Monday is never good for anyone, is it? Let's not get in to that whole thing. Right now it's about 95 degrees in our office and I am suddenly troubled by the fact that there is no symbol for "degrees" on this keyboard. Let's not get into that whole thing either.

All that I wanted to say right now was that I was writing some web content for READ magazine today, and as I was going along, I found myself writing the word "disappoint" in a sentence. The exact sentence was "Here, in issue 5, we do not disappoint."

Disappoint? That can't be right. Surely, there are two Ss and only one P? A super quick glance at dictionary.com confirmed my original spelling. How disgusting. Shouldn't that be phonetically sounded out as - dis-uh-puh-point? Why does that word need two Ps? Am I crazy? I can't be the only one who sees how wrong this is? Am I?

Perhaps I am just tired. But sometimes, words just look ugly and wrong to me. Sometimes, I'll stare at a word like "disappoint" or "height" or "circus" and I'll go crazy. I'll just go absolutely nuts trying to figure out how someone originally thought that THAT was the best way to spell that word. And, being unable to come up with any logical conclusion, I'll completely flip out and totally scare away my co-workers.

"Bry, are you OK?"
"I'm disappointed. Disappointed. Disappointed. Disappointed."

Words can kill. Be careful out there.

The following stories are brilliant interpretations of the 1,000 Words image in the September, 2006 issue of Writing Magazine. This concludes our Froggy contest. Coming soon, more of your outstanding 1,000 Words interpretations from the October issue!

Fred the Frog - Coward or Warlord?
- Story by Alexandra Sobczak, Grade 7

Squish, squelch, squish. Fred the frog's feet hopped over the soggy canopy of trees as he hurried to seek shelter underneath the leafy Banyan tree. It was rain season in the Amazon rain forest and everything was wet. Wet trees, wet ground, wet leaves, wet animals, and wet amphibians. Pretty much anything that was in the rain forest was wet.

Fred had never really been very enthusiastic about being wet. Especially the wet animal part, animals always smelled funny when they got wet. His grandma Sophia always said that you can't have trees without rain, and without trees there would be no tree frogs, and without tree frogs... well, then Fred wouldn't exist.

As Fred sat and pondered this, he suddenly saw the orange, white, and black body of a toucan flutter overhead. Fred's heart jumped into his throat, there were many toucans in the Amazon but only one had that unique combination of orange, blue, and red on its wing--like a blood red sun rising up above the crystal, turquoise Amazon River. That toucan's name was Bill, and Bill had taken it upon himself to torment all tree frogs no matter how old, young, big, or small. He had become a regular living terror for all tree frogs everywhere--picking up unsuspecting frogs and dropping them amongst the rainforest trees or simply eating them for his own greedy pleasure. Fred hid under a leaf and tried to look as much like a leaf as possible, hoping Bill wouldn't see him. Fortunately Bill didn't, and he moved on.

"Isn't he just the most annoying bird you've ever met?" a voice said behind Fred. Fred jumped a mile into the air and turned tentatively around to face a beautiful girl tree frog staring back at him with her big, bulgy red eyes.

"Ummmm, yeah I guess," stammered Fred still trying to comprehend that a girl tree frog was actually talking to him.

"Oh I’m sorry," she said, "I’m just barging in on you and not even introducing myself, I'm Meg and I live in the tree with the pink hibiscus plant. What's your name?"

"My name is Fred. I live in the tree with the green vine around it," he answered, still a bit shocked.

- Story by Jennifer Abrams, Grade 8

Frank the frog sat on a skinny brown twig looking up at the big blue sky overhead. Raindrops were dripping all around him. Thank goodness he was covered by a large green leaf above his round head. Around him were green, yellow, red, and orange plants. Clear blue drops of rain were falling from the sky. Frank placed his hand up on the leaf. It was wet and had been dripping on his head. It made him realize just how much his head was throbbing with pain. As he looked down he noticed a large scratch on his slimy arm. Where did that come from? The cut had to be from just recently because he did not remember seeing it there before.

He took a breath and remembered how he had gotten there. Somehow he had fallen off his lily pad on the pond back home and into the water. He remembered the water in the pond. It was cold, slimy, and foggy. As he fell into the water, a fish swam right under his stomach. The fish rose up and slid right underneath Frank's round belly to give him a ride. They rode for a long time before the fish finally got to the shore and Frank hopped off his scaly back.

Frank jumped onto the ground and started to try to find someone who would know where he was. Before Frank got very far he noticed a big bird with razor-sharp talons and a beak that was two times the size of Frank's whole body. The hungry-looking bird swooped down above Frank's head and grabbed his chubby stomach with his sharp talons and carried him into the air. The bird was heading towards his nest. That could only mean one thing--Frank would be served as dinner to the bird and her family.

Frank started to become too heavy for the bird and he fell out of the bird's grasp. Her pointed talons scratched Frank's arm, leaving him with the scratch.

Frank fell through the sky. He caught himself on a branch just thick enough to support his weight.