Nightmare Read Online Free Page A

like it in arid Australia, and he found it a little hard to breathe as they reached the first pond, which was partly shaded by a large tree. The shore of the pond had been landscaped so that several strips of raised earth extended like curving fingers into the water. The twittering noises continued, punctuated by odd glumps, and Evan realized it was the sound of frogs. When Evan and Pup reached the pond shore, alarmed plopping sounds greeted them, and a host of ripples scampered across the water. A moment later, several dozen bulbous eyes goggled suspiciously at the boys from the pond’s surface.
      "These’re American bullfrogs," Pup said. "We have sixteen ponds of them. That’s the most. They’re used in laboratories and for eating." He squatted and held out a bit of bread from his roll. A blur of movement launched itself out of the water with a great splash. Evan jumped and Pup snatched his hand back. The bread was gone.
      "They eat bread?" Evan said.
      "They eat just about anything," Pup replied, wiping his hand on his shirt. "Crickets, worms, fish, mice—"
    "Mice?"
      Pup nodded. "They eat anything that fits in their mouths, so don’t hold out anything they shouldn’t have. They got no teeth, though, so you don’t need to worry about getting bit."
      "Why is the pond shaped funny?" Evan asked.
      "They all want their own bit of land," Pup said. "There ain’t enough shore for all of them, so we make more. Otherwise they’d fight all day." He gestured toward another set of ponds. "Over there are the bubble frogs. They’re valuable because they ooze this stuff that can be made into a couple of different drugs. The tree dumpies in that pond cure cancer. The winslows over that way are mostly pets but there’s some alien race that thinks they’re sacred and they buy ‘em by the hundreds. They live a long time."
The boys walked among the ponds as Pup talked on and on about frogs, and Evan’s head swam with information. Warm mud squished between his toes, and the hot sun alternated with cool shade as they made their way between trees of varying sizes. Pup explained that some frogs needed sun, others needed shade, and still others needed both, and every tree was carefully placed with the frogs’ needs in mind. Some places were more like small swamps than ponds because breeds like tomato frogs needed to burrow more than they needed to swim. The ponds themselves were sometimes clear, sometimes muddy, sometimes covered with floating plant life. Twitters, mutters, glumps, cheeps, and splashes followed them everywhere, though Evan saw very few actual frogs. The ones Evan did see, however, came in a surprising variety of sizes and colors, ranging from plain green to milky white to blaze orange. They crouched on banks or hid among weeds or floated serenely on water.
      Evan and Pup also encountered several brown-clad slaves, all human, ranging in age from a bit younger than Pup to gray, wrinkled oldsters. They variously worked with shovels, knelt among greenery, stood knee-deep in water, thrashed the air with nets, or popped squirming frogs into covered baskets. Pup waved to most of them, and they waved back or called greetings. He paused by one woman who stood next to a pond with a large mesh cage, her hand on the clasp.
      "Feedin’ time, Grace?" Pup said.
      "Sure is," she replied. "Want to watch?"
      "Yeah." Pup cocked a thumb in Evan’s direction. "This is Lizard. He came in with that other lot."
      "Actually," Evan put in, "my name’s Evan, not—" A shooting pain drove up his arm, interrupting him. Evan grunted and grabbed his wrist.
      "Your name’s Lizard," Pup said a bit sharply. "That shock was in case you forget. There’s a computer in your bands. It listens to what you say, so you better learn quick."
      Evan bristled but didn’t reply. His name was Evan, not Lizard. Maybe he couldn’t say it aloud, but that didn’t mean he’d lost it or accepted the change. Grace, meanwhile, nodded at