Big R.,
or Tales of a Gifted Frog and his Year Nine Group
By Moira Laidlaw
and
Reginald the Frog
Introduction:
I’d better start by giving you a few tips about Reginald – Big R. He’s not like other frogs. He’s sassier and takes risks. He’s unpredictable, but very lovable – on a good day. What follows is the gospel truth, but I’ll understand if you don’t believe everything you’re about to read: I’ve lived through it and even I find some of it difficult to believe.
The first thing you’ll want to know is that all frogs are called Reginald. Not that he sees it like that. He’s telling you the names of his friends and they all sound the same to me, but apparently one Reginald isn’t the same as another Reginald. However, so that you can understand which frog I’m referring to, I’ll call the Reginald I’m talking about Big R. and make up names for the others as we go along. Hope that’s all right. If it gets confusing, don’t blame me, all right?
Now, I have Big R. next to me all the time when I’m writing this, so you’ll find him making comments as we go along. His comments are in italics, so you’ll be able to tell them apart from my ideas.
Get on with it!
See, like that!O.K., Big R. is a very large…
Handsome,handsome, don’t forget handsome
…O.K., start again. Big R. is a very large and handsome red-eyed tree frog. He stands at about three feet high and looks like a stuffed frog. Looks can be deceptive. I bought him in Bath in a lovely shop off the main streets and alleyways. It’s not there anymore. We’re talking about twelve years ago now. Anyway, I bought him and there wasn’t a box big enough to put him in…
Put me in a box?!
…so I tucked him under my arm and carried him that way all the way home. We got some funny looks, I can tell you.
We? I don’t remember getting anything but admiring looks from my public. They might have thought you were a bit unkind carrying me under your arm like some package!
Sigh! Right, we got home on the bus with people laughing.
Showing respect, more like. You’re crap at this, aren’t you? Showing respect. Admiring glances from one and all. The great British public. They know class when they see it.
And they know a show-off as well. Right, let’s get on with it, shall we? We got home and Big R. and I had a look round for where he could sit.
Er, what about on a seat like other people? I sat on the sofa. She kept moving me off, to sit down herself – you see it was a poky, horrible little flat – more like a bedsit, and I’m used to more affluent (rich) surroundings, me.
Shut UP, Big R., I’m telling this story, not you. Anyway, he looked rather nice sitting there on the comfy chair, all bright and perky. I decided to take him into school on Monday. I was a teacher then, you see. Taught in this girls’ comprehensive school. English mostly.
Yawn, like they want to hear all about that sort of stuff. Boorrriiiing! What about all the things I got up to, all the adventures I had? What about all that? I thought this book was supposed to be all about me.
Look, you moron, this is called setting the scene. That’s what we English teachers do! Right, I took him into school on the Monday and into the English teachers’ room, where we all met for breaks and lunchtimes. Teachers came into the room and all of them shrieked…
Gasped in admiration, you mean
… shrieked when they saw him. Mr. Treacher…
What a name for a teacher –Mr. Treacher the Teacher – you humans, you killme!
…shook his hand and everyone laughed. I wasn’t sure about leaving him there all the time. I mean, what if someone came in and stole him?
Stole me? What am I? A stuffed frog?
Don’t tempt me, Big R. just don’t tempt me! Right, I made the decision to put him into the big walk-in cupboard every evening and then get him out in the mornings. I mean, sometimes I might take him home for a change but generally, the walk-in cupboard would be enough. It stored all my teaching-aids and…
Right, that does it! That does it! You stuffed me in a cupboard over years and years. What had I done to you to make you treat me so badly? There you were, teaching children about the differences between right and wrong, and keeping me locked in a dark cupboard FOR YEARS?
Yeah, yeah, I know, but let’s just get on with it, shall we? Think about it, Big R. If you hadn’t been in that cupboard, some of those marvellous things you did would never have happened, would they? I might have forgotten you and left you at home on those days when the miracles were meant to happen.
Forgotten me, yeah, now that is likely. O.K., go on, then! But if you talk about me as if I was a teaching-aid, I’ll spill beetle-water all over the computer, so think on!
Reminded! Well, I had a number of frogs. The first one, Reginald (!) was very much smaller than Big R. He was a dark-green furry frog and very popular with the younger girls. Let’s call him Small R., or SM for short, O.K.? Then there was Reginald, a Blue Frog, so we’ll call him Bluey. He was good at maths, but that doesn’t come into this story much. The idea was, that as the group of frogs grew, all the girls could come into lessons and choose a frog from the cupboard and sit down with him. I figured it might help them to feel comfortable in the classroom. Some of them didn’t like school…
You don’t say!
So having cuddly toys…
I am NOT a cuddly toy.
Look, if you don’t stop interrupting, we’ll never get this written and you want to be famous don’t you?
