the grass were slurpy under Tad's belly, and rain beat a rhythm that reminded him of Shyly shaking the pea pods while he danced.

Mantises may have been wandering around in the tall grass, but Tad hadn't seen any. He'd seen only the grass stems parting in front of them and the little white fingers of roots disappearing into the wet bubbles of earth.

They had left Toadville-by-Tumbledown a whole moonrise ago. And now his home seemed as far away as the hawks that disappeared high into the clouds of the sky.

“I didn't know there was so much creation,” he told Buuurk. “I wonder why we haven't seen any mantises.”

“We might have missed them in the fog,” Buuurk said.

A huge crow, inky with rain, swooped out of the mist. Tad froze. But the crow had its eye on something else. It plucked up a small writhing snake from the grass and settled on a fence, tossing back its head until the last thread of the snake's tail disappeared.

As the crow lifted off, thunder rumbled and the light grew dimmer. Lightning crackled around them, making Tad's warts tingle.

“I'll bet we're about to the edge,” Buuurk said.

“The edge of what?”

“Creation.”

They sloshed on, peering through the mist for a mantis.

Finally, Buuurk zotted a soggy cricket. “Tastes like bird poop, but you can live on it,” he said philosophically, looking at Tad. “You should have one too, toad. It will perk you up.”

Tad hated crickets. They gave him indigestion. But he did zot a few.

“I wonder what they're doing at home?” Buuurk said.

Longing reached out and wrapped itself around Tad like a morning glory vine and pulled him to a stop. He felt his singing sac quivering. He wished Buuurk wouldn't speak of home.

And then he saw the mantis.

“Look!” he cried.

Buuurk bellowed with joy. “Oh kiss me, moonbeams!”

The mantis just gazed at them, its flat head motionless. Then, as slowly as a dandelion gives up a seed head in the breeze, the mantis lifted its long arm and pointed into the direction of the wind.

“Thank you, thank you,” Tad cried as he and Buuurk leaped around in joy. And they veered off in the direction it had pointed.

Tad was so happy about the mantis that he forgot he was tired. They found a clump of earthworms washed out by the storm. Making Tad laugh, Buuurk crammed worms in with both hands until they dangled from his mouth.

By the time the rain stopped, darkness had fallen. The clouds parted, and Tad kept an eye on a winking yellow star, trying to move straight toward it.

He almost hopped right into a fox, sitting still as a stump.

Buuurk saw him too and was already puffing up. Tad felt himself start to grow, getting fatter and taller. The fox leaped at them, his nose first touching Tad, then Buuurk, then Tad again as if he were saying, “Eeeeny, meeeny, miney, moe.”

The fox's nose was moist with rain, and the hairs around his mouth spiked out. As his dark lips curled back, Tad saw the teeth, one broken. Tad blew himself up as big as he could.
I'm too big to eat.
I'm too big to eat. I must kiss the queen and save my home.

The mouth was opening, and Tad saw his life back at Toadville-by-Tumbledown pass before him. He peed.

The fox made a choking noise at the smell, and reared back. Then he came in for a close sniff of Buuurk, who was also big and wet. The fox backed up in a hurry, then turned with a pained cry and ran.

Tad and Buuurk sat there for a long time before they were themselves and could hop off into the darkness, with only the stars and an occasional damp moth for company. They hopped until the rising sun chased away the night. They hopped until Tad's legs were as quivery as the pond on a windy day.

Where were they? Except for sky and grass, nothing looked like what he saw from the top of the mulch pile. So now they were someplace else altogether. But where?

As the sun rose higher and they were hopping through an endless stretch of sunny grass, Tad started to overheat. Before long, he would be dried-out crow food.

And then he heard it. The happy splash of water. He trembled with thirst as he pointed. “Look,” he croaked.

Birds splashed around in a little pond up in the sky. A fat robin shook, sending water flying everywhere. Tad hopped over to sit beneath the spray, feeling it soothe his thirst. “Let's rest,” he said.

Buuurk scootched in beside him. “Ahhh,” he croaked. “Thank the green grass.”

And when the other voice spoke, they both jumped.

“Who are you?” the toad demanded.

“Whoa!” Tad cried, leaping back. “Where did you come from?”

The toad looked indignant. “Where did
you
come from? I live here.”

“Where's here?”

“Toadville-by-Birdbath, of course,” the young hopper said. “Where all the toads live.”

There were other toadvilles?

Tad glanced at Buuurk, who looked as if he'd seen a snake take wing or a hummingbird burrow into the mulch pile.

