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“Did you know that the Golden Poison frog has enough poison in it to kill a monkey?”
“No, I didn’t know that. That’s interesting,” Bill smiled slightly, sweeping up the kitchen floor. The topic at hand didn’t worry him much, because he knew it wasn’t the killing aspect that interested his son, but the frog. The topic of frogs was in right now, apparently.
It was currently 2am and for whatever reason, Cricket decided he’d join his dad in the kitchen. The farmer had a habit of staying up late. He was a night owl for sure, which didn’t help much considering he always had to get up early to work on the families decently large farm. Cricket, on the other hand, did not have that same habit. Actually, Bill always tried to get the two siblings asleep by 9, which typically worked. Except the nights it didn’t… This was one of those nights.
Now, that’s not to say Bill found find the company annoying or frustrating, he didn’t at all. What he did find frustrating was having to get the night owl culprit up the next morning. Last time it had been Tilly, but bless her, that was only because she’d had a nightmare. If she could, she would sleep til’ the cows came home. She slept during the day when she could. She got that from her mama, Bill had discovered. They both liked to relax, and their dreams were normally a pleasant place for the two.
“Yeah, enough to kill 10 people too. That’s awesome! Not the killin’ part, not that, but that little fella? With that much poison in him? That’s so cool! And they’re all bright colors too, like highlighters.”
It seemed the culprit tonight had a lot on his brain, and a lot to talk about. It didn’t bother Bill. He found it strangely nice to hear whatever his son fixated on. Last week it had been birds, and the week before that was motorcycles. Specifically the ones Nancy worked on before she got arrested last week. She’d taken Cricket to spend the day with her at the shop and he’d come home with every fact under the sun about them.
This week it was frogs. Though, Cricket had always been fascinated by frogs. He seemed to hyper-fixate on that subject specifically. That’s why Bill would be sitting on the porch swing after a long day of work only to be met with a frog being held up to his face. It also explained why Cricket always had frogs in his pockets, specifically tree frogs since according to him they were, “the most compact frog to carry in the pockets”. He wasn’t wrong.
“Oh! Oh! And Glass frogs are clear, like glass. Obviously, I mean it’s in the name. But! You can see the blood and stuff in their veins through their bodies. What?!”
Bill’s smile grew wider as he listened. Often Cricket’s constant talking became, well, not annoying (unless he was deliberately trying to be), but far too much to handle in one sitting. However, there was a certain love and child-like wonder behind what he said when talking about his interests that Bill couldn’t help but find joy in.
Before they knew it, the sun was peaking through the dining room window.