The Bald Frog With A Wig

In the profile section of Blogger, there's a part where you can answer a random question. One question that really caught my attention was: "The children are waiting! Tell them the story about the bald frog with a wig..." I wrote a story that I really liked, but it was too long for the word limit on the random question. Here it is...

The bald frog, Titus, never came out of his mud house. All he knew of the outside world was what he saw on television. One television program in particular was about animated frogs with hair. Titus would watch that show, then look at himself in the mirror and sigh, "Not a single strand of hair! I'm different. I'm weird. I'd better stay inside, so no one will see me and laugh at me." Titus moped around his house all night, every night, longing to go outside and see the world, but terrified of the ridicule that would surely result. He often lay awake during the day (since his type of frog was nocturnal), worrying about what might happen to him if he stayed inside his whole life, eating pond plant roots that grew through his walls, and what might happen to him if he went outside. He shuddered at both outcomes: a life of boredom and an eventual unknown death, or shame, mocking, and humiliation for the rest of his life.

One day, Titus was considering his fate again when he heard a strange noise coming from outside. It was a very faint scratching sound. Titus got up and checked his walls and door. The scratching sound wasn't directly outside his house, but farther away. Titus trembled with curiosity. There seemed to be two parts of his mind: one that wanted to go out, and one that wanted to stay in. His frightened self whimpered, as it had so many times before, "I can't go out there! They'll see me! They'll laugh me out of the pond!" But the adventurous side of him replied, "They're all in bed sleeping. No one will see me. I can sneak out quietly, see what that noise is, and come back, without anyone knowing I'm even there." Titus nodded excitedly. With a pounding heart, he opened his front door.

The water was bright. It took a little time for Titus' eyes to adjust to the brilliant light of the sun. He peered around cautiously, showing only his head outside the door. No other frogs were in evidence. They must have all been asleep. Titus slipped out his front door and into the water. He heard the scratching noise again, but it was louder out here. It seemed to be coming from the bank. Titus silently swam, trembling inside, to the source of the noise. He cautiously poked his head out of the water so that only his eyes showed above the surface. His eyes widened at the sight of the scratcher. It was a fox. Titus knew what it was, since there had been foxes on the same television show as the frogs with hair. Those foxes, though, were not nearly as big as this fox! He was huge! He was beautiful, too; more beautiful than the animated ones. The golden light of the sun rippled through the orange fur of his back and gleamed on his white belly. Even the black fur of his paws shone like polished stones. The fox didn't notice Titus, hidden in the shadows of a clump of reeds. He was busily scratching himself with one hind leg. Tufts of hair flew from his energetic strokes and landed in the tall grass near the edge of the pond. Titus watched, and was suddenly inspired. The fox didn't need that hair anymore. Titus could take it! He could make a wig for himself. Then he wouldn't look weird anymore, and he could go out all the time without being afraid. The more Titus considered the idea, the more he liked it. He waited with bated breath until the fox finished scratching, drank from the pond, and slunk away into the forest.

Titus sprang out of the pond and looked frantically around for hair. The sun was sinking, and Titus needed to get that hair before the other frogs woke up. He saw several huge tufts of hair stuck to the top of the tall grass, too high for him to reach. Finally, Titus found a bundle of matted fox fur that had caught on the grass closer to the ground. He gathered it up and looked hurriedly for something to fix it to his head. An old, abandoned spiderweb caught his eye. He untwisted a few of the unsticky strands and used them to tie the hair together. Another strand looped around the hair and under his chin. Titus quivered with delight. He finally had hair! He couldn't wait to show the other frogs. With a splash, he dove back into the pond. His wig almost came off, and he quickly went back to the bank for more spider webbing. At last, he was ready. He swam down to the bottom and waited excitedly for the other frogs to come out of their mud houses for the evensong. They sang it every sunset, and it had often greeted Titus after a long and sleepless day.

