Free Frognapped by Angie Sage

the tent flaps and threw them open. An excited murmur went up from the people waiting to come in. “ You do the show, you and your horrible spooky shark—since you’re so smart !” Nora shouted and she disappeared into the crowd.
    Before Wanda and I had time to think, everyone rushed in and started fighting over the best seats. Aunt Tabby and Brenda won, along with Mabel and Vera, who plonked themselves down right in front of the fish tank. That was bad enough, but I couldn’t believe my eyes when right behind them I saw Nurse Watkins and Uncle Drac . How did they get there?
    But I didn’t have time to think about that for long. Soon everyone was sitting down and a horrible hush came over the tent. A whole forest of eyes stared at us like they expected us to do something.
    â€œWhat are we going to dooooo ?” wailed Wanda under her breath.
    There was only one thing we could do—the all-new Spookie Shark Show.

12
THE SPOOKIE SHARK SHOW
    T he Spookie Shark Show was amazing. Everyone said that they had never seen anything like it.
    Wanda got the spotlight working and the frogs opened the show. I could see why Barry was so upset about losing his frogs because they are very talented, particularly when you consider how stupid the average frog can be. Barry must have put in a lot of traininghours—almost as many as I had put in training Wanda to be a detective.

    The frogs leapfrogged all the way around the fish tank as though they had been practicing for weeks. Wanda trained the spotlight on them and followed them perfectly. She even got clever and started changing the colors so that one minute the frogs were blue and the next they were bright red, then purple. I had watched Barry with his frogs tons of times so luckily I knew all the stuff they could do. They did:
The Leaning Frog Tower
The Triple-Frog Pogo Stick
The Double-Frog Cartwheel
The Four-Frog Catapult
    It was just perfect—until they fell in the fish tank and Wanda had to go in and get them. But that was okay; everyone thought that that was part of the show. Wanda made a lot of fuss, but she caught all the frogs and threw them back into the bucket. Then, just to show that we had meant to do that, I held the bucket up and bowed. Everyone clapped so I bowed again.
    Meanwhile Wanda was trying to get out of the fish tank, but she only has short little arms and she couldn’t pull herself up. “Araminta,” she spluttered, “help me get out.” But I didn’t think that was such a great idea as the crowdwas enjoying it and I could tell it would be a really dramatic moment for the shark to come in. I rushed over to the striped curtain at the end of the tank where Sir Horace was waiting.
    â€œSir Horace!” I whispered. “It’s time for your shark thingy. Jump in.”
    The shark didn’t seem very keen. “I’ll get rusty,” it said.
    â€œNo you won’t. You’re not wearing your armor—remember? And you’ve always wanted to learn to swim, haven’t you?”
    â€œHave I?”
    â€œYes, you have. Just think how useful it would have been. So now’s your chance.” And before he had time to think about it, I pushed him in. There was a huge splash and the shark landed in the tank. The audience screamed soloud that my ears rang. Wanda screamed too, which was great because it made the show very exciting.

    It was fantastic. It really looked as though Wanda was being chased by a shark. The trouble was that I had forgotten about Brenda. As soon as Brenda saw the shark she raced up and fished Wanda out with the frog net. The audience loved it.
    Wanda sat on the edge of the tank coughing and spluttering and looking grumpy, but Brenda was really getting into it. The audience cheered and whistled and Brenda did a curtsey. And then she did another one. And another. Since Brenda was stealing the show I told Sir Horace, “You can come out now.” He floated up out