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companions.
    But I only wrote one: It is not a cat, a dog, a horse or a pig. I didn’t have a guess as to what was under the sheet because I had ruled out all suitable companion animals.
    Mrs. Wardman told us to pass in what we had written down. Then she said, ‘Okay, are you ready for the big surprise?’ All the kids yelled
yes
and Gordon nearly fell out of his chair because he jumped out of it and then plopped back into it really quickly, which made it tip. Mrs. Wardman told him to be careful because he could fall backwards and split his head wide open.
    Then Mrs. Wardman pulled off the sheet slowly and said, ‘It’s a … frog! Who guessed a frog?’ she asked. Nobody raised a hand. Then she said, ‘Welcome your new class pet, everyone!’
    I raised my hand and Mrs. Wardman said, ‘Yes, Phin?’ I asked her what kind of frog it was. It looked like a White’s tree frog to me but I wasn’t absolutely sure. It was smaller than my hand and a greenish turquoise colour, which is what they look like, but White’s tree frogs are nocturnal and I doubted that Mrs. Wardman would get a pet that would sleep all day and be awake all night when we weren’t even here.
    â€˜It’s a White’s tree frog,’ said Mrs. Wardman.
    Mrs. Wardman told us that frogs make excellent pets because they are quiet and don’t need a lot of care. I wondered how that makes a pet excellent. Wouldn’t a rock be a good pet then too? I only thought this – I didn’t say it because Mrs. Wardman would think I was being sarcastic. I wasn’t being sarcastic, I was being serious. But I didn’t say it anyway.
    Next Mrs. Wardman told us that we all got to vote on a name for our class frog. I knew that since this was a White’s tree frog, itwas male and not female because he had a greyish throat and females have white throats. Each of us wrote one name on a piece of paper and put it into the voting jar. I wrote
Cuddles
. I meant to be sarcastic that time, but I didn’t have to put my name on it so I knew I wouldn’t get in trouble for it.
    Then Mrs. Wardman went to the jar and asked us what the chances were that our entry would be chosen. Gordon shouted out, ‘One in twenty-three,’ and Mrs. Wardman said, ‘Yes, Gordon, you are right, good thinking.’
    But both she and Gordon were wrong because I heard Katherine and Amy talking in the row in front of me and I knew that they had both voted for
Kermit
. That would mean that they had a two-in-twenty-three chance of having their name chosen and the rest of us would have a one-in-twenty-three chance but only if there were no others of us who chose the same name as someone else.
    Mrs. Wardman put her hand into the jar and pulled out a piece of paper. ‘The name of our class pet toad is … Cuddles!’ she said. She smiled and some of the kids clapped and cheered. Mrs. Wardman asked whose name was Cuddles, which I didn’t think she’d ask. I raised my hand slowly and she said, ‘Nice name, Phin, congratulations.’ Then we opened our readers to page 123.
    Nobody seemed to think that was weird – a frog that was quiet, slept all day, didn’t need much attention and that you couldn’t cuddle called Cuddles. Sometimes sarcasm just doesn’t work.
    Today at school a kid got in trouble – big trouble. Her name is Jody and she got caught telling other kids that eating breath mints will make them jump higher. The teacher said this is pretending to take drugs and that there’s a zero tolerance policy for drugs. After Jody got her misbehaviour, she started crying so hard that her mother had to come get her.
    I felt bad for Jody, which made it hard to concentrate on my spelling exercises. The word activities were all about animals. One of the questions was ‘Lions live in the j _ _ _ _ _.’
    I raised my hand and Mrs. Wardman came over. I asked her if this was a