Little Kelly walked on the path her mama said was safe. She had to stay on the path, not kick the tones and broken pieces of brick lining both sides of the path, and not to put her feet in the pond, where the path ended.

It was early in the day. Too early for any big kids to be at the pond, they were still at school. Kelly’s mother kept her from school a lot. Mama told her if anybody should ask at any time, her tummy hurt when she woke up. But it got better after some crackers and juice and a nap. Kelly didn’t much like school anyway. She couldn’t understand why numbers changes when funny lines were between them. Why change a number? She did like coloring, though. Not in coloring books. That was hard. In Ms. Hoppes’ art time on Fridays, Kelly could color an entire thick white paper any color she wanted, not having to worry about black lines and whether or not she colored over them.

Kelly wished for frogs at the pond. She liked when they sang to her. She remembered she could not move too close to them, their heads just visible, breaking out of the water, making their gurgle-and-whine melody for her. They screamed and skipped across the water like green, floppy skipping stones across the ponds surface.

One time when she snuck too close and was caught by a lime-sized bullfrog, a long, long black snake chased after it, caught the hopper mid-hop, and then glided magic-like to the other side of the pond. Kelly was too worried to go see what the snake was doing to the frog to go look, but she had an idea it was trying to hide the frog from her, because she scared it.

When she made it to the end of the path, Kelly jumped with both feet as if she were her own manifestation of a cream-colored frog from the end of the to the edge of the pond, where there was a clear spot from the tall grasses and brushes. There was almost all of her fingers on one hand of spots where there was no tall grasses or bushes where she could be close to the water.

No feet in the water, though. Mama would be mad if her shoes and socks were wet and muddy.