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Oscar had settled in nicely to life on the farm. He enjoyed taking long naps each day, enjoyed having competitions with Max and occasionally a few of the other animals on the farm, enjoyed either playing and running around with Lando or (more often) watching Lando run around with the others, and he enjoyed all that he’d gained since that first day he’d come to the farm.
One thing he would change, though, was that he never got to have any eucalyptus leaves. Before George had come to get him, he’d enjoyed a meal of eucalyptus leaves every day.
The papayas and cans of monster that George provided him and Lando with were good, great even, but he found that sometimes he missed the crunch of a good, fresh leaf and the slight tangy taste that the leaves had.
Sometimes, during meals, he’d stare at the leaves of the tree George had added to the farm. He’d nearly forgotten how much he missed eucalyptus before the tree was added. The leaves of the tree were nothing like eucalyptus leaves, of course, with their lobes and thick shape, but they were the closest he could get. The tree itself was quite old and large, branches in the middle thick with leaves and forming a semi-spiral, while the outer branches spread long with little buds sprouting off the thinner limbs. It was tall and grand, and awfully good at providing shade.
It provided Oscar with a great new place to get a nap, and Lando also liked to climb the tree. Usually, the frog could be found chasing Nico, the cockatoo flitting through the branches when he wasn’t nested inside the hollow of the tree. Otherwise, Lando would nap with Oscar, either in front of him as Oscar drifted off or on top of him, a comforting and welcome weight.
In those moments, in the tree with Lando near him, the others all making various noises and playing with one another, Oscar was perfectly content. Still, when he looked up and saw the leaves of the tree, he couldn’t help but want what wasn’t there.
-
George looked excited, which wasn’t necessarily out of the ordinary. What was out of the ordinary, though, was that his excited look was directed at Oscar, who felt a bit afraid of the wide eyes and large grin that George had.
“Oscar!”
As George began waving his gloved hand and the bag in it, in what Oscar considered to be a rather aggressive manner, he wondered if he should take a couple steps back.
“Look what I’ve got for you! I had to get it sent in by mail, but if you like it, maybe I can convince the shop nearby to bring it on as a regular item.”
When George began moving closer, he suddenly realized what the faint smell he’d picked up from inside of the bag was, masked by all the other food that George had brought over from the cart he’d purchased a few weeks back, except for Oscar’s own food, he’d noticed. From inside of the bag was coming the fragrant and unmistakable scent of eucalyptus leaves.
He suddenly perked up, now alert and at attention. Perhaps for the next few weeks he’d discourage Lando from pulling pranks on George rather than helping the frog. A thought of Lando’s sad look when Oscar refused to help came to mind. Well, for the next few days, then.
The frog in question had noticed him standing up, apparently, getting up from his own food to watch as Oscar, unusually enthusiastic, began to trot towards George. Oscar heard his curious ribbits and soft thuds as he hopped to follow him.
He watched in eager anticipation as George opened the bag, reached inside of it, and pulled a handful of leaves out. Oscar was already imagining how they’d taste, but apparently imagination was all he’d get.
“Rib-it!” A strangled sounding croak left Lando as he jumped towards George’s hand that held the leaves, and pushed them all to the ground, taking the rest of the bag with him when George, startled, dropped the whole thing to the ground.
“Ribbit! Ribbit ribbit ribbit!” He watched, confused and upset, as Lando ribbited angrily at George, glancing between the man and the bag that now lay on the floor. Some of the others paused eating and began to move towards the scene.
George moved back, hands up in a placating gesture towards the frog, and stepped directly on the bag. A loud crunching noise resulted and Oscar looked on, now more sad than anything else, as the eucalyptus leaves were reduced to a crumpled, crushed mess.
Once Lando had calmed down, becoming quieter and more subdued surprisingly quickly, George moved to pick up as much of the eucalyptus leaves as he could as well as Lando himself before quickly leaving.
All Oscar had left was four leaves, one still pristine but the other three all crumpled in some way or another. He carried them with him over to a familiar corner behind the barn, the thought of having to sit with any of the others and look at their faces, as confused as he felt himself, was overwhelming, and he wanted some time alone.
As he tried to come up with a reason for why Lando would do what he had done, he curled up into himself and let the sorrow he felt overtake him. No possible reason came to mind.
He looked at the small pile of leaves in front of him, at the one in perfect condition, and selected one of the crumpled ones instead. Biting into it, he found it didn’t taste as good as he had hoped it would, and he chewed all of the leaves slowly until they were all gone except the one that had been untouched. For some reason, he couldn’t bring himself to eat it, perhaps because so many of the leaves had been ruined but this one had been spared.
He laid there, staring at the leaf, feeling worn out and melancholy. His restless mind continued to try and rationalize the earlier scene. He couldn’t come up with a single thing, unless Lando had suddenly decided he hated Oscar or eucalyptus leaves.
He considered the latter impossible, not to mention the only thing he’d seen Lando hate so strongly was the fish that Charlie, Fred, and sometimes Albono got or the Red Bull for Max. He considered the former impossible, too, Lando far too loving to hate Oscar so strongly out of nowhere. Not to mention how they’d been about to share Lando’s own food before George showed up with the leaves, so it wasn’t like he wanted them all to himself.
