Chapter V
Eunice wonders if she’s smart
“Froggy?”
“Yes Eunice.”
“Do you think I’m smart?”
After a moment of thought Froggy answered, “Yes, Eunice. I think you are as smart as any beetle I know.”
“But, I mean do you think I was ALWAYS smart. I mean do you think I was CLEVER, say, as a baby?”
“Now, Eunice,” said Froggy. “What’s all this about?”
“Welll,” said Eunice, ” I heard my mother talking to some other mothers and she said that I didn’t say a single word until I was TWO YEARS OLD!” And having said this, her lower lip began to quiver.
Now Froggy had to think fast, or she and Eunice would soon be standing in a pool of tears.
“Oh THAT,” said Froggy with a dismissive wave of the hand. “That’s true, Eunice. You didn’t say anything until you were two years old. But when you DID finally speak, it was in complete sentences.”
“Really?” said Eunice incredulously.
“Oh, yes. I remember as if it was only yesterday,” said Froggy, looking off into space as if to recapture some faraway thought. (Froggy, out of kindness, failed to mention that it would have been only yesterday, because a single day in regular time is about five years in beetle time.)
“You were sitting in your high chair,” continued Froggy, “wearing your blue bib, getting ready to eat some of your mother’s aphid porridge. You looked down at your hand, which was covered with soil from having made mud pies all morning. Then you said, as clear as day, “Who is dat dirty stuff ?”
Eunice’s eyes got very round. “In a complete sentence. . . . just like that?” asked Eunice.
“Just…..like…..that,” answered Froggy with a snap of her fingers.
“Wow,” breathed Eunice.
“Exactly,” said Froggy.
And after that, the two of them sat quietly together for quite some time; because, of course, there was nothing more to be said.
5.