I already am, thank you!
I’m just going to ignore you for a while. So, having frogs in the classroom might help some of the students like the work better. I taught in that school for eight years, so there are quite a few stories we’ve decided to tell you. Big R. and I have gone through the list, but I’ve decided to add one.
If you mean the one about Hannah hanging me from the ceiling, I’m not going to co-operate anymore.
You’re not co-operating now, so shut up and we’ll get on. I AM going to tell them about Hannah and hanging you from the ceiling, because, if memory serves me correctly it’s about the funniest thing I ever saw in my life, and I think the readers will like it too.
Nothing to say? Right. I want that story in and that one about you and Romeo and Juliet as well.
Nothing against Romeo and Juliet. That’s Art that is. Especially the way I played Romeo.
Well, don’t give it all away at the start, let’s begin at the beginning.
And you’ve got to remember that time I did a bungee jump for charity.
As if I could forget that. Right, we’re off. I thought the one about the Bring and Buy Sale would be a great place to start.
O.K., then, the Bring and Buy Sale is all right. Much admired I was that day.
Big R. and the Bring and Buy Sale
This happened shortly after I brought Big R. back from the shop and took him to school. It was in September and the school wanted to raise some money for charity – Save the Children I think…
Isn’t it typical that in this great country of ours, there is no such thing as a ‘Save The Frogs’ Society?
There’s the RSPCA, so shut up and let’s get on! It was one of those Indian summers, a late summer. In the car-park at the front, we (meaning the other teachers and some of the older students) had put up stalls selling everything from home-made cakes to old CDs.
I wouldn’t call it selling everything. No beetle wine. No mosquito-pancakes. No web-rot cream!
Moving swiftly on. By eleven o’clock we had loads of people swarming all over the place and lots of money was clearly changing hands. We had a target of £1000, but we were all hoping we could raise some more money and give the remainder to other charities – local ones – conservation mostly. There was a need to protect the environment.
You’re not wrong! Do you know how many ponds in Bath alone have disappeared because of building and pollution and all those cars everywhere in the last few years? Frogspawn and tadpoles can’t grow up. You realise that’s murder, don’t you?
Really? Fascinating, I’m sure. Well, the sun was shining and everything was going well. We had a raffle and Big. R. had gone along to see what was going on.
‘50p, just 50p a ticket. Have a go on the raffle!’ It was Mr. Treacher with the tombola. Big R. hopped onto the table where the tombola was being turned, among all the exciting prizes.
Exciting prizes? Ho hum, yes, a jar of jam. Very exciting. And a string of fake pearls that Granny wore in the Ice Age, and of course, let us not forget that gorgeous bunch of dead, smelly flowers pretending to be dried and beautiful.
Yeah, all right, it wasn’t the best stall, but Mr. Treacher had done his best. Oh, shut up Big R.! Anyway, why did you do it?
Do what?
You know what. And there’s no point in looking all innocent.
It was a joke, right, and pretty funny too. Anyway, if it had worked I would have escaped from you and had a new life. I don’t regret it for a moment. It was the action of a prisoner making a bid for his freedom. It was a brave and noble action.
You’re giving the game away. Who’s telling the story here? Right, readers, Big R. found a raffle ticket lying on the table next to him and dipped it in the jam jar (which he had to open first, which was supposed to be one of the prizes) and then stuck it on his chest.
Number 423!
I don’t think we need to go into that level of detail, thank you very much.
‘Roll up, roll up. Fantastic prizes.’ Mr. Treacher was doing his best, bless him, but his normally cheery smiling face was looking a bit down in the dumps by this time.
‘Hey, Mum,’ said a child’s voice. Wendy it was. You’ll meet Wendy later on in the stories but you might as well meet her now. She was one of these children who always managed to get herself into trouble. A genius for making bad decisions and causing mayhem round her. She had bright green eyes and a mop of uncontrollable red hair. She hadn’t a malicious bone in her body, but she was a mischievous imp with charm. A deadly combination.
Can’t you ever tell it like it is? Wendy is a sport, as humans go, a pretty nice person. She stuck up for me at any rate and would have done the right thing if you’d allowed her to. It was all your fault, the fuss. It certainly wasn’t mine.
Wendy ran over to the stall, dragging her mother by her arm. ‘Look, Mum. Look at that frog.’
‘Cool frog’ were actually the words she used, but no matter!
She pushed through the crowds and elbowed her way through to the front of the crowd and reached out to stroke Big R.
‘I want him, Mum,’ she said.
‘Well, you’ll have to buy a ticket first little girl,’ said Mr. Treacher, bending down and smiling his tooth-gapped smile straight into her face. He looked a little confused at the sight of Big R.. He knew him of course. Everyone knew Big R.. He didn’t question the fact that he was sitting on his stall, though. Not very bright, Mr. Treacher. Wendy, understandably recoiled from the teacher’s face bearing down on her.
