Surprise

Millie did not like surprises. She liked blueberries with cream and she liked fresh ricotta cheese and she like red shoes and a grey sky. But, she did not like surprises.
“Where’re you going, Millie?” said Tad.
“To the creek. Wanna come?”
“Okay.”
Millie knew just what she wanted to do. She was going to look for tadpoles. “Tadpoles with Tad,” she thought, and chuckled.
“What?” said Tad.
“What What?” said Millie.
“You were smiling.”
Oh, nothing.” Millie said.
Arg. Tad hated that.
“Do you know what I like about the creek? Asked Tad. "It’s always full of surprises. Something under a rock here, something new growing up there. Some kind of weird bug flying around. You just never know what you’re going to find.”
Hmm. Millie liked the creek because it was always in the same place. The water always made a lovely trickling sound, and the crickets chirped a familiar tune.
Tad was already barefoot. “Aren’t you coming?” He said, digging his toes into the oozy mud at the creek’s edge.
“Of course,” said Millie. She stopped at a fallen log a few feet away and carefully undid her shoe buckles. Then she pulled her white socks off and tucked them inside her shoes. She took off her backpack. In her pack, she had two glass jars, one roll of plastic wrap, and four rubber bands.
Millie waded into the creek. She looked up to make sure Tad was still upstream. There he was splashing around, running over the rocks. “I got a frog, I got a frog,” he yelled. It’s HUGE. Hey Millie, I think this is a toad!
“Eeew. Gross, Tad. He’s gigantic. I don’t know about you, but I came to catch tadpoles, not bullfrogs.”
“It’s a toad. See, feel his bumpy skin.”
“Anyway, it’s still not a tadpole. Can you go back upstream? You’re muddying up the water here and I can’t see.”
“Sheesh. Fine. Aack, come back here Toady, where are you going?” Tad splashed away.
Hmph. Millie looked at the tiny creature swimming around in her jar. Even though she’d seen it happen before, it still amazed her that this squiggly slimy thing would turn into a little jumping frog. “Let’s find you some friends,” she told the little guy, and setting the jar on a rock, she quietly knelt down and waited. Finally, she saw two tadpoles hovering not far under the surface of the water. She cupped her hands under them and brought them slowly out of the water, then quick, she poured the water and two tadpoles into the jar. “That’s good for now,” thought Millie. The freezing water that came up to her knees was starting to make her whole body cold. Millie covered her jar with plastic wrap and made it tight with a rubber band. She would poke holes in it when she got home.
Millie held still and listened for her best friend. The world sounded strangely silent. No birds whistling. No frogs croaking. No Tad splashing. “Hey, uh, Tad?” Millie called out. “Taaaaad?” He couldn’t be far. Millie headed up stream, slowly at first because of the mossy rocks. She rounded the first bend in the creek. “Taaa-aad.” He had a habit of disappearing. Still, something seemed strange. Millie started to run. “Taaaad!” Her bare feet slipped and she fell with a huge splash. Her knees hit the rocks first, then her hands. She looked down and saw blood. Her jar of tadpoles was broken, and an inch-long shard of glass was sticking out of her ring finger. She sat up, wiped her eyes on her shoulders, and tried to blink away the tears and creek water that ran down her face. “One, two, three, pull!” She told herself, and the shard was out. It wasn’t deep.
Millie felt silly for getting scared. She was only a few hundred yards from her house. Tad probably got to daydreaming, forgot all about her, and wandered off to see some bird or make friends with a stray dog. Slowly, and carefully, she began to pick her way among the rocks, back downstream in the direction of her backpack.
“Hup!?” Millie gasped. The tree in front of her seemed to appear out of nowhere. And there was a door in it with a frog symbol where the knocker should have been. “No,” she corrected herself, “a toad symbol.” Millie put her hand up to the carved toad and began to trace her fingers around its bumpy body. The water suddenly jolted her forward pressing her hand hard against the carving. She heard a “ribbit,” and the door opened.