As the sun slowly sank, the bottom of the pond began to open with hundreds of little doors. Frogs' heads began to pop out everywhere. Titus watched and was shocked. None of them had hair! He was mortified. After all the effort he had taken to fit in, he was different. He was weird. He tried to take off his wig before anyone saw him, but the spiderweb strands had stuck to his head when they were soaked in water. Titus groaned and turned to go back inside. It looked like he would be stuck there after all, unless he came out only when the other frogs were asleep again. Then suddenly he felt a tug at his elbow, and a small voice said, "Mister?" Titus looked down and saw a small frog, not much more than a tadpole. He still had a stubby tail left over. His wide eyes looked up trustingly at Titus, with no mocking or ridicule in them. Titus liked this little frog. He smiled down at him and said, "Yes, son?"
"I'm not your son," the small frog said matter-of-factly. "I'm Jimmy. My father is Sam Williams." He held out his hand for a handshake.
Titus smiled again and shook Jimmy's hand gladly. Then his smile faded as he realized that Jimmy's eyes were fixed on Titus' wig. Jimmy pointed at it and said in an awed voice, "What is that, sir?"
Titus gulped down rising terror. "It's hair," he managed to squeak.
Jimmy, though, didn't seem to find the hair funny. He stared at it in wonder. "Where'd you get it, sir?" he asked.
"My name's not 'sir,' it's Titus," Titus replied, getting rather annoyed with Jimmy's probing questions that threatened to expose him to the rest of the frogs. "And I got this hair from a fox."
Jimmy's eyes grew still wider, if that were possible. "Wow!" he exclaimed, too loudly for Titus' comfort. "A fox? How in the world did you get hair from a fox, Mr. Titus?" Before Titus could say anything, Jimmy rattled on, "Foxes are ferocious animals with sharp teeth! They eat frogs! You must be an incredibly brave frog, Mr. Titus!" Jimmy grabbed Titus' hand and pulled him toward a crowd of frogs, chattering, "Come on, Mr. Titus, I wanna introduce you to my friends. They've gotta see you. A frog who has hair from a fox! You're amazing, Mr. Titus!" Titus was dizzy with wonderment. He wasn't strange? He wasn't weird? He was brave and amazing? Before they could get to the other frogs, though, the other frogs had risen to the surface and were beginning the evensong. Jimmy looked disappointed. "We're late," he said. "I guess I'll have to introduce you after the evensong, Mr. Titus. The director hates to have the song interrupted."
Titus smiled at his new friend. "That's all right, Jimmy," he said reassuringly. "I don't need to meet them right away. Why don't you go sing with your friends, and I'll wait over here until the evensong is over?" Jimmy nodded happily and swam over to his friends. Titus sat on the bank and watched. He had never seen the evensong, or the sunset, before. How much beauty he had missed while he was hiding in his house! The frogs were all so different, with different looks and different voices, but they all sang together in perfect harmony, praising the Creator of the world. The sunset was more colorful than anything Titus had ever seen, even on television. The sun itself was hidden by the trees of the forest, but above them were numerous clouds of pink, orange, and yellow. The sky itself turned from gold in the west to purple in the east by soft gradations of color, going through green to blue to indigo. Titus sighed with rapture.

After a little while, Titus noticed that the evensong was changing. Only the older frogs were singing now, and the little frogs, like Jimmy, were slipping out of the chorus to play. They went off a little distance from the others and splashed and laughed in the shallows. Jimmy seemed to have forgotten about Titus. At any rate, he wasn't introducing him to his friends. Titus sighed with loneliness. He'd found a friend, but it seemed that he'd lost him again. He cast his eyes around the pond and was surprised to see how dark it had become while he was watching the sunset. Then he caught a glimpse of a sudden movement in the grass. A flash of orange fur was revealed by the waving blades of grass. Titus jumped up and looked closer. He could vaguely see the dim outline of a fox. It was pressed low to the ground, and staring directly at Jimmy and his friends. With a stab of horror, Titus remembered Jimmy's words: "Foxes are ferocious animals with sharp teeth! They eat frogs!" Titus was frozen in place for a split second. Then he knew what he had to do. He leaped into the air and yelled, "Swim away! Fox! There's a fox coming!" The evensong abruptly ended as the frogs scattered, rushing to the deeper reaches of the pond. Jimmy, though, seemed paralyzed by fear. He was standing in the shallows, staring with glazed eyes at the huge orange creature that appeared out of the tall grass. The fox raised a paw, and Titus saw one of the adult frogs cover her eyes and weep. Titus leapt forward toward his young friend. He landed between Jimmy and the fox, waving his arms and yelling, "Don't you dare eat my friend Jimmy! Eat me, if you dare! I'm Titus the fox-haired frog! I took the fur from a fox's own back to wear as a wig! You won't touch my friend!"
The fox sat back, surprised. He looked quizzically at Titus. He leaned forward and sniffed at the wig. Some of the hairs slipped out from under the spider webbing and went up the fox's nose. The fox sneezed three times and looked distastefully at Titus. He turned around with disdain and sashayed into the forest. That weird frog could be someone else's breakfast!

Titus went limp with relief. The water exploded behind him as the other frogs rushed forward to cheer and congratulate him. Jimmy and his family were first by his side, hugging him and thanking him with glad tears. The director of the choir declared that he had never been so glad for the evensong to be interrupted. Jimmy didn't need to introduce Titus to his friends. Everyone wanted to introduce themselves to the brave, fox-haired frog who had saved their friend's life. Titus felt his heart swelling with pride and joy. Jimmy's hand was firmly clasped in his, and Mr. and Mrs. Williams were affirming that they couldn't do enough for him. The choir director was asking Titus what part he sang. "Tenor," Titus said confidently. He had overheard the rehearsals and performances for his whole life, and had often sung along with the tenors in the choir. The director promptly called the frogs into chorus formation, assigned Titus a place in the tenor section, and began the evensong again. Titus, the bald frog with a wig, joyfully lifted his voice in praise to the Creator, free from fear and surrounded by friends.