And then Bob made a decision.
He jumped up and ran after the tiny baby froglet.
The froglet saw Bob chasing him and hopped faster, but not because it was trying to escape. It was playing a game of catch-me-if-you-can with its new friend.
As Bob ran, his running turned into hopping. Soon he was hop, hop, hopping after the froglet.
Then Bob’s long, human legs turned into two hind frog legs and his arms turned into two front frog legs. Bob’s skin turned green, he sprouted a couple of warts, his eyes bulged out just like frog eyes, and all of a sudden—POOF! Bob was a tiny frog!
He wasn’t quite as tiny as the tiny baby froglet, because Bob was not a baby. He was a kid. Well, actually, a former kid, because now he was a frog.
“Ribbit! Ribbit!” Bob the frog said. It was really fun to say, so he said it some more. “Ribbit! Ribbit! Ribbit!”
“Ribbit! Ribbit!” the froglet said.
Bob and the tiny baby froglet played catch-me-if-you-can all afternoon. They hopped to the muddy bog (where frogs like to go) and splashed about and caught lots of flies with their long, grubby, groggy, froggy tongues. If you’ve never eaten a fly before, well, they taste pretty delicious. At least, Bob and the froglet sure thought so. Yum!
They found the froglet’s many brothers and sisters and cousins and friends—who had all thought that the froglet had been run over with its parents. You can imagine how thrilled they were to see that the froglet had just been lost for a few days. They all loved meeting Bob and made him feel like a part of the family.
His entire life, Bob had thought he was happy as a kid, but this was soooooo much better.
And that is how Bob, the boy who lived on the other side of the tracks in a box, became a happy little frog living in a muddy bog.
Ribbit! Ribbit!
This is the last story. Finally! It is a ghost story and it is scary, so if you don’t like to be scared, then you shouldn’t read it. If you do find yourself quaking and shaking, remember it is just a story and you can stop. You can read one of the other stories instead.
Above the Waddlebee Toy Store on Cattywampus Street, there were two apartments. In one lived a brave and clever girl named Ursula, with her mother, her father, and her twin baby brothers, Egor and Igor.
In the other lived Mr. and Mrs. Waddlebee. They had been there since before Ursula’s parents. In fact, they had opened the Waddlebee Toy Store a long, long time ago, and Mrs. Waddlebee was the shopkeeper. That’s right! The grumbly one you may have already read about.
Ursula loved visiting the Waddlebees. Well, actually, she loved visiting Mr. Waddlebee. To be honest, Mrs. Waddlebee was mean, but Mr. Waddlebee made up for it by being kind. And they always had yummy cookies.
By and by, there came the day when Mrs. Waddlebee died. She was old, and that can happen. Mr. Waddlebee built a wooden coffin and put Mrs. Waddlebee’s body in it.
He said some nice things at the funeral, such as how Mrs. Waddlebee liked to twiddle her thumbs. Ursula’s parents said some nice things, such as how Mrs. Waddlebee loved the store so much she would yell at anyone who came in. Egor and Igor said, “Waddley-doddley-bee!” because it was fun to say.
Now Ursula had to say something about Mrs. Waddlebee. She thought and thought. Finally, she said, “She made yummy cookies.”
“Actually, I made the cookies,” Mr. Waddlebee said kindly. “And I still will, so come over any time.”
Then they all watched as the coffin was lowered into the ground and covered with dirt.
The next evening, while Ursula’s father was making supper and Ursula was in charge of the twins, a big storm rolled in. The wind howled, thunder boomed, and rain poured down. Egor’s and Igor’s little toddler legs trembled. “Wah, wah, scary!” they cried.
“Let’s get a cookie from Mr. Waddlebee,” Ursula suggested. The twins stopped crying and clapped their little hands.
They all put on their shoes and headed across the hall to Mr. Waddlebee’s. Ursula knocked, but there was no answer.
Where could he be in this big storm? she wondered. She creaked open the door, and she and the twins slipped inside. “Hellooo?” she called. Her voice echoed through the silent apartment.
Thunder rumbled. The twins jumped back. But there was no answer from Mr. Waddlebee. However, there was a yummy smell.
They followed the smell into the kitchen, where there was a plate of warm cookies right in the middle of the table. The cookies looked so delicious that Ursula grabbed one and bit into it.
Ow! She almost broke her tooth. It was a really hard cookie!
The twins yelled, “Cookie! Cookie!”
“Sorry,” Ursula said. “These are too hard for your baby teeth.” She put a cookie in her pocket anyway. Maybe it would soften up later.
The twins cried, “Wah! Wah!” Thunder went BOOM!, and they cried even more.
“I’ve got an idea!” Ursula said. “Let’s go to the toy store.” She knew that toys would distract them and that the side door of the store was never locked.
“TOYS!” the twins hollered in glee, toddling back out of Mr. Waddlebee’s and down the stairs, with Ursula right behind.
A wild gust of wind shook the entire building. Egor and Igor were startled for a second but then kept going—they were excited to get to the toys.
As they entered the side door, the little bell went jing-a-ling-ling. Ursula turned on the light, and the twins oohed and aahed and ran off to play.
Ursula headed over to a shelf of rag dolls. Which one should she play with? They all looked fun, except for one with a mean face. When Ursula moved closer, she thought she saw it twiddling its thumbs and sneering at her with its shiny pink button mouth.
Then—BOOM! CRACK!—thunder roared and lightning sparked. The electric light flickered, buzzed, fizzled, and went out.
“WAAH!” screamed Egor and Igor from the back of the store, and then there was silence.
