Chapter 48. Tadpoles
There was a clearing across from the barber shop, that very barber shop where we had once been turned into “forelocks.” It was a wonderful clearing for all kinds of games, but it also had special advantages. It was covered with puddles, dozens of puddles, large and small, during the time of spring rains. Tadpoles suddenly appeared in each of them under certain conditions. Believe it or not, right in that clearing there was a frog nursery, a farm of tiny frogs, to be precise, tadpoles who would turn into frogs far from the ariks where many frogs resided, though they didn’t always succeed in turning into frogs.
It had rained that night, and now all the puddles swarmed with tadpoles. Hundreds and hundreds of these funny creatures, these black bulging little ovals, a bit larger than fingernails, with big eyes on their front parts, and long little tails moving at enormous speed in all directions. Their glossy bodies glittered like fragments of black glass in the sun’s rays.
We didn’t know why frogs decided to spawn in this clearing, in these puddles. But we knew that not many of these tadpoles were destined to grow up and turn into normal frogs. And we were outraged about their frog mothers’ lack of concern. Spring rains didn’t last very long; they would soon be over. The merciless sun would dry the puddles. What would then be left for the poor tadpoles? It was a miracle that the water in the clearing was not soaked up by the ground, that some of the big puddles remained there from rain to rain.
Squatting by one of the largest puddles, I poked around in it with a twig. The puddle looked like a lake. Its dark bottom was muddy, and the grass that grew in it looked like algae. Brown dregs swirled around my twig in all directions.
“It’s clay,” Vitya Smirnov said. He squatted next to me, also poking around in the puddle. “If this were sand, it would already be soaked up, but clay holds water better.”
Clay or no clay, bare patches, hard and covered with winding cracks, would be here instead of the puddles in a couple of months.
“Well, guys, do we choose this one?” Zhenya asked. “Then let’s go.”
And we headed for the nearest arik.
This was not the first spring that we, after finding one of the puddles most densely populated by tadpoles, engaged in rescuing these poor orphans. It was a noble deed and, at the same time, not too difficult. All we had to do was make sure that the “nursery” didn’t dry out. We just had to keep an eye on the amount of water in the puddle, and, if there was too little of it left, we had to bring a few buckets from the nearest arik. Not that we were perfect guardians, but still, a certain number of tadpoles abandoned by their mothers managed to survive with our help. When that happened, we experienced almost parental pride as we watched the tiny frogs, first just one, then the whole group, hop through the grass to the arik. It was amazing how they knew in what direction to head.
“They must be looking for their mothers,” we giggled.
We never tired of watching the tadpoles, observing them frolic and grow. Perhaps, that’s why we began taking care of them. We often squatted near the puddles, talking. For example, we argued about how many tadpoles one frog could produce. I explained to ignorant Zhenya Andreyev – I got an A in biology – that it was a silly question. Frogs spawned like fish, which meant that they could produce any number of offspring. Zhenya was hurt and answered that he also knew about spawning and that a frog didn’t spawn kilograms of eggs, and many of them didn’t survive.
But our conversations weren’t very often of a scientific nature.
“It would be great to bring Ryzhaya (Redhead) here… She would eat them up.”
“Phooey,” Vitya Smirnov spat with disgust. “Redhead wouldn’t even look at this filth.”
Redhead was the name of Vitya’s cat. She was a purebred, or so the Smirnovs claimed, and they treated her like a chosen one. Her food was served on a porcelain saucer set on newspaper in the corner of the living room. And she never ate leftovers, only fresh meat that she chased down with milk. How could we possibly suppose that such a cat would eat tadpoles… Vitya couldn’t calm down for a long time, cursed the tadpoles and called them names, as if he didn’t take care of them along with us.
Every time Vitya talked about his Redhead, I experienced an unpleasant feeling. If the boys had known my Tashkent nickname, they would immediately have forgotten my real name. They would even have claimed that I was the cat’s relative. Fortunately, they didn’t suspect there had been a time when my nickname was Redhead.
The tadpoles’ parents entertained us as much as their children. There was an immense quantity of frogs in the neighborhood, most likely because of the ariks. They traveled all over the place and preferred to embark on their travels towards the end of the day. On the way home from school, we could see them hopping across the road or in the grass. They always gave concerts late at night. Deafening frog music filled the air above the settlement. It resounded now from one side, now another, then from all sides simultaneously.
We really enjoyed listening to those concerts on Dora’s bench near our entrance. Of course, we did it after Dora had gone home, after she grew tired from gossiping and orating. Dora often stayed outside until late. We would get angry and curse that indefatigable woman in whispers. Little did we know how deserted it would feel near our entrance three years later, after Dora left for Greece, her homeland. Something would disappear for good along with her, with the buzzing and squeaking of her coffee grinder… Making ourselves comfortable on the bench, whose boards had sagged a bit with Dora’s help, we would chuckle, “Our bench still bears the warmth of Dora’s butt. Ah, where is our Dora now?” But the adults would miss Dora much more. I often saw our neighbors pass our entrance and sigh as they looked at the bench.
But that would be later. For now…
We waited until Dora and her audience went home, and then we swarmed around the bench like sparrows. It was getting dark. The cool of the evening descended on the town along with the darkness. The croaking of frogs, first soft, then louder, more ringing, more rumbling, could be heard from all directions as it drowned out the chatter and monotone chirping of the cicadas.
We thought that they called roll before their concert, one by one. They talked about something. It would be great to know what they talked about.
Here a slow, leisurely, rich koo-a-a, koo-a-a-a was heard from our vegetable garden. And almost right away, it was heard from a different direction, like an answer. It was very similar, yet a bit different, even more guttural and gurgling.
“It’s coming from the arik,” Edem determined correctly. Croaking was actually heard from under the water. We knew, for we saw it many times. A frog would be sitting somewhere down there on the clay bottom, and its mighty croaking could be heard on our bench coming through the thick mass of water. Standing near the arik when it was still light outside, we could see little bubbles reaching the surface of the water from where a singer was sitting.
Obviously, boys the world over have always had a useful talent for mimicry: the meowing of Huck Finn at night comes to mind. My skill at this was unsurpassed. And if I managed to fool the rooster by cackling like a hen, why shouldn’t I try to fool the frogs? I tried patiently and persistently. I learned special tricks with the help of experts at school. You had to put your left hand, curled like a tube, to your mouth and utter the sounds, imitating croaking. Your right hand had to be pressed to the end of the “tube” and move rhythmically, which made the sound change and reverberate.