laughing and talking and making party noise. She and Frog join a Conga line, cha-cha-cha-ing around the deck. The party is ending, and soon all the people dance and laugh their way to bed, leaving them alone on the top deck of the Cruise Ship.
It is completely dark now, and the vast moon rises, full and sweet, and hangs low over the deck. They stretch out on some deck chairs, relaxing and gazing at the beautiful moon.
Frog is totally entranced by the Moon. He gazes at her with love and longing. His eyes bulge even bigger, his mouth falls open, and his long red tongue lies limply on the deck. Suddenly he gives voice to a full, loud, throaty CROAK, which echoes over the Western Sea.
The Moon expands when she receives the Croak. She opens her mouth wide and responds with a croak of her own, which is so vast and booming it makes the deck chairs clatter on the deck and the glass windows shiver.
Frog jumps out of his deck chair and leaps to the white railing of the ship. “Croak!” he calls, in a voice even louder than before. His croak streaks across the sky and the Moon swallows it with a gulp.
“CROAK!” she booms back, and this time the windows of the Cruise Ship shatter, tinkly sounds harmonizing with the echoes in the croak’s wake.
Frog’s knees bend, and he squats down low, low. Then he stretches up high, high, his spatulate toes gripping the deck rail; and then down again, low, low.
He is practicing.
And then with his greatest and loudest croak yet, Frog springs high and releases his toes. He and his croak leap through the air toward Moon.
Moon expands until she seems to fill the Western sky.
“CROAK!” she thunders, and her mouth opens wide, showing her deep mysterious black