STUMPY THE TOAD

 Stumpy the Toad

By 

Charles Mitchell Turner

One

     It was inevitable that Robbie should find such a door. You see, there are certain children behind which looms, in giant letters, the word PROBLEM. In Robbie’s case, it simply was not fair. He was not such a bad boy. Perhaps it was his silence, perhaps the refusal to give in, which made others feel so strongly about him. He was admired or disliked and there was nothing in between, for the lines were all too clearly drawn.

     Even the boy’s mother did not understand her son. She held a vague notion of a “bad seed,” one who by propensity is antisocial. It seemed at last to the ones who had say-so that a school of corrections could be the final answer.

     It was a solution that terrified Robbie.

     His friend, Maxie, had been there. He returned a changed boy. His frequent smiles turned in at the corners, good-natured jibes edged with bitterness, actions furtive, sneaky.

     No, it was a resolution Robbie could not abide.

     As you see, he simply had no choice. 

     When boots scuffled on the porch, the doorbell rang authoritatively, neutral voices carried through the hall to his ears in the bedroom, he looked in his closet and it was there. A low, gaping portal. It beckoned him through.

     He scrambled on all fours into the brightness beyond. 

     It was a deceptive radiance, spelled before a threatening sky. He was on a sandy lane at the outskirts of a village of scattered huts and stucco cottages.

     The hole leading from the house winked like an eye, then vanished.

     His escape was complete, then. He could not be followed. But, escape was not all; he would be freed further. 

     A change began inside his body. It was an adjustment and displacement of everything vital, a process begun within, spreading without, until his smooth body became all puffy, flesh covered with knotted, warty skin, his legs misshapen, elongated. His head too took on added lumps. With the transformation complete, he gazed at himself in a rain pool. The gray phantom of a toad returned the stare.

     “Hi,” he whispered hoarsely. “I’m Stumpy.”

     Already, Robbie seemed just a dream.

     Stumpy approached a stoop, an entrance glaring red in color. There seemed a familiar warmth about this cottage. The longer he stared at it the more certain he became that he ought to knock. Here was the home of somebody he knew.

     A familiar voice called out.

     “Stumpy? Why are you late? We don’t want to miss the funeral, do we?”

     It was Potty Lumpnee. She was like an aunt to Stumpy.

     “Oh, no. We can’t miss that.”

     Potty emerged from the house, wearing a black dress so long it hid her red velvet shoes, with dead flowers pinned to the bosom. A tiny parasol tried valiantly to shield her from the elements. Her hippopotamus face had been painted white, with red circle cheeks. Extra thick long lashes curled above innocent blue eyes. She put her arms about Stumpy and hugged him.

     They hurried to catch the end of the procession, which slowly moved from the village to a great rolling meadow, dotted with tombstones of granite and beautiful bouquets throughout.

     The ugly sky darkened as the villagers gathered about a bronze coffin. The speaker stood before the assemblage, intoning, “He is not dead, he is not dead …”

     The mourners filed past the casket, each saying a personal farewell. When Potty stepped up to the box she dropped the dead flowers onto the breast of the young one within. She kissed his cheek. Stumpy could not bear the pain one final look would bring.

     He wandered from the gathering until he entered a deep wood. Hours he spent, observing the forms of life with leaves, stems, and flowers and studying the ones with legs, eyes, hair, and feathers until it became just too overwhelming. The beauty and mystery of it sent him crashing deliriously into a pile of leaves 

.   He lay quietly on the coolness, with sighing trees bent, sky of rolling clouds, until he slept, unaware when the heavens wept.

     Later, Stumpy made his way back to the village.

     Potty was having tea and little cakes when he knocked.

     “Come in, dear.”

     Stuffing the cakes in her mouth two at a time, pieces fell out as she looked around.

     “Stumpy, come in.”

     She gulped half a cup of tea.

     “What a pleasure to see you.”

     “Hi, Potty.”

     “Are you feeling better?”

     “Potty, I don’t know who I am or what I’m supposed to do.”

     Potty freshened her tea, dumping in four spoonfuls of sugar. One nostril had been stuffed with toothpicks and a blue eye threatened to drop out of its hole. She tried to focus the good orb on Stumpy, but he would not quit vibrating. It was Stumpy, wasn’t it?

