he was not there.
Four
The wire mesh top was knocked clear off the glass prison and lay on the floor, bricks and all. One brick had taken the Gro-Lite down with it to sprawl on the linoleum like a corpse made of twisted metal and a shattered glass bulb; the aquarium hulked dark. At first Buffy thought Adamus might still be in there. Classic denial. She turned on the ceiling light and thundered over to look.
No frog.
Where was he? Had somebody broken into her house and stolen her frog? No, the evidence pointed to an escape. A kitchen cabinet door hung open. An empty Cheerios box lay prostrated amid oat dust. Hungry frog. Oh, poor baby. He had probably leaped at the top of the aquarium until it fell off. Strength of desperation.
âAdamus!â Buffy called.
There was, of course, no answer.
âAddie, Iâm sorry, Iâll fix you breakfast from now on.â Heâd better damn well like Pop-Tarts. âWhere are you?â
No answer.
Could he have left the house? Buffy checked the doors and windows, feeling cold and afraid for unexamined reasonsâthere was no time to analyze her emotions; she needed to find Adamus.
The windows were locked, the doors likewise. He had to be still in the house. She didnât see how he could have gotten out.
âAddie!â
Nothing.
She searched, forced to assume that he was hiding from herâbut where? She tried watery places. The toiletâthank God he wasnât in there. The bathtubâno. The laundry tub and washing machine in the basementâno. The kitchen sink, then under the kitchen sinkânothing.
Then she started over and simply looked every place she could think of. In the deep, dark, dirty corners of kitchen cupboards. Under tables. Behind furniture.
Three hours later, Buffy had made her third full sweep of the house. She had moved every piece of furniture. She had emptied every cubbyhole large enough to hold a frog. Yearsâ worth of quiet, peaceable dirt had been disturbed and now aspired to the status of dust in the wind, agitating her sinuses. The place looked like somebody had turned it upside down and shaken it; even the attic dirt was on the move. Buffy hadnât had her supper and what was worse, she didnât want any. And she hadnât found Addie.
He just wasnât anywhere. He was gone. Just plain gone. Somehow he must have found a way out of the house while she was at work.
It was dark outside.
She gave up, sat her hunkers on a kitchen chair, and stared at the darkness outside the window as only an exhausted middle-aged woman can stare. Adamus. Gone. Now she was never going to know his goddamn story.
Now he would not listen to hers anymore.
Damn it, for all that he talked and talked, he was the only one who listened to her. Talking frog, hell, what she needed was her listening frog back again.
Why did everybody have to go and leave her?
She stood up. âIâm going to bed,â she muttered, although there was no one to hear her or care. She walked to the desolation of her bedroomâit looked as though a bomb had dropped in thereâpulled some clothes off, crawled onto her cheap mattress, and huddled under her blankets. At least she would get a good nightâs sleep for a change. There was nobody around to bother her.
Story of her life.
She wept.
Never in her life had Buffy learned to cry with any modicum of dignity. Once, when she was a child of about ten years old and she was crying and being annoying, her mother had ordered her to look into the mirror and see how ugly she was. The twisted redness of her own face had shocked her, and ever since then she had resisted crying and was therefore all the more fated to cry unaesthetically. Some women could cry graceful, silent Audrey Hepburn tears; Buffy was not one of those. She wonked, she honked, she bellowed, she quacked, she bawled, she roared. Her own noise humiliated her and made her cry louder. She traumatized the house to its
Four
The wire mesh top was knocked clear off the glass prison and lay on the floor, bricks and all. One brick had taken the Gro-Lite down with it to sprawl on the linoleum like a corpse made of twisted metal and a shattered glass bulb; the aquarium hulked dark. At first Buffy thought Adamus might still be in there. Classic denial. She turned on the ceiling light and thundered over to look.
No frog.
Where was he? Had somebody broken into her house and stolen her frog? No, the evidence pointed to an escape. A kitchen cabinet door hung open. An empty Cheerios box lay prostrated amid oat dust. Hungry frog. Oh, poor baby. He had probably leaped at the top of the aquarium until it fell off. Strength of desperation.
âAdamus!â Buffy called.
There was, of course, no answer.
âAddie, Iâm sorry, Iâll fix you breakfast from now on.â Heâd better damn well like Pop-Tarts. âWhere are you?â
No answer.
Could he have left the house? Buffy checked the doors and windows, feeling cold and afraid for unexamined reasonsâthere was no time to analyze her emotions; she needed to find Adamus.
The windows were locked, the doors likewise. He had to be still in the house. She didnât see how he could have gotten out.
âAddie!â
Nothing.
She searched, forced to assume that he was hiding from herâbut where? She tried watery places. The toiletâthank God he wasnât in there. The bathtubâno. The laundry tub and washing machine in the basementâno. The kitchen sink, then under the kitchen sinkânothing.
Then she started over and simply looked every place she could think of. In the deep, dark, dirty corners of kitchen cupboards. Under tables. Behind furniture.
Three hours later, Buffy had made her third full sweep of the house. She had moved every piece of furniture. She had emptied every cubbyhole large enough to hold a frog. Yearsâ worth of quiet, peaceable dirt had been disturbed and now aspired to the status of dust in the wind, agitating her sinuses. The place looked like somebody had turned it upside down and shaken it; even the attic dirt was on the move. Buffy hadnât had her supper and what was worse, she didnât want any. And she hadnât found Addie.
He just wasnât anywhere. He was gone. Just plain gone. Somehow he must have found a way out of the house while she was at work.
It was dark outside.
She gave up, sat her hunkers on a kitchen chair, and stared at the darkness outside the window as only an exhausted middle-aged woman can stare. Adamus. Gone. Now she was never going to know his goddamn story.
Now he would not listen to hers anymore.
Damn it, for all that he talked and talked, he was the only one who listened to her. Talking frog, hell, what she needed was her listening frog back again.
Why did everybody have to go and leave her?
She stood up. âIâm going to bed,â she muttered, although there was no one to hear her or care. She walked to the desolation of her bedroomâit looked as though a bomb had dropped in thereâpulled some clothes off, crawled onto her cheap mattress, and huddled under her blankets. At least she would get a good nightâs sleep for a change. There was nobody around to bother her.
Story of her life.
She wept.
Never in her life had Buffy learned to cry with any modicum of dignity. Once, when she was a child of about ten years old and she was crying and being annoying, her mother had ordered her to look into the mirror and see how ugly she was. The twisted redness of her own face had shocked her, and ever since then she had resisted crying and was therefore all the more fated to cry unaesthetically. Some women could cry graceful, silent Audrey Hepburn tears; Buffy was not one of those. She wonked, she honked, she bellowed, she quacked, she bawled, she roared. Her own noise humiliated her and made her cry louder. She traumatized the house to its
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