THE GREEN SNAKES AND THE TADPOLE

In a small, shallow pond there lived a tadpole named Mike. Now Mike had several hundred brothers and sisters however, Mike’s brothers and sisters had all become frogs and had hopped away into the forest to find their own ponds where they could swim. This left Mike all alone in what seemed to be a much bigger pond than it had been when his brothers and sisters were still there.

One day, two green snakes came slithering into the pond. Mike was at first happy to see that he had some company but, the snakes began chasing after Mike and tried to eat him. Mike was very good at diving so he dove under the water and hid under some lily pads. After a while the snakes left but, the next day the two snakes were back and were again chasing poor Mike all around the pond. Mike screamed “Oh great green snakes please don’t eat me I haven’t even had a chance to grow up and become a frog yet.” But, Mike’s pleas were to no avail and the snakes kept chasing after him. Mike again hid under some lily pads until the snakes left the pond. This went on for about a week then; the green grass snakes went away for the rest of the summer to stay with an aunt and uncle who lived under a nice big rock at the edge of a beautiful lake.

When the summer came to an end the two green snakes returned home. They decided to go down to the little lily pond to see if they could make a snack of that tadpole they had left behind several weeks earlier. The two snakes slithered down to the pond and into the water. They looked all over for the tadpole. They even discovered his secret hiding spot under the lily pads. Finally, as the two green snakes were getting ready to give up looking for the tadpole, they noticed two really strange looking little islands in the middle of the pond. The snakes were curious about the islands because they had never seen them there before so, they swan over to investigate the islands. But, just as the snakes were almost on top of the islands a huge bullfrog surfaced. It seems the islands were actually the bull frog’s eyes and he had been waiting for the snakes to swim over to him.

“Remember me my fine green fellows,” the bull frog said to the snakes. “A few weeks ago I was just a little tadpole swimming around in this lily pond when you guys showed up and tried to eat me. You even came back several times looking for me and you terrified me like you would not believe. You knew then you could get away with terrifying me because at the time I was just a little unimportant tadpole. As you can see now, since you’ve been gone I’ve grown up quite a bit and everyone looks up to me because I have become so big and powerful. And, do you know what food I now like best?” The two snakes just lay in the water too shocked and afraid to move in front of the large bull frog.

The bull frog had a large grin on his face as he said, “My favorite food are green snakes”. With that the bull frog licked his lips and then proceeded to slurp each green snake down whole like a long piece of spaghetti. The bull frog was quite happy that he had devoured those awful snakes who had tormented him so much when he was just a little tad pole.