CROAK! Croak! Croak!
p. 62 · Read in the full issue
A Tropical Interlude in Port Moresby
By June Lett
Then silence reigned in the lounge as two brown garden frogs hopped frorn behind a black-framed picture (depicting a woodland winter scene in the south of England!) onto the near side of the piano, and blinked at the electric light.
They hopped to the other end of the piano and blinked again. Then one, two, three hops to the door, and three large pops again right across the verandah into the centre of a large cactus in the garden.
Croak! Croak!
Outside, the sky was covered with heavy black clouds, the early afternoon breeze had abated, and the air was dead The day had been very hot, and now, in the evening, humans, birds and animals, exhausted and exasperated, were waiting for something to happen.
Even the owls had ceased to call. Port Moresby became very silent. Motor cars ceased to rattle to and fro along the beach road. All were waiting.
Bang! Bang-bang! Something, at last, had happened. Two heavy clouds had met, and crash followed crash of thunder, and vivid lightning flashed across the sky.
And then came a blinding sheet of pourine rain. Water began to pour down the hillsides in large streams, bringing twigs, pebbles and empty tins with it.
Treasured seedlings were flattened, leaves of delicate plants torn to threads, and fowls and birds crept about, looking like half-drowned rats.
Two hours passed before the first ray of moonlight broke through the cloudy sky. The rain stopped, and the cars resumed their rattle along the beach road. Roosters, shut in their pens, crowed freely, and the same old owl resumed his lugubrious, nightlong call.
The two brown garden frogs jumped out of the cactus onto the verandah, and croaked on their way to the lounge, up onto the piano, blinked again at the piercing light, and jumped back to their home behind the picture frame.
“Croak! Croak!” they said. “That was refreshing.”
The heavy, tropical night shut down again.
A daughter, Anne Barbara, was born to Mr. and Mrs. C. Thurlow, of Napa Napa, Papua, on January 12.