Only very few people have ever seen him. Many have heard of him and some just adore him from the cartoons, but basically he is for kids. They like this clumsy and criminal troll. Grown Ups buy the dolls made over his character and gives it to their kids, but they don't buy the Toad-ashtrays, the booklets, etc. for themselves. No, he is not popular with grown-ups and why should he be, after all he is a menace in adult company.
When I saw him the first time I recognized him at once: This was Toad, but what was he doing in my brother's garden? Why did he stand next to the roses with an axe in his hand and why was he grinning at me? "Hello!" I shouted, "Who are you and what are you doing in that rose bed?" He just waved at me, then he swung his axe high in the air and let it fall to cut down my pride in that garden: The roses!
The wonderful, perfect flowers fell like soldiers in WW I. I couldn't help myself, but gave out a "yelp" in disgust. "Toad, how could you?!!!!"
"Aha, now you know me, so you admit that now?"
"What do you mean," I said terrified when I saw him move over to the pear tree, another of my favourites in the garden. He didn't answer, but lifted the axe and gave the defenceless tree a blow that went into my mind and body as were it directed at me. "No-no, please, stop it, Toad," I cried.
"Do you know me or don't you know me?"
"I know you as a character in a cartoon and as a doll ..."
"What," he yelled, obviously disgusted at such a description, "what did you just say?"
"I know you ..."
" ... from a cartoon and as a doll?"
"Yes," I whispered, horrified at the thought of offending him.
"I never was a doll," he said and I dared not even look at the stitches where he was sown together. Instead I gave a half-nod-half-shake of my spinning head that might mean anything.
"Do you admit that I have a good cause to come to see you now that you're grown-up?"
"Mjnah," I answered, again horrified at him for his fierce looks.
"You promised to be my wife when you grew up - and now you are just that: A grown-up, young lady ...."
"I never ..."
"Yes, you did and we even made a contract. If you look into your purse you'll find a copy of it."
"How did it get there?" I asked, quite bewildered.
"It flew when I told it to do so ... what else?"
With shaky fingers I opened my purse and took out a crumbled paper I didn't remember that I had seen before. It read: "I, Anna, hereby marry Toad right now, only we wait to go to church until I'm grown-up." The signature was mine from when I was 7 or 8 years old. I turned the paperand looked at a lot of photos tht were glued on it. They made me blush because in all of them this much younger me was kissing Toad in the shape of a 12-13 years old boy.
"You cheated me!" I shouted, now enraged.
"Yes," he said in that special Toad-way that made grown-ups hate him and kids love him. "I did, didn't I? Well, I'm glad I did because you sure has grown into a pretty, young lady."
"I can't marry a cartoon character. How would our kids look?"
The mentioning of kids made him look sheepish and rather naughty. "No!" I yelled, "that can't be legal. I was 5 or 6 years old."
"Seven," he said with a smile, "and it is - in cartoon country. Besides, you've misunderstood the sayings. We already ARE married. Your Teddy Pooh-Pooh saw to it ..."
"But he was a toy, not a human being. Besides, we aren't in cartoon country, we are in my human world."
"Interesting," he said, suddenly looking very happy. "Well, then we had better hurry away from here, haven't we, dear wife?" That said, he jumped the 6-7 metres from the pear trees to the spot where I was standing. He swept me up into his arms and kissed me right on the kisser before we set off in the direction of the dark shadows. Somewhere over there I remembered what laid beyond those shadows and I couldn't help smiling and also laugh out at the memory.
Originally Posted On Site: 2009-05-31 08:10:47
Last Login: 05.24.12
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