The Brilliantly Rainbowed Adventure

- Chapter 35 -
Gator Island

        One hour after dawn, Frogstick awoke from his blackjack-induced reverie. He roused himself groggily, groaning audibly at the sudden pain that shot through his head as he opened his eyes.
        He was in a comfortable room. It was a not-unpleasantly furnished environment: sterile and spotlessly clean. Bars of light stabbed through the window and slashed the wall beside him.
        Frogstick lay face up on a quilt that covered an old-fashioned spring bed. He glanced toward his feet and saw that his boots were still on, hiding his monstrous, snowshoe-sized pontoons. The huge boots upset the otherwise-aesthetically-pleasing proportions of this artistically arranged room. Frogsticks immense pods, launching from his ankles and abruptly soaring skyward, dominated the tiny room like a six-foot bully on a grammar school playground.
        Past the foot of the bed, a fire silently flickered in an artificial fireplace. A faint hissing noise came from the natural gas flames, and the breath from a well-hidden air-conditioning vent ruffled the curtains.
        "Where am I?" Frogstick wondered, turning his head sharply to check out the corners of the room as he recalled yesterday's violent assault. At the abrupt movement his wounded brow, swollen tight over his closed right eye, delivered daggers of pain that pierced his marrow, relaying unsought messages of relentless agony into the depths of his Froggish being.
        Frogstick staggered out of the creaking bed and reeled over to the window. He unlatched the bottom and pulled up sharply, sliding it open and thrusting his head outside. Siezing the sill as if if were trying to get away from him, he squinted out into the glaring light of another Florida day.
        Frogstick saw water, and in the water he saw the gators teeming in the quagmire: rolling in the deep, fighting for space, and snapping mindlessly at the air. Beyond and above this deadly moat was a high brick wall that was topped by a cruel-looking fence.
        Behind the fence were the tourists. Craning his neck to see clearly, Frogstick gaped at them, and they gaped back. They ooh-ed and ah-ed, snapping pictures of old Froggy and his new abode. Small children, hoisted securely in the arms of their parents, drooled at him in amazement, forgetting the shiny balloons that trailed behind them like so many unloved air-puppies. The tykes were oblivious to all else, focusing hungrily on Frogstick's house with its teeming reptilian moat.
        The tourists stared at the pitiful platter of canned Frog-Legs while the tour-guide delivered his preprogrammed address. Their eyes were as big as hard-boiled eggs, and there was a bad yolk in the middle.
        "In the quaint wooden house below, you can see one of the last of a vanishing breed. This is the Native Cracker, also known as the Florida Gator or the Go 'Nole." The tour-guide spieled smoothly as the cameras clicked and whirred and the tourists jostled one another for position. "These primitive sub-humans are currently being phased out of existance. They are characterized by low intelligence, a hot temper, laziness, and overalls. They have been known to hunt wild animals."
        A teenage boy took the lead in following the crowd. The boy, his face aglow with the well-documented ex-pruderance of youth, siezed the moment in his sweaty palms and with a keen eye and a steady hand whipped a large plastic orange filled with juice and presevatives over the rail at Frogstick.
        The plastic orange whistled across the moat, a blindingly swift blur that smote Frogstick mightily athwart his swollen, purple brow, the same brow that still throbbed from the blow of the blackjack. Incredible pain burst through his head; fiery bolts of anguish hammered him, taking his breath away as he collapsed onto one knee and cried aloud in wretched agony.
        Hearing this response, the crowd went wild. The applause was thunderous, burying The Panrythmic Polliwog under a pile of pollutiant patters. Thus began the events that led to the turning point: to the action that triggered the beginning of the end.
        Deep within Frogstick an anger was brewing....not at this hydra-headed mob, but at the foul fiends who had forced him here against his will to become a spectacle before them. The anger bubbled up like a warm German beer, tickling his throat without clearing his head. Who were these kidnappers, these base slave-mongers who had carried him to this place to stand as a gazing-stock before this crowd, here upon this strange and desolate island?
        He glanced outside. A narrow strip of grass ran from the wall of his house to a stone seawall; beyond it the alligators thrashed in the mire, rising periodically to snap at nothing. With the laughter of the mob jangling coarsly in his ears, Frogstick pulled his head inside the window and slammed it down. The relative quiet of the house was a pleasant surprise.
        Silence and stillnes reigned within this dwelling. He looked outside, where the mob was surrealistically deprecating him, hurling soundless reproaches his way as they turned to leave, headed for the next exhibit. Their mouths opened and shut harmlessly in the distance. The silence was refreshing. Someone, some unknown person, had evidently gone to quite a pile of trouble for his convenience. Just what was this all about, anyway? Frogstick's curiosity had been brought to full pressure, and now it was like a can of beans in a campfire, due to explode any minute. He heard a clock ticking in the next room.
        "BRRRRNG!"
        "BRRRRNG!"
        It was the phone on the wall. He picked it up.
        "Are you comfortable?" a male voice purred on the other end of the line.
        "Who are you? What am I doing here?" barked Frogstick.
        "Hey, hey, calm down, big guy," rejoined the bodiless voice, "you know the answer to that. You signed a contract, Mr. Farley, and we won't allow you to renege."
        "Farley? Who's Farley?" Frogstick was stunned. "I'm not Farley. I'm Frogstick Gutchins."
        "And I'm the tooth fairy," ground the spicy voice on the other side of the line. "Look, Farley, a deal's a deal. Florida World demands loyalty, and you'll have to learn to go along if you want to get along."
        "Now, looky here, Mister," Frogstick croaked, "I ain't Farley. I never was, and I never hope to be, and I never signed a contract with you in my life. And I sure don't appreciate being kidnapped by you and your gang. Besides which," he continued, "Florida World," he paused for breath,"IS BORING!" There was a click on the line, and the phone went dead. Suddenly a stream of seltzer water shot out of the phone, knifing painfully into Frogstick's inner ear.
        "AAAAAGH!" he cried, dropping the phone as if he had been shot.
        "Hahahahahaha!" came a malevolent, tinny chuckle out of the phone's versatile speaker, "you'll learn to respect your betters, you stupid hick!" The voice laughed again, a slick, sinuously invasive chortle that slithered ininvited through the tall grass that grew in the vicinity of Frogstick's mind and tried to den between his ears. Another click on the line was followed by a dial tone.
        Frogstick slumped to the floor beside the telephone. He stared vacantly into space, his mind dazed and abraded by the harsh series of events. Slowly he shook his head from side to side, moaning softly in dull, inchoate agony. The dial tone on the offending phone was now replaced by bland muzak; a hundred violins were playing "Suwannee River." It was a hit tune about Florida. The songwriter had never visited the state.
        With his eyes vacantly saluting a seamless expanse of flowered wallpaper, Frogstick stared into the open gullet of a Brave New World.