Frognapped by Angie Sage

1
BARRY’S FROGS
    â€œA raminta, where have you put my frogs?”
    What kind of question is that? But last week that is exactly what Barry Wizzard asked me.
    I did not answer.
    I did not answer because when someone in Spookie House has lost something they always say, “Araminta, where have you put my…?” You can fill in the blank with anything you likeand chances are, someone will have thought that I put it somewhere. I do not know why.
    Take yesterday, for instance. Wanda Wizzard, who lives with me in Spookie House—along with her parents, Barry and Brenda, and my aunt Tabitha and uncle Drac—asked me where I had put her green socks. Wanda is supposed to be my best friend, although you’d never believe it from the way she talks to me. So I asked Wanda why she thought I would want to even touch her smelly old green socks, let alone put them somewhere, and she just smiled the irritating smile that she has learned from my aunt Tabby and said, “How do I know, Araminta?” So I told her they were in the compost heap at the bottom of the garden. She came back hours later with eggshells and moldy carrot tops inher hair and she didn’t ask again.
    But Barry did ask again. “Araminta,” he said, sounding snappy.
    â€œYes, Barry?” I replied politely, even though I just knew what he was going to say. Which he did.
    â€œWhere have you put my frogs ?”
    It was very trying. Wanda and I were busy, we had things to do. Wanda was building a house to put some small spiders in so they did not get eaten by the big spiders. And because that was unfair to the big spiders, I was building a house for them . Building a spider house is not easy, but Barry did not care because Barry thinks only about his frogs. They are acrobatic frogs, which means they do lots of tricks, like jumping over each other and turning cartwheels.And, they can do a frog pyramid, which I guess is all right if you like that sort of thing. Barry has—or rather Barry had —five frogs, and he had names for them all, but I can’t remember them as they were silly frog names like Ermintrude and Gonzilla.

    Barry stood right in front of me, tapping his pointy blue shoes like he was waiting for someone who was late. “It’s not funny anymore, Araminta,” he said.
    I finished gluing the roof onto the spider house and then I made sure that I looked like I was thinking very carefully about what Barry had said. “I did not think it was funny in the first place actually, Barry,” I said. “I have better things to do than put a bunch of stupid frogs anywhere .”
    â€œYou haven’t put them in the bath againand let the water out, have you, Araminta?” he asked.
    â€œNo, I haven’t. Anyway, it wasn’t I who took the plug out. It was Aunt Tabby. I was just giving them a nice swim.”
    â€œThe water was hot, Araminta.”
    â€œI was only trying to warm them up. They looked cold.”
    â€œThey looked even colder when I fished them out of the drain, Araminta.”
    Have you noticed that when someone is annoyed with you they keep on saying your whole name? It is a real giveaway. Aunt Tabby can say as many times as she likes, “No, I am not annoyed with you, Araminta, I am just disappointed, that is all.” But I know she is annoyed because of the “Araminta” part. My uncle Drac always callsme Minty and he is never annoyed with me, so that proves it.
    I could see that Barry was not going to believe me about the frogs, so when Wanda said, “We’ll go and look for them if you like, Dad. Won’t we, Araminta?” I thought I had better say “Yes, Wanda” and smile like I was very keen to do it.
    Barry and Wanda both looked at me in a suspicious way, but there is no pleasing some people.
    Â 
    Spookie House is a huge house. I do not know how many rooms there are because whenever I start counting I am sure that some of them move