Honorable Mention - MaryKate Jacobs
Age 10
Summerville, South Carolina 

Return to contest homepage

Sticky

My pet is a gray tree frog whose name is Sticky. We found him in a surprising place that most people would never think to look for a frog in. Believe it or not, we found him in our powder room TOILET! It was actually my mom who found him while cleaning the bathroom one day. I was at school when this happened. She rescued him from the cleaning products in the toilet water and rushed him to the kitchen sink to give him a bath with Dawn dishwashing liquid. She said "Hey, it works for penguins and ducks!" When I got home from school my mom showed me this little frog which she had put in a plastic container. I am always excited when my mom finds an animal, which she does quite often. Our family already had a dog and a cat but I'd never had a pet all my own so of course I said, " Please can I keep him, Mom? We can keep him in that big bug cage we've got outside." Lo and behold she actually said, "Okay, fine."

We brought the cage inside and washed it out. We went to the pet store and bought 10 crickets, a bag of smooth river rocks and a branch of pretty fake leaves. When we got home we arranged his habitat with all of his new belongings and put a pretty white teacup in it too so he would have a place to hide if he wanted to. That is how I began my life with "Sticky Stuck Jacobs."

We've had him now for about a year and a half. Over that time we have gained four more little tree frogs. One is another gray like Sticky, two are green tree frogs, and one is a squirrel tree frog with an adorable face. But Sticky is still the cream of the crop. At this point I have learned many things about this little frog. Here are some of the reasons why he is so special to me.

Of my five frogs, he is one of only two that I can actually take out of their roomy terrarium and play with, which is really cool, without worrying that he will HOP away and get lost in the house. Sticky doesn't jump very far. In fact, he rarely jumps at all. I think this is because he is quite a chubby little frog and he really seems to enjoy being touched and held. He doesn't even mind being handled by my friends. (We always wash our hands afterwards.) He even loves having his picture taken! I have his picture decorating my school binder so I can see his smiling face every day. Maybe he has hopes of being a star one day like Kermit! He is also quite a good singer. He sings at night in the spring and summer and even sings to let us know when it is going to rain. I think that it is funny when his throat sac goes up and down and vibrates.

He likes to sit in his special teacup. The other frogs respect that it is his. I think that he likes it because it was one of his things from when he lived in his bug cage when he was a single little froggy. I like to think that his terrarium is like a dorm at a college. I think of it that way because it's a bunch of frogs in a big cage that they all have to share. Their terrarium is on the island in our kitchen and he likes to watch my mom cook. He will sit on a little log and watch as she chops and mixes. He looks very interested in what she is doing.

Sticky is a very silly little frog especially when my mom and I are feeding them. Sticky will open his mouth and snatch up a cricket. He looks like he is hiccuping when he swallows. Sometimes when I am petting him he sees my finger coming towards him and thinks it is something to eat! That is when I get to see and sometimes feel his adorable pink tongue, which I think looks like a blob of pink liquid filling up his entire mouth!

Sticky is a pet of many wonderful characteristics and talents. I now have in my family a dog, a cat, seven fish, two cleaner snails and five frogs. (As you can see, my mom is very tolerant.) To me, most frogs are happy little leap-ers that wont stay still, but Stickey, the frog that I love, is a happy little leap-er that WILL stay still... and a huge bundle of JOY in my life!