     “Is that you, Stumpy, dear? Alf was here a while ago, but he has gone off to sea again. He said to tell you he is sorry he missed you.”

     “Gee; cousin Alf. I am sorry I missed him, too.”

     “You are a warty little toad. Do you enjoy being that?”

     He nodded.

     “It suits me, here. The village will accept me this way.”

     “That’s fine, Stumpy, dear; but, who are you?”

     Potty smiled into her tea, in which floated hair clots and a lemon circle.

     “I cannot say. It is as if I am on my way to becoming, but I can’t know to what.”

     “That sounds like time.”

     “Perhaps a great deal of time.”

     Potty felt for more cakes, disappointed to find she had eaten them, every one. She pinched a few crumbs and pushed them into her mouth, her sigh just audible.

     The succeeding days were short, the weather brisk. Stumpy cut firewood for Potty and the neighbors. The pennies he earned were to pay for his new winter coat. He played in the village streets and several vacant fields with the neighborhood kids; Grunt the gopher, Scratch the weasel; Ginger the duck. Exuberant, pleasantly tired, he came in to the evening meal, which Potty always had ready. Feasts, of meat or fish, potatoes, greens, sweets. Everything a hungry youngster could dream of. 

     In the quiet evening hours, he helped her with special projects, such as mixing the colors with which she painted her face, or modeling the dress she sewed for Grunt’s mother. Much of the time was spent reading, or pleasantly talking.

     His contentment kept right on growing. He might easily have forgotten Robbie had the boy been peacefully sleeping. But there came a day when Robbie could be still no longer.

     “Potty, I am off to play. Scratch and Ginger should be waiting for me.”

     “Stumpy, are you truly happy? Would you choose to always live like this?”

     “I love you, Potty. I love everything here. If I had set out to create the perfect world, this would be it and you and I, Scratch, and all the others would be in it together.”

     “Yes. Yes …” Staring into space.

     “Your eyes.” Feeling separation. “Potty -”

     “Are you crying because you love me?”

     “Yes.”

     “Hurry now and meet with Scratch.”

     “’Bye, Potty. See you this evening.”

     “Kiss me good-bye.”

     The trees across the meadow were black. Through tall grass Stumpy raced against the wind, dogging the heels of Scratch the weasel, who knew no trace of fear. They stood on a hill, overlooking the exploded graveyard. The wind was suddenly still. Stumpy felt the chill creeping up his backbone. 

     Long after sunset, he made his way to the little cottage where he had been so happy. Potty Lumpnee did not answer the knock. He held an ear to the door, listening to voices inside. Clearly, someone had taken his place. 

     “Potty -” Stumpy choked.

     He ran.

     Beyond the village lay other lands. 

     He collapsed at the foot of a tree. For a long time, he lay breathing as hard as he could. How he wished Scratch could be here, that dauntless weasel.

     At the wish, a motion caught his eye. A familiar voice spoke.

     “Scratch here.”

     And he was there, with paws on hips, looking as saucy as ever.

     “Come on, Stumpy; we have got to be going.”

     For hours they continued in the direction Stumpy had been running until the path meandered and they were lost.

     “Come, let’s go,” Scratch cried, dashing on.

     “Wait,” Stumpy pleaded.

     Try as he would, he could not catch up. His friend faded over the horizon.

     He despaired. Why go on? He dearly wished to be with Potty, safe, and comforted.

     He saw across a patch of flowers a cottage with Potty on the stoop. He chased the image, pitching at last into a void with neither dark nor light nor color. Perhaps an eternity passed, or just a moment. Sailing or suspended; who could tell? Far off for just a flicker, he saw Scratch with Potty, cavorting in those flowers. Then a sensation of falling. 

     Returned to the coolness of the wood with tears scalding his cheeks, he lay on a soft shoulder of earth. Soon he got on his feet, cried out, resolved. He would forge ahead. Perhaps Scratch would be at the end, perhaps not. He faced that perhaps Scratch was lost to him forever. There would be other friends, new villages. He was strong. He would endure.