3. Law of First Landing

Meogg still didn’t quite understand her encounter with Claes, but she did know what she had to do. She told her whole family to work much harder. Even if, dear reader, it wouldn’t look that way to an outsider like you. An outsider who could sleep, whereas the bullfrogs could not.

Every few minutes, Holog leaped up again to grab the rope of the sail. By pulling it down, the sail rose higher and tighter, catching more the wind.

“Faster! Faster! We have to fully hoist all the sails!”

Meogg jumped around to do everything herself, if need be. She was dying to tell the others about Claes, but didn’t want to ruin the mission by revealing him.

“I can’t go any faster!” her brother said. “Or do you want me to jump myself to death!?”

Her brother was the strongest member of the family, able to leap forcefully with his long legs and smooth forehead. His skin shone yellow like the sun and his forehead had a purple dot right between his eyes.

“Then try jumping twice a minute.”

“What a demanding little sister I have.” He already prepared for the next jump.

Meogg left to visit the high lookout post. Because they were frogs, they had built the ship vertically, with many floors stacked on top of each other. On her way, therefore, she passed by Parog’s chamber on the fifth floor.

“We’re almost there, grandpapa,” she said cheerfully. “We just have to work really hard for a little bit.”

He didn’t respond. His large leathery skin might as well have been made of stone. Half-closed eyes tried to look at Meogg, but mostly slid aside.

“Is that you? Ninog?”

“No, grandpapa.”

Her grandmama had died ten years ago, when they first had to flee from the emerging snakes. A fact they had told him over and over, but would probably never sink in.

“It’s me, Meogg. Come downstairs. As soon as we get there, you have to go ashore quickly. Then we’ll find a warm little spot, with lots of food. We never have to feel moving planks under our feet again.”

“Land? The land is gone. The land lies. Lamp. Did you say lamp?”

“Parog, what are you saying?”

The conversation was over. He turned around and looked out the other window. As he mumbled words, she used her tongue to pull a piece of curtain over his back like a blanket.

“It will all get better once we’re there,” she whispered as she left.

Claes’ remarks, however, made her doubt. Parog had been awake, permanently, for hundreds of years. How was he going to recover? How would his mind rest?

She leaped up to the highest floor and looked in the direction into which Claes had flown. For the first time, she saw a silhouette of Olombos’ ship. An impressive ship, with many more sails, and zero tall vertical buildings.

She realized. He was helped by the wind—they were hindered by the wind. No wonder we kept sailing slower and slower, Meogg thought. And that they don’t build ships vertically.

She looked down. It was a choice she didn’t want to make. But if the next island didn’t work out … where would they go? The food was gone. They all wanted mud under their sticky feet, and leaves, and branches. She had promised Parog they would find a beautiful island. She had hoped that the grandpapa of old, with a quick mind that told her such wonderful stories, would come back.

It had to happen. She leaped across the sixth floor and pulled the ship apart with her tongue. First came the nails that stuck out so much they were almost useless, because frogs couldn’t use hammers. Then came the planks that were all loose because of that. Finally, the destroyed the rags and the metal tubes that formed the skeleton of the ship.

She flung it all into the water with an elegant flick of her tongue. Until the entire sixth floor was gone. Parog looked up through the hole in his roof.

“Come, grandpapa. We’re going downstairs! We’re going on an adventure!”

Her front legs hooked into his and she pulled him down the stairs.

“Fire? Where’s the fire? Oh, you have to be careful with fire, you know. Listen, child. Fire is terrible.”

“Adventure.”

“Even if it’s an event, child, that doesn’t matter. Fire is fire. Is Ninog coming to the fire too?”

Meogg pulled him down to ground floor, until he leaned safely against the mast in the middle of the ship. She asked her brother to keep an eye on him, though he looked exhausted from all the jumping.

Her feet trembled; she felt the same. Still, they did what they had to. The fifth floor was torn apart and thrown into the sea. Olombos’ ship neared, no longer a black silhouette, but a brown blur from which she could read the logo on the sails.

The fourth floor disappeared. In her fervor, she nearly threw her parents into the sea as well.

“What are you doing?” her mother, a small frog with red stripes across her back, asked indignantly.

“We have to go faster! These things are holding us back!”

“It’s our home!”

“Once we’re on the island, that will be our home.”

She leaped away. The ship already gained speed. She felt the gusts of wind along her tired skin, something that had been absent for months. Getting rid of the third floor was more difficult, because that’s where they had attached the rudder.

She stopped. Her feet thanked her by completely collapsing and doing nothing anymore.

What am I doing? she thought. If we don’t managed to claim the island, we have no where to go. And I just destroyed our seafaring home.

A sandy bird landed on her head.

“Olombos is going very fast for someone who’s sleeping,” said Meogg.

“My mission wasn’t … entirely successful,” said Claes quickly. “I see you’re making more headway.”

“I only have one question: are we on course for the island? Do we no longer need to adjust course?”

“Um, yes, approximately, not ideal but—”

Meogg tore the rudder loose and hurled it straight through the Sand King, who burst apart just in time burst, into two separate animals she didn’t recognize.

“I understand you’re frustrated, but—” Claes fell silent again, showing the same absent look as before in her room. Not much different from how Parog had been staring blankly for ten years now. “Ah, I see what you’re doing.”

Together, they tore away the third floor and soon after that the second floor. The sails billowed in the wind. Claes climbed to the highest point he could find and morphed himself into a sandy sail.

Their ship approached the coast rapidly, which blew all the frogs off their feet. They rolled against the edges of the ship as they bounced over the last waves.

The ship shot into the sand, point first, as if spearing the island with a fork.

Which turned the vessel into a springboard. It launched all the frogs and the remnants of the first floor. After a short flight, they tumbled through bright green ferns and palm trees.

Claes stood in the sand and quickly grew, a broad smile on his face, until he was taller than the trees. After which he realized—far too late—that he had revealed his existence to absolutely everyone.

They had arrived in a cove, hidden from the outside world. Their ship would certainly not sail again. And Olombos’ ship was on the other side, out of their sight.

Meogg could only hope that her family were the first to arrive.