More explanations filled his mind, each rejected as quickly as he thought of it, until he finally drifted off, troubled and unsure. Before fully dozing off he tucked the leaf inside of his shirt, near to his heart.
-
“Ribbit? Ribbit ribbit. Ribbit?”
“Bap.”
“Ribbit. Ribbit ribbit. Ribbit?”
“... Bap.”
“Ribbit. Ribbit ribbit…”
Lando had been hovering. George had returned him when he’d brought lunch for all the animals, and was now walking around dropping off the various foods and drinks each animal required.
Lando, as soon as they were through the gate, had made a beeline towards Oscar, and immediately started looking him over, hopping around and around him, similar to how he had been one time when Oscar had fallen off of the tree when it had started raining heavily. That had been warranted, considering it turned out he’d fractured a rib. This, though, Oscar thought, was a bit ridiculous, given Lando was the one who had been the one missing all morning and that Oscar, sorrow aside, was in perfect health.
“... Ribbit. Ribbit? Ribbit!”
“Bap.”
Not to mention Lando’d been insistent on getting responses from him, whereas normally he was fine to go on while Oscar just listened and only on occasion gave a reply.
The frog seemed nearly done now, coming to a stop on Oscar’s right side and leaning into him. It was, Oscar could admit, a bit nice to have so much of Lando’s attention and care, even if it was excessive and unnecessary, as a bit of reassurance after the events of the previous day.
Oscar thought back to his earlier theories once more. Maybe Lando had been jealous, or excited as well, and had wanted the eucalyptus as much as he had. It wasn’t his fault if he’d knocked it over, then, and perhaps he was now trying to make amends for having cost them both the eucalyptus leaves.
With this thought in mind, he reached into his shirt to take out the leaf he’d saved to offer it to Lando. Lando, now with his eyes closed and leaning deeply into Oscar’s side, only let out a tired sounding ribbit when Oscar moved.
Before he could offer the leaf to Lando, however, George suddenly came rushing over.
“Oscar! Wherever did you find that, I thought I had cleared all of it yesterday!”
Quite rudely, Oscar thought, letting out a startled bap, George plucked the leaf from his paws, then kept on making noise.
“Did anyone else get into the eucalyptus? Of course it’s fine for you, but I thought I had managed to gather it all so that none of the others would get sick like poor Lando, who got some in his mouth when he tackled me. Thought he was being so chivalrous, didn’t he? Must not know it’s fine for you to eat the leaves.
“Luckily, I’ve brought some extra medicine with me, both for Lando to get another dose and for anyone else. I’d have liked to keep him for a day longer, you know, but he was ribbiting something terrible, and refused to stay still. Wanted to come check on you, seems like, based on what I saw earlier while making the rounds.”
Oscar watched, curious and a bit confused, as George pulled a bottle he recognized from whenever someone on the farm needed it after getting sick or eating something they shouldn’t. But nobody should need it now. He grew even more confused when George roused Lando, who’d begun to drift off, to feed the contents of the bottle to the frog.
In a moment of jarring realization, Oscar suddenly put everything about the past 24 hours together. Lando must not be able to have eucalyptus, the same way he couldn’t have fish or Red Bull.
Now worried, he pushed insistently at George’s hand to get out of the way so that he could check on Lando for himself. The frog in question, who had woken up from all the commotion, hopped over George’s reaching hands to get to Oscar, who caught Lando in his paws and then held him and looked him over. The frog looked quite happy to be held.
“Ribbit.”
“Bap, bap? Bap?”
“Ribbit ribbit!”
A turn to the side.
“Bap?”
“Ribbit! Ribbit.”
He was convinced that Lando was fine when he leaned fully into Oscar’s face from where he was held just a couple inches away. Satisfied, Oscar turned Lando around so George, who had been waiting with some mix of an amused and an impatient look on his face, finally gave Lando his dosage of medicine.
Oscar spotted the last remaining eucalyptus leaf while holding Lando, and decided he’d show the other the leaves were fine for him so that he could eat them without a whole production first in the future.
Placing Lando down gently, he reached for the leaf and then held it up until Lando was looking over at him again, which didn’t take long. It also didn’t take long for loud ribbits of protest and concern to begin.
“Ribbit! Ribbit ribbit ribbit!”
“Bap.”
The look Oscar gave Lando told the other to trust him, and he watched as Lando, with a great deal hesitation and anxiety, did so. When he brought the leaf up to his mouth, the frog looked as if he wanted to jump in, literally, but held himself back. Oscar took a satisfying bite of the leaf, getting the perfect crunch from it even though it was now a day old.
Oscar watched as Lando watched him, and as the other seemed to realize that nothing was happening to Oscar, nor was George rushing in to give him any of the medicine he still held in his hand, now looking at the two with fondness.
This did not stop Lando from spending the next several minutes once more looking Oscar over in great detail, though. Oscar figured it was alright this time, especially when Lando, when they were done eating, decided to join him in laying down to nap.