- Naomi likes to go to the swamp. She stares at the insects flitting above the water in silence, trying not to disturb them. Once Stephen comes and catches her watching a tiny frog with a broken leg.
- Naomi wants to keep looking at the frog, but Stephen tells her she has to come home. Nakayama-sensei is visiting. So she just takes the frog with her. She decides that she'll call the frog Tad, after her dad and after the frog Prince.
- Uncle Sam actually lets her keep Tad. She makes a perfect home for it in a little glass bowl. Every day for the next week she feeds the frog. Sometimes big flies, sometimes small flies. Stephen suggests meat and the frog seems to like it. Every day the frog gets better and better until one day the bowl is empty.
- Naomi's last letter to her father never got a reply.