Karl’s Marine and Spacecraft Repair

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“Mr. Karlsson, we need your help.”

It was a crisp, cultured, vaguely British accent and I looked around, hoping to find some source of the voice other than the frog Ellie was holding up to me.

“Sir?” It was the frog. Something about how the Sun had come up red this morning told me it was going to be a different kind of day. The frog seemed a quite ordinary, if large, green-spotted leopard frog. It wasn’t quite large enough to catch the attention of Marie at the Allouette Grill and French Kitchen, who was known to skulk the shore reeds of this chain of ponds and channels leading from Gull Lake up to Nisswa searching for fresher fare than she could get from her Duluth suppliers, but it was a largish frog. Maybe the size of a man’s hand. Pretty natural looking—seamless, no sign of any buttons or anything electrical, but they’re pretty good at disguising that kind of thing today.

“Grandpa,” Ellie stomped her ten-year-old foot on the oil darkened floor of the shop, “the frog wants to talk to you and my arms are getting tired.”

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