To Sing Frogs Chapter 44b

By mid-afternoon mothers and an older sister thought it best to drag lobster colored and pruned skin from the swimming pool. Objections from children sound identical regardless of the language. Words at such times are all but unintelligible. Whines, moans, and mumbling convey feelings without weakness.

Mothering hands rubbed ointments into burned skin while the girls complained that there was nothing to do. Amy suggested Mike might dance with them. He had a better idea. He had noticed the Nintendo Wii gaming system under the large television. Within minutes the big brother was helping the three girls design characters resembling each of them. They giggled while making suggestions about features for the “Mike” character and rolled on the floor laughing at the one labeled “John.” I wasn’t impressed.

“Mas Gordo!” Julia squealed. My character ballooned.

“Hey, I may have lost sight of my belt buckle, but I can still see my shoes! Back it off!”

“Take a joke dad,” Mike jabbed. Then he made me even fatter. The three little girls screamed with delight. I didn’t want to play much. I couldn’t bear to look at the Micheline Man with facial features resembling mine. I resolved to go home and lose some weight.

The kids loved bowling on the flat screen. Golf was fun too. That wasn’t a surprise to any of us. No one would have guessed what was about to happen.

“Marina wants to know what the other game is,” Anya translated.

“It’s boxing. She wouldn’t like it.” Anya relayed the information and Marina responded in Russian while shrugging.

“She says she wants to try it.”

Mike began by taking it easy on the frail little girl. Big mistake. The sound effects from gloves slugging bodies while weeble-type characters cheered in the stands were perfect as the skinny dark haired character beat on the larger light skinned one. Within seconds the boy character was laying on the mat while the system counted. Marina’s character continued to dance on the screen and throw practice punches while standing over the other limp body waiting for it to get up. At the count of six Mike’s character began to shake and its hips lifted to an upright position while trying to un-spike its head from the floor. Then he was standing. Marina floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee. She was immediately back on top of her opponent and pounding away. The next time the boy character took a nap the count expired before he recovered.

“All right. No more Mr. Nice Guy!” Mike said while resetting the game.

“Marina says go ahead,” Anya translated. “I think you would say, ‘Bring It!’”

The little Asian girl once again pummeled Mike’s character while the rest of us laughed. The young man really tried but soon the screen was counting down again while his crumpled character lay on the floor with its eyes closed. “Come on you little pansy, stand up!” I taunted. “Who’s laughing now? At least the fat guy didn’t get beat up by a little girl!”

“Hey, do you want to try? It’s not as easy as it looks.”

“Sorry. I’m in the heavy-weight division, remember? It wouldn’t be fair.”

The girl on the screen stood over the boy while continuing with aggressive practice punches. Mike was up by eight. “All right, I know what’s going on now.”

It looked so wrong. The bigger lighter haired boy character beat the skinny little girl until it crumpled to the mat. “I told you!” Mike said. “Now you’re in trouble.”

“Marina says that’s it. You’re dead!” Anya translated. Seconds later Mike’s character failed to struggle to its feet by the count of ten.

The Wii station kept everyone busy until the ladies finished preparing a huge spaghetti dinner.

“I was telling Yana about the song you wrote,” Anya said to Amy during dinner. “Do you have a copy of it with you?” Actually, we had the song performed and recorded by professionals and it was on my wife’s iPod. Everyone insisted she play it and submit the lyrics to translation after dinner.

 

Go to other sections of To Sing Frogs

Go to John M. Simmons’ blog