Frog Funeral

Slimy Guy, our pet frog, died yesterday. Noah didn't want to have the funeral without his friend Maddie, because she's the one who found the tadpole at the lake last summer. She kept him in her garage in a cooler for a week, but then her mom needed to use the cooler, and somehow we were awarded custody of the tadpole. By fall, he had become a frog, and we were feeding him flies and crickets that we captured. When the weather started getting cold, I suggested that we release Slimy Guy at the lake so he could "find a wife" before winter. Noah became so upset that he cried hysterically for days. He kept sobbing about how he wanted Slimy Guy to have a wife, but he just couldn't bear to let him go. I ended up buying a fire belly toad at the pet store to be Slimy Guy's wife. So instead of getting rid of the one frog we had, we ended up with two. I had to buy crickets at the pet store to feed them. All was well for several weeks, until yesterday when Slimy went belly up. I called Maddie and invited her and her sister to the funeral. After school, they dutifully turned up to mourn. Sarah hugged them both and said, "I'm sorry for your loss." We gathered around the toilet for a lovely ceremony, and Sarah flushed the body. Noah seemed fine, but later, we were looking at a picture of Noah taking a bath with Slimy Guy, and that started the tears. It took him a long, long time to fall asleep last night because he was so sad. The pictures show Slimy Guy on Noah's head, and the sad mourners at the funeral.