Little Croaker hopped past the usual lily pads and into a patch of reeds he had never seen before.
He turned around, but every green stem looked exactly the same.
He tried hopping back, but the reeds shifted and whispered around his feet.
A soft quack floated across the water, and Daisy Duck landed beside him.
"Follow my waddle," she said, and took slow steps toward a narrow channel.
They bounced over a mossy log and ducked under a curtain of hanging reeds.
A fat dragonfly zipped past and dive-bombed right into Daisy's tail feathers.
Little Croaker giggled and bounced harder, forgetting he was ever lost.
A thick wall of cattails blocked the channel. Daisy dipped her head, thinking hard.
He pressed his belly flat against a reed stem, then spotted a narrow gap low to the ground.
He slipped through and popped up on the other side to see his family's lily pad glowing green and gold.
He leaped onto the familiar lily pad and his whole frog family tumbled into one big squishy hug. He bowed to Daisy, and his mama frog pressed a shiny blue pebble into her wing.