“We're from Toadville-by-Tumbledown,” Tad said.

“There is no such place.” The young hopper looked quite sure.

“Well, here we are anyway,” Tad said, feeling for the first time a little bit bold. He knew more about things than this toad did.

Finally the other toad asked, “Well, how did you get here?”

“Hopped,” Tad said.

The other toad stared at him.

How many more toadvilles were there? Had he and Buuurk found their way to the edge of Mother Earth? Or was there another toadville or who-knew-what beyond the hedge?

“We're in a hurry. We have to find the Queen of the Hop,” Buuurk said. “Have you seen her?”

The other toad looked stupefied. “Who?”

“The Queen of the Hop.” With a narrow wood chip, Tad drew
R E N O
in the damp dirt under the birdbath. “She's near these shapes. And the shapes glow brighter than the sunset in the night sky.”

The young hopper shook his head. “I've never seen anything like that.”

He kept looking at them as if they each had two heads. “Why do you need to find her?” he finally asked.

“This toad is going to—” Buuurk began, but Tad nudged him.

“I just need to find her,” Tad said. “It's very important.”

“I've seen that shape.” A girl hopper bounced through the grass to join them.

Buuurk made a sound of joy. “You've seen the shape? Praise the primrose!”

“Is it near here?” Tad cried.

“Not far. I can show you.”

Their mission was almost over. Tad began to leap around. He could kiss the queen and be home in a couple of days.

The hopper led them through the privet hedge. On the other side was another world of green grass and what Tad could only describe as a huge humanville.

As they traveled, their guide made toad eyes at Buuurk. Tad heard her ask him how many toadvilles there were, and Buuurk said, “Two.”

Tad wasn't so sure. If there were two, there might be three. And if there were three…He was just glad the queen was nearby so he could kiss her and go back home. He didn't really need to know how big Mother Earth was.

Soon they came to an edge of smooth, hard gray stuff. Tad stopped, horrified. He knew what it was, although he'd never seen one.

The hopper bounced onto it. She turned. “Aren't you coming?”

Buuurk stopped too, his warts a putrid green.

“We're grass toads,” Tad told the hopper.

“Aren't we all? But you can't get there by grass,” she said. “You have to cross this.”

Didn't she know what she was sitting on? She was sitting on eternal death. Foulness most…
foul.
She was sitting on a covering. What should he say to her?

“Do you have a seer in your toadville?” he asked.

“What's that?”

“Someone who sees things that others don't.” He felt the bulge in his head tingling. “They know what's going to happen. Or what may happen.”

“Are you a seer?” she asked.

He didn't want to be one. He didn't want the jewel in his head to grow, to make him see more and more things in his sleep, to press against his eyes and someday make him old and blind. But if wishes were fishes, Seer always said, then hop toads would fly, and Tad could fly across the covering without touching it. But wishes were not fishes.

“We have to do it,” he said quietly to Buuurk.

“You first, toad,” Buuurk said, glowing green.

Tad put his hands on the covering. It was horrible. Hard. Smooth. Gray with eternal death. He drew his belly over the edge, then slowly followed with his rear diggers, one by one.

The pretty one was looking at him like he had snails for brains. “It's just a path for the honking, stinky things,” she said. “It won't actually hurt you.”

Buuurk hopped to sit beside Tad, and they followed the pretty toad across it, Tad feeling with every step like he was walking over the end of time. He tried to keep his belly off of it, to lift up on his toes. He tried not to think about what he was doing. The sun in the sky started spinning around. The covering was hot, and he was getting dry.

“We're almost across,” the girl hopper said.

When Tad leaped into the grass, he practically buried himself in it, feeling the soft coolness beneath his belly. He sensed the worms working beneath him and saw a stinkbug weaving between the grass blades.

Zot!

He scootched along, trying to wipe away the dust from the covering. Finally he began to feel like himself again.

After they traveled a while longer, snacking on this and that, the pretty toad said, “We're here!” She hopped up on a rock, and Tad and Buuurk hopped up beside her.

“There,” she said, gazing into the distance across a rushing, roaring river of honking stinky things.

It took Tad a while to see it, but then he did. Even in the sunshine, the shapes glowed red. R-E-N-O. They would light up the night sky just fine. This must be what Seer had seen in his dreams. The Queen of the Hop was near. All Tad had to do was close his eyes, hold his nose, and give her a big smackeroo. He felt so giddy he almost tumbled off the rock. His quest was almost over.