T4W: Write about a vivid childhood memory

In my mind’s eye, I can still picture the flax-dam where I played so often as a child. It was a
place where nature seemed impossibly alive: bluebottles wove a gauze of sound above the
sweltering flax; dragonflies hovered like jewelled helicopters; and overlaying everything was
the scent of green things growing.

But most of all I loved the warm, thick slobber of the frogspawn which floated like clotted
water in the shade of the banks. No treasure seeker ever felt more delight than I did in
scooping up those evasive handfuls of slick jelly. I can picture myself staggering home,
weighted down by clinking jampotfuls of the gelatinous specks, which I would range about
the house on every windowsill, to my mother’s tight-lipped disapproval.

For days and weeks I would watch the fattening dots with fascination, until to my delight
they burst into nimble tadpoles. One of my favourite teachers, Miss Walls, knew of my
enthusiasm and would read to us from a battered copy of a brightly-coloured picture book
called “Growing Frogs.” When I close my eyes I can still hear her lilting voice, talking of
‘daddy frogs’ and ‘mammy frogs’ and ‘little eggies.’

But then one hot day, when the fields were rank with cowdung, I ducked under the hedge to
find my haven invaded: the angry frogs had returned to the place of their birth in their
hundreds, their thousands it seemed. Paralysed, I eyed them, poised upon sods the entire
length of the dam like squat, mud grenades. Their bulging eyes and pulsing throats signalled
a clear message: with childish guilt I knew in that moment that they had returned to avenge
their stolen children. I sickened, turned and ran.

From then on, my hunger for nature’s mysteries waned. No more would I set out in Spring
with collecting tins, jam jars and a sense of discovery. In my mind, the great slime kings had
gathered there for vengeance and I knew - without a shadow of a doubt - that if I dipped my
hand once more, the spawn would clutch it.