Growing House

FICTION

by Madison Ellingsworth

          On a chaise longue in the shadow of our fountain, Mother popped peanuts into her mouth and gave herself a pedicure. 
         “Peg-Peg is getting very fat,” she said. “He just stares at his stone girlfriend.” 
         I opened my eye a slit and looked down. Our frog, Peg-Peg, sagged on the ground. His bulbous eyes stared up at the anthropomorphic frog fount. It dribbled water from a hose installed in its mouth. 
         “He’s been fat,” I muttered, finishing my daiquiri. Olive oil was sizzling on my chest and the air smelled of barbecue. I listened to Peg-Peg’s feet slapping on the ground as he waddled closer to his beloved fountain. Pellets floated on the surface, swollen with water. 
         “He’s not even eating,” Mother moaned. During our first few days of having him, Peg-Peg had been an excited hopper, but he was turning into a real loafer. 
         “Maybe he’s too hot,” I suggested. Big dark spots were growing on the backs of my red eyelids. With a sigh, Mother screwed the lid back on her nail polish and got up, toes spread wide with tissues.
         Walking carefully, she dragged the hose over and turned it on the shower setting. She ran the water over Peg-Peg. He squatted with his thin filmy eyelids closed and expressed no excitement. 
         Mother huffed and cast the hose aside. 
         “Let him chill,” I told her. 

         Days went by and Peg-Peg got more and more bloated. Mother developed a new theory with every passing afternoon. 
         “He is blocked up.” 
         “He has an eating disorder.” 
         “He is hibernating.” 
         Peg-Peg looked like a tick about to pop. A fat frog is better than a skinny one, I told Mother. However, when he had not eaten for a week, she decided enough was enough. 
         “I’m taking him to the doctor,” Mother declared. “What if I did nothing and he exploded?” 
         She called the vet and poked holes in a Tupperware container. 
         Early the next morning, another daiquiri in hand, I went to watch Peg-Peg steeping in the fountain. His wide head poked above the water line. I pitied him. He shouldn’t have to go to the vet. He was only as fat as every neighborhood dog. I knelt down. 
         “Tough break,” I told Peg-Peg. His eyes were two empty saucers, lined with exhaustion. He looked as if he had aged a year in a day—as if he understood that something was wrong. 
         But, as I continued to stare, I realized that it was not the tired eyes that made Peg-Peg look older. It was his thin appearance. There was no longer a double chin wobbling under his frog neck, and the bulk hanging beneath the water looked droopy and loose. I blinked, confused. Peg-Peg had changed overnight. I yelled for Mother.
         “Where’s my Peggie?” she sang, sashaying out of the back door. She knelt down next to me. I watched her head incline.
         “Not fat?” she asked. The longer we looked, the clearer it became. 
         “Not fat,” I asserted.
         Mother leapt to her feet. “Peggie!” She gasped, realizing just before I did what had happened. 
         Lining the edges of the fountain were clumps of bubbles, some nestled amongst the duckweed, and others attached to rocky structures. Inside of each bubble was a little black dot. The cause of Peg-Peg’s swelling had been simple: he had been pregnant. Pregnant, lethargic, and bloating in the sweltering summer heat. 
         It has been a year, and Peg-Peg’s offspring have grown into thick, rubbery things, with mouths that open them up like wallets. We have added flats of floating plants to keep the fountain interesting, but it has not been enough. The frog babies just keep growing, spawning with their relatives, and jumping all over the place. 
         “Don’t touch your sister!” Mother used to yell at them, but it was a lost cause.
         They came for the yard first. Then they took the house. It was tough getting used to frogs filling the house, but now I cannot imagine sleeping without them in my bed. The small ones keep to their fountain hatchery, but we still have to leave the bathroom light on at night. We have to make sure the big ones are not in the toilet when we sit. 
         Stretched out on a chaise longue next to Mother, I while away the remaining summer afternoons. Peg-Peg sits on her lap and my daiquiri sits on mine. Both drip water onto our bellies. 
         I focus on the calming way that Peg-Peg’s eyes follow Mother’s finger—up, down, up, down—as she strokes the skin between his nostrils. The air is filled with the scent of meat grilled in olive oil. I tune in to the sound of a hundred splatting feet hop, hop, hopping, and I drift away.