第3章

At noon of that same day in the first week of August, Winnie Foster sat on the bristly grass just inside the fence and said to the large toad who was squatting a few yards away across the road, “I will, though. You’ll see. Maybe even first thing tomorrow, while everyone’s still asleep.”

It was hard to know whether the toad was listening or not. Certainly, Winnie had given it good reason to ignore her. She had come out to the fence, very cross, very near the boiling point on a day that was itself near to boiling, and had noticed the toad at once. It was the only living thing in sight except for a stationary cloud of hysterical gnats suspended in the heat above the road. Winnie had found some pebbles at the base of the fence and, for lack of any other way to show how she felt, had flung one at the toad. It missed altogether, as she’d fully intended it should, but she made a game of it anyway, tossing pebbles at such an angle that they passed through the gnat cloud on their way to the toad. The gnats were too frantic to notice these intrusions, however, and since every pebble missed its final mark, the toad continued to squat and grimace without so much as a twitch. Possibly it felt resentful. Or perhaps it was only asleep. In either case, it gave her not a glance when at last she ran out of pebbles and sat down to tell it her troubles.

“Look here, toad,” she said, thrusting her arms through the bars of the fence and plucking at the weeds on the other side. “I don’t think I can stand it much longer.”

At this moment a window at the front of the cottage was flung open and a thin voice—her grandmother’s—piped, “Winifred! Don’t sit on that dirty grass. You’ll stain your boots and stockings.”

And another, firmer voice—her mother’s—added, “Come in now, Winnie. Right away. You’ll get heat stroke out there on a day like this. And your lunch is ready.”

“See?” said Winnie to the toad. “That’s just what I mean. It’s like that every minute. If I had a sister or a brother, there’d be someone else for them to watch. But, as it is, there’s only me. I’m tired of being looked at all the time. I want to be by myself for a change.” She leaned her forehead against the bars and after a short silence went on in a thoughtful tone. “I’m not exactly sure what I’d do, you know, but something interesting—something that’s all mine. Something that would make some kind of difference in the world. It’d be nice to have a new name, to start with, one that’s not all worn out from being called so much. And I might even decide to have a pet. Maybe a big old toad, like you, that I could keep in a nice cage with lots of grass, and…”

At this the toad stirred and blinked. It gave a heave of muscles and plopped its heavy mudball of a body a few inches farther away from her.

“I suppose you’re right,” said Winnie. “Then you’d be just the way I am, now. Why should you have to be cooped up in a cage, too? It’d be better if I could be like you, out in the open and making up my own mind. Do you know they’ve hardly ever let me out of this yard all by myself? I’ll never be able to do anything important if I stay in here like this. I expect I’d better run away.” She paused and peered anxiously at the toad to see how it would receive this staggering idea, but it showed no signs of interest. “You think I wouldn’t dare, don’t you?” she said accusingly. “I will, though. You’ll see. Maybe even first thing in the morning, while everyone’s still asleep.”

“Winnie!” came the firm voice from the window.

“All right! I’m coming!” she cried, exasperated, and then added quickly, “I mean, I’ll be right there, Mama.” She stood up, brushing at her legs where bits of itchy grass clung to her stockings.

The toad, as if it saw that their interview was over, stirred again, bunched up, and bounced itself clumsily off toward the wood. Winnie watched it go. “Hop away, toad,” she called after it. “You’ll see. Just wait till morning.”