Growing Alone

• Jazmin Rybicki, Grade 3, Cowaramup Primary School
• Short Story
• 2014

Excellence Award in the 'The Text Generation 2014' competition

One ordinary day in Perth there was a lake called Swan Lake. The sky was blue, there were reeds and lily pads. Under the water it was muddy and cool. Laying on a mossy rock under water was frogspawn and tiny baby tadpoles, inside jelly like eggs.
A few weeks later you could see the tadpoles nibbling on the jelly eggs. One by one the tadpoles were popping out. A girl frog called Fifi nibbled her way out. It felt so good to be out. She stretched her tail. When she finally got her colours it turned out she was blue, red and green. When she looked into her mirror, a pearl, she’d lost her tail and had back legs. She was astonished.
That night she grew more and grew back legs as well as her front legs. In the morning Fifi received a message from a seahorse. He said “Miss Fifi, your parents have been eaten by a tree snake and you are ready for the surface.” Fifi felt panic about being up there alone but she went up to the surface. Boy, she got a huge shock of embarrassment. How could any frog panic about going to the surface when it’s so pretty?
Fifi grew up and fit in with the other frogs of her type. She never worried about her Mum and Dad again. Fifi said “Why worry. Their spirits are still with me.” Fifi had friends and learnt about poison and toads, but that still didn’t stop her adventurous mind. Fifi was a talented frog and that’s a fact.