‘What are you particularly going for?’ he asked her and stood up straight again. Wendy’s Mum dug in her pocket for the 50p and handed it over.
‘Him!’ Wendy replied in an awed voice, pointing to Big. R.. ‘He’s lovely.’
She actually said: Look, Mum, have you ever seen anything as beautiful as that frog? He’s the most beautiful thing I ever saw in my whole life and if I could win him I’d be the happiest person in the whole wide world, and I’d do my homework every night and I’d walk the dog and wash the dishes and never be cheeky again and I wouldn’t fight with my sister and I…
They get the picture. She quite liked you. Well, luckily at that point I was coming over in that direction to find you and I noticed there was a huge crowd building up by Mr. Treacher’s stall. I was surprised because I’d seen the sort of stuff he had on it. And then I saw Big R. Sitting plum on top of a stack of magazines like some king on a throne with this messy-looking raffle ticket on his chest. It looked as if the area around the ticket was bleeding and for a moment I was quite concerned. And then I saw the raspberry-jam jar beside him and realised what he’d done! Sigh.
Yeah, well, no one was going to but that horrible stuff anyway. It smelt revolting. Now, a good pot of beetle jam, now there’s something worth having a stall for. There’s nothing like the smell of all those marinated beetles when you first take the top off. Mm. Gor-geous!
Shut UP!
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ I asked him, pulling him by the arm off the stall, when he languished by my feet pretending to be hard done-by.
‘Hey!’ said Mrs. Walters (Wendy’s mum). ‘It’s in the raffle.’
‘I’m sorry to say he isn’t,’ I replied nervously. I’d seen Mrs. Walters crossed at a Parents Evening once, and she’d nearly bitten the deputy head’s head off when she said Wendy was a disruptive child and perhaps needed some special attention. ‘There’s been a mix-up. He isn’t supposed to be on the stall at all. He…’
‘He?’ Mrs. Walters narrowed her eyes and peered closely at me. ‘Are you one of the teachers from the school?’
‘Er, yes,’ I replied. I wasn’t sure I liked the way this conversation was going.
‘And you call that frog ‘he’?’
I smiled sheepishly. I thought, wisely, that the less I said in this situation, the better.
‘So how did it get on the stall? Hop up by itself, did it?’ I kept my hand over Big R’s mouth. I knew he would say something if I didn’t. Mrs. Walters sneered. ‘Come on, Wendy. These teachers are all off their heads. I’m telling you, the quicker you can leave full-time education the better.’
‘I’ll leave it tomorrow if you want, Mother,’ said Wendy in that holier-than-thou voice she often adopted in the presence of authority. I wonder if her mother found it as irritating as I did. They disappeared back through the crowd to murmurs of sympathy and understanding.
‘Well, thank you very much,’ I said to Big R. as we made our way - through sniggers and sneers and cat-calls and shouts of things I don’t wish to repeat - through the crowd. He just hrrumphed at me a few times and sulked for the rest of the day.
‘Just tell me why you did it?’ I asked him that evening as we sat after supper – he with a glass of beetle wine and me with a glass of chardonnay. I’d had to take him home with me because the classrooms were all locked up and the caretaker wasn’t going to let anyone in the rooms, even though he had his keys and our classroom was facing onto the carpark. Ah well, never mind.
Big R. was looking round the poky flat sipping his wine, and grimaced, and looked at me without trying to hide his contempt, ‘I can’t imagine,’ he said in sarcastic answer to my perfectly reasonable question as to why he’d behaved in the way he had. He lapsed back into silence. The rest of that weekend wasn’t very pleasant. Big R. seemed to think I’d done him a disservice in some way. Every time I opened a topic of conversation he simply ignored me or looked at me with withering silence and then turned away. He’d mutter things like he wanted to see the world and travel and rubbish like that, but he was always going on about that. When he finally went to Francehe, or I should say, I, got into terrible trouble at customs, when they opened my luggage and found him lurking inside.
I do not lurk!
You did that day. And the officials thought I was being rude about calling French people frogs or something. I didn’t catch all the man yelled at me. Anyway, where was I? Ah yes. It didn’t go away, this incident of the Bring and Buy sale, either. The kids at school seemed to think the whole thing was hilarious. They had no problems with Big R. being more than he seemed – in fact they took it for granted. It was the way he treated me that was the source of so much merriment, apparently. They loved the fact that he was rude to me and didn’t care who saw it.
Well, that was the last time I was taking Big R. to a raffle. I’d now like to get on to some of the more interesting things that Big R. got up to, because despite the fact that he drives me wild sometimes…