"I caught a toad!"

*This is a reprint, somewhat. I wrote this early in the summer, and just re-wrote it to turn in for a class. This is a better version.*

On one particularly sunny summer day, my sister, Sam, went outside, tired of being confined to the indoors. She went alone; everyone else was working on something or reading something or not doing something. She stepped out the door, skipped off of the porch, and disappeared around the corner of the house, running off on a grand adventure all by herself.

Not five minutes later we heard her little footsteps padding across the porch again. We couldn’t see her, as she was shorter than the window in the door, but we could hear her plea.

“Can someone open the door, please?”

The urgency in her voice brought Mom to the door. Upon looking out, she saw little Sam standing there, with her hands cupped together in front of her, shaking all over with excitement.

“What do you have?” asked Mom.

“I caught a toad!” Sam exclaimed, with a grin stretched across her face.

Sam opened her hands just a little to show Mom her prize, and sure enough, a little toad poked his head out from between her fingers. Immediately following his head, the entire toad crawled out from the confines of the little hands holding it.

Before Sam could react, the independent toad leapt from her hands to the floor of the porch. It took Sam only a moment to recover, and she bent to try to catch the toad again. Anticipating her movements, the toad hopped to a spot just beyond her reach, closer to the edge of the porch. Once there, he turned back as if to say, “Catch me if you can!”

Sam accepted the challenge, and again moved towards the toad. The toad seemed to hesitate, seemingly mulling over his options: Be caught again, or jump. Apparently, the toad decided the best option was to jump.

Just as Sam's hands came within reach, the toad took a flying leap off the edge of the porch and into the forest of ferns growing below. Sam, heartbroken, stood on the edge of the porch staring into the ferns where the toad had disappeared. She watched closely, looking for any signs that would warrant re-capture of the leggy creature, but saw nothing but ferny green.

After a few moments of mourning the loss of her latest friend, Sam recovered and ran off again, disappearing around the corner of the house.

Five minutes later we heard her little footsteps padding across the porch. We couldn’t see her, but her plea was familiar.

“Could someone open the door, please?”