When the Wind Blows

He learned that greatness comes from within and not from what a frog looks like on the outside. So many creatures tried to put Tad down because he was small, but now those voices had faded away into the past. Before him, out there somewhere by the water, his future laid ahead.

Shugatoo always said, “The greatest regret in life is not what we do, but what we choose not to do.”

I lost my clan too,” he said. “Not like you. We were attacked by dragonflies.”

Raindrop trembled at the thought. “You did? Can you tell me what happened?”

“Yes I can,” Tad said with a long, green face, thinking of his dear Shugatoo. “I belonged to the Rana tribe. We lived down the bayou near the red apple tree. One day a dragonfly called Caesar the Red came with his army. It was a sunny day when they flew down from the sky. They came out from
nowhere and snatched up my whole family, except for me. I was hiding.”

This was the first time Tad told anyone about that dreadful day in great detail and emotion. Before, he was living day to day, trying to survive. It was at that moment when the past became more than just a bad dream. It was real. Since the days of being a happy pollywog, Tad wanted his life to be the same. Other families hopped this way and that without a care. He wished his life could be like this too. Although his tribe was far from being perfect, they did hop together. How he wished he could have it back again. Now, the safety they once had together was just a distant memory, and he was on his own.

Tad swallowed the pain and refused to cry. “Raindrop, our lives are much the same. What are you going to do?” he asked.

“Can I stay with you?” Raindrop asked. “I have no place to go.” Raindrop looked at Tad with her big yellow puppy-frog eyes. “Can I? I’ll be no trouble at all.”

Tad thought, She can’t come with me, but he turned to her and said, “Yes. Of course you can. But I am going on a long journey tomorrow. I don’t know how long it will take. You can stay here with me tonight, but tomorrow you will need to make other plans.”

Tad never took care of anyone before. He didn’t know how

Tad was taught to be afraid of his own shadow, but this had to change. Now that he was on his own, he had no one to tell him what to do or how to feel. Although the voices of his past told him otherwise, Tad decided he was tired of being small and hiding from the world. On that day he made the bold move that if he could not be big then he would be bold.

Although he never actually experienced life outside the bayou, Tad had faith that the world held more than just the swamp and the sky. There had to be more out there, somewhere, and he was determined he would find it one day