It was completely dark. Ursula couldn’t see a thing. She stumbled down the shadowy aisle. She walked into a cobweb. Ack. Her arm rubbed along something gooey. Eww. The floor under her feet creaked. “Egor? Igor?” she whispered.
Where oh where could they be?
All was still…until suddenly, a raspy voice that was definitely not the twins’ echoed, “OoooOoooOooo….” There was a thump like something falling. The air grew icy cold, a murky shadow flashed by, and footsteps scurried across the floor.
“Wh-who’s there?” Ursula stuttered.
Bump! A ball rolled off one of the dusty top shelves—it was a magic one, because it glowed just enough for her to see Egor and Igor huddled in the corner, frozen in fear.
In front of them hovered a giant doll, faded ghostly white. Its clothes were ratted and torn, and its wild yellow yarn hair stood on end.
Ursula screamed.
If you are petrified now and want to stop reading, I wouldn’t blame you. But if you like being scared, keep going. It’s about to get even scarier.
As lightning flashed outside, the giant doll turned around. It glared at Ursula with piercing red eyes, then opened its pink button mouth and moaned, “Ooo-Oooo-Ooooo-OOOOOO!”
But that wasn’t the scariest thing.
The scariest thing was that it held a knife, dripping in blood.
Ursula wanted to run, but she had to protect the twins, right? So she ignored her quivering insides, put her hands on her hips, stared into the doll’s eyes, and demanded, “Who are you?”
“I am the ghost of Mrs. Waddlebeeeee-eee-eee,” the doll howled. “Now that I am dead, no one can play in my store!” The ghost-doll loomed over Ursula. It raised the bloody knife. “Now I am going to kill YOU and your little brothers, too! Hahaha!”
Thunder boomed. The twins screamed. Ursula quaked all over. She stared at the sharp blade of the kni
fe coming closer to her face. Closer. And closer.
Was this the end for Ursula?
She squeezed her eyes shut. She put her hand in her pocket and…What was that? The cookie from Mr. Waddlebee’s. Ursula took it out and held it in front of her like a shield at the exact second the ghost-doll thrust the knife.
And you know what? The knife went into the cookie instead of Ursula!
You would think that would make the cookie crumble, but remember, this was a really hard cookie. In fact, the cookie was so hard that the knife broke! Hundreds of little bits of metal shattered onto the wooden floor and fell between the cracks.
The ghost-doll was aghast. It shuddered and shook, flapped its arms and spun around. With a long hissssssss, it twisted and shrank, then collapsed into a small pile.
Everything was quiet. Even the storm had stopped.
“Bye-bye?” the twins asked, staring at the lifeless little doll on the floor.
“I don’t know,” Ursula said. She touched it with the tip of her shoe. It didn’t move, so she leaned down and poked it with her finger. The rag head flopped and Ursula jumped.
They all held their breath and waited, but the doll lay still. Ursula picked it up by a leg and shook it. With a final whhhttt, it turned to dust and vanished in the air.
The ghost was gone. Phew!
The three of them ran out the side door, up the stairs, and straight into their apartment, where they found their dinner waiting for them. And their mother and father, too!
The twins went, “Waddley-doddley-BOO!” But Ursula didn’t say anything. She knew that a ghost, even though it was gone, would make her parents worry.
“Let’s eat,” Ursula’s father said. And they did.
After supper, Ursula knocked on Mr. Waddlebee’s door.
“Come in,” he yawned, waking from a nap. Ursula was very happy to see him, and he was very happy to see her. He gave her a cookie. Ursula took a bite, and this time, it was soft and delicious! She ate the whole thing and took two more for the twins.
Now Mr. Waddlebee ran the toy store. He dusted off the shelves and let everyone come in and play any time they wanted. They didn’t even have to buy anything. Ursula (and Egor and Igor) and all the other kids on Cattywampus Street—Lionel, Lindalee, Hans, Evelyn, Charlotta, Rodney, Mateo, Ameera, Emmett, and even Bob the frog—went whenever they could, and they all had a grand time! And there was never, ever another ghost. At least, not a scary one.
Ooo-Oooo-Ooooo-OOOOOO!
I hope that you have enjoyed these stories, because for now, I’ve told you as much as I can. If you want to know more, you’ll have to go to Cattywampus Street yourself and meet up with Lionel, Lindalee, Hans, Evelyn, Charlotta, Rodney, Mateo, Ameera, Emmett, Bob, and Ursula, and they might tell you the rest. You can probably find them at the Waddlebee Toy Store or somewhere nearby.
But if you go, watch out—something odd or mysterious, silly or scary, happy or even sad might happen to you. Because while these stories may be done, yours have just begun.
Ooo-Oooo-Ooooo-OOOOOO!
Ribbit! Ribbit!
Sguiggle, wiggle.
La-la-la.
Chee-chee-chee!
Zzzzzz….
Wah, wah. Woof, woof.
Boo-hoo. Boo-hoo-hoo.
Yum, yum.
Yippee!
And jing-a-ling-ling.
This is a photograph of me, Lisa Jahn-Clough, when I was nine years old. Back then, I lived on a farm with my mother, father, and older brother, plus three goats, two sheep, a horse, a dog, a lot of cats, guinea pigs, two parakeets, and a monkey (yes, it’s true)—all of whom I loved very much.
When I wasn’t in school or doing chores, I spent time playing outside, reading, and making up stories and writing them down. Some of them were strange, funny, scary, happy, or even sad, just like the ones in this book.
Now I am much older and live in a town with a little dog named Wally, a tiny poodle named Cisco, a large cat named Willa Catter, and a person named Ed. I have written some other books besides this one. You can find out more at lisajahnclough.com.
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The Kids of Cattywampus Street Page 5