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By Root 114 0

GPS told me to, and then I was there. It was hotter than where I lived; the blinding new pavement barely concealed the desert. I was much too early, so I drove up and down the streets, past rows of identical new houses. I could picture the man who’d built them, a hammer in one hand and the other hand hitting his forehead for the thousandth time as he stepped back from his newest creation and saw that it was, once again, exactly like the last house he’d built, the one next door. I hate it when I keep having the same bad idea, so I could empathize with him. It seemed like a tough neighborhood for a bullfrog that was just getting started, a tadpole. I hurried back to the address, now late. I’m always late and it’s always because I get there too early.

Andrew turned out to be a seventeen-year-old with three ponds in his backyard. Teenage boys never really made sense to me, and I’ve pretty much avoided them since high school. But Andrew was the one kind of teenage boy I was familiar with: the sweet, curious loner. My brother had also built ponds in high school. Andrew’s ponds were thick with water hyacinths and the special fish that eat mosquito eggs. Actual lily pads floated in the sun and the frogs seemed happy, as suburban frogs go.

Miranda:

How’d you make this?

Andrew:

I just dug.

Miranda:

Did you read about ponds, or how did you figure it out?

Andrew:

I didn’t really read about it. People just told me. Everything ended up working out little by little.

Miranda:

What do you like about it?

Andrew:

I don’t know. It’s just relaxing. Watching all this, it relaxes me a lot.

I nodded, pretending I was relaxed. I watched the sunlight sparkling on the water and practiced mind-body integration for a few seconds by quietly hyperventilating.

Miranda:

Had you ever put an ad in the PennySaver before?

Andrew:

I never really tried it. It arrives every Wednesday or Thursday. I just started looking at it and said, “Let me try that.” I just wanted to try it out to see. It actually kind of did work out.

Miranda:

Oh, really? Have people bought the tadpoles?

Andrew:

Yeah. People enjoy them. They were kind of shocked, because nobody could really find a bullfrog tadpole.

Miranda:

So the tadpoles are here?

Andrew:

Let me take this plant out and you’ll see.

He lifted a pile of dripping plants and scooped up a tadpole in a handful of water.

Miranda:

Wow, they’re really getting pretty froglike. I thought they’d be smaller. It must be kind of exciting, because suddenly you’re going to have a lot of – I mean, how quickly is this happening?

Andrew:

The transformation?

Miranda:

Yeah.

Andrew:

It’s pretty fast. I’d say there are a couple of weeks left for this one.

Miranda:

Am I picturing the right kind, with the big white thing that’ll make a noise like – well, I’m not gonna make the noise.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Miranda:

So that’ll be kind of amazing – you’ll have this sound.

Andrew:

Everywhere, yeah. It’s really loud.

Miranda:

That’ll be kind of surprising in the neighborhood.

Andrew watched carefully as a pigeon tried to decide where to land and then nervously perched next to the pond.

Andrew:

Look at the pigeon. I’ve never seen that before. The pond attracts wildlife. It attracts all kinds of animals.

Miranda:

Like what other kinds?

Andrew:

Lizards too.

Miranda:

I guess most of the city must not seem very welcoming for an animal, so this is like a little…

Andrew:

Yeah, their habitat.

Miranda:

What if, as we stand here, like, lions and antelopes start to come?

Andrew:

That’d be crazy.

Miranda:

And what do your parents do? Are they at work now?

Andrew:

My dad just got laid off from the district. He used to work in Buena Park next to Knott’s Berry Farm. He was a custodian. He got laid off, so now he’s at home. We’re spending more time with him now. My mother, she works at Kaiser.

I was burning in the sun, so we went inside, tip-toeing past the father watching TV and into Andrew’s room. I instinctively shut the door behind us,