Spying on the Singing Frog

Bennie Marshall walked through the door in the back of his balloon animal booth and walked the short path to his trailer. He had a thirsty idea of a cold beer, a shot of Stoly, and some peace and quiet. His thirst came from the fact he hadn't had a break since the Midway had opened in the morning. The woman Bennie had hired to allow him to take breaks disappeared that morning.

Bennie thought to himself as he closed the trailer door. "If the carnival only knew how hard it is to find someone who can make an Elephant Baloon."

As Bennie started to close the trailer door, he heard a noise coming from the next-door booth. The young rookie's booth. He had to admit that the young guy–Zach–knew some good tricks and seemed to be one of the more popular booths. But it was late, and Zach was staying at the local Quality Inn. So what was that noise.?

Bennie glanced at the fridge where his beer was calling him, closed the door quietly, walked back through his booth, and peeked around the corner just in time to be blinded by what looked like a flash from a camera, which left that annoying white spot in the middle of his vision.

Bennie stepped back to allow his vision to return in time to see a tall, immaculately dressed carbon copy of John Watson. Bowler hat, worn but clean suit, and carefully shined boots.

The man walked right in front of Bennie and made no notice of Bennie standing there frozen in fear.

"Who was that?" Bennie thought, "What's he doing in Zach's booth?"

Bennie waited until the man was a decent distance ahead and began to follow him. The man stopped at the edge of the carnival and checked his pocket watch, which caused him to increase his pace as fast as he could go without appearing to run. Even in the middle of the night, the man exuded an air of dignified English gentlemen.

Bennie also picked up his pace and thought, "Do English gentlemen ever run? Or, is that one of the rules English gentlemen live by? Is that a rule you must follow to get your English gentleman's union card?"

They walked for hours, they stopped in the town's historical district. The gentleman stopped at the intersection of the busiest street in the town. Afternoons here, around three PM, was like driving through a roundabout in Paris, France. All the tourists heading to the historical district ran headlong into the combined elementary and high school students and their parents, picking up their kids at the end of the day. Bennie remembered watching the rageaholic attempting to storm a tourist van full of people because it was slow to move when the traffic light turned green.

However, there were only a few cars hurrying to get home. The gentleman was rechecking his watch when a quiet but distinct sound came down the street where the rowdy bar sat across from the roundabout city park.

Another English gentleman emerged from a doorway with no door. The two men were dressed so similar as to give the impression of having an English gentleman's uniform.

This man was smoking a long-handled pipe that hung down near the middle of his suit's vest. This gentleman walked up to Bennie"s gentlemen, tipped his hat, and blew a perfect series of concentric circles of smoke.

The sound coming down the street was getting clearer. Whoever it was was singing – with a clear alto voice – which bounced and echoed against the old brick facades. It was a familiar tune. One that Bennie couldn't remember where he had heard it.

But he was in the middle of the street, followed by a group of admirers. It was a singing frog. Dressed in tails and a top hat, carrying a small frog-sized cane and a carefully polished silver frog holding an Oscar.

The second gentleman produced a shoebox, and the two gentlemen walked up to the Frog, shooed away his frogly admirers, and pointed to the box without a word.

The Frog walked over to the box, began to tightrope walk around the edges of the box without tipping it over, and started singing again.

Hello my baby, Hello my Honey, hello my ragtime gal!

Send me a kiss by wire, baby my heart's on fire!

If you refuse me, honey, you'll lose me, then you'll be left alone,

oh baby Telephone and tell me I'm your own!

The two gentlemen clapped for their personal concert, gave the frog a high five, and said, "Ya knocked 'em dead Julius, like you always do, knocked 'em dead didn't 'e Fred?"

Fred, Bennies gentleman, looked at the other one and said, "Yas soienty dids July, Yas still gots it, I says. Doesn't I sez that Doby?"

Doby was down on one knee, helping the frog change into his pajamas, so Fred joined him. Then both of the gentlemen, who now didn't seem much like gentlemen from their slang, took off their bowlers, sang a lullaby–in what sounded like Gaelic–and slowly lowered the top of the shoebox to its customary place.

Then Bennie heard the just barely discernable voice of the Frog from the closed box, "G'nite Fred, G'nite Doby. Thanks for giving me a night off to visit the lads."

Fred and Doby turned towards the door that wasn't a door in the wall across the street. But walked past the wall into the ally ten feet away. So Bennie tip-toed to the wall and peeked around the corner. It was a typical alleyway with overflowing garbage cans next to the empty dumpster. It was extremely dark.

Bennie managed to see the two gentlemen as they continued to talk about Julius's adventures. Plus, how much overtime they were getting to babysit the most famous Frog of all.

The gentlemen walked over to a fire escape ladder that extended straight to the top of the four-story brick building and stood there waiting for something. A few minutes later, a silvery glow appeared in the sky over the alleyway, and Bennie saw that the ladder was so tall he couldn't see the top.

As he watched the glowing ladder, a group of magnificent angels came rapidly down the ladder. But the moment they put their feet on the fire escape, they changed to the same form as Fred and Doby. There were seven of these gentleangels, and when they were all standing around Fred and Doby, they began trying to get them to have the Frog sing for them. Doby didn't answer, so Fred looked at his partner angels and shrugged. Then, they both began climbing the ladder, transforming into their true angelic forms and moving up the ladder at the speed only an angel can.

Bennie stood there trying to understand what he had just witnessed when a voice drifted down from above the ladder and said, "Go home, Bennie, the show's over."