Shreya and the Five Frogs of Coorg

The mist over Coorg smelled like wet coffee leaves and old rain. Shreya's shoes squelched as she followed her parents down a narrow trail, until a small sound stopped her — plink, plink, plink — like tiny pebbles dropped into a cup. She pushed aside a fern and found a trickle of a stream, no wider than her arm, lined with soft green moss. Something moved. Then something else moved. Then another something. Shreya crouched low and went really, really still.

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Five frogs sat along the stream, spaced out like buttons on a shirt. They were not all the same. One was tiny, barely bigger than her thumbnail. Another was as long as her pencil. The rest were sizes in between. Shreya's father, a biologist who never traveled without his backpack of tools, crouched beside her. Where do you see five different frogs sharing one little stream, he asked, not answering, just wondering out loud with her.

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Shreya remembered the plastic caliper in her pocket, the one she used for measuring pinecones and leaves on every trek. Can I measure them, she whispered. Her mother nodded and passed her a small notebook. Gently, so gently, Shreya cupped each frog for just a moment, slid the caliper along its back, and wrote down a number before letting it hop free again. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Each number came out a little bigger than the last.

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Two centimeters. Three. Four and a half. Six. Eight. Shreya stared at her list. It was almost like the frogs had lined up on purpose, smallest to largest, evenly spaced, like steps on a staircase. That is exactly the strange part, her father said, smiling. Why would frogs bother arranging themselves so neatly? Wouldn't the biggest frog just eat everything and leave the little ones hungry? Shreya frowned at the stream, waiting for it to answer her.

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She expected the largest frog, the pencil-long one, to be the boss of the stream, snapping up every insect that buzzed past. Instead it barely moved, blinking slowly at a dragonfly and letting it go. It's not even hungry for that, her father laughed. Big mouths need big meals — beetles, maybe a cricket. That tiny thumbnail frog over there is after gnats too small for the big one to even notice. They are not fighting. They are simply not hungry for the same thing.

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Shreya looked again, slower this time. The smallest frog snapped at a speck of a gnat. The middle-sized ones caught moths and tiny beetles. The largest frog waited for something meatier. Each mouth was shaped just right for its own dinner. It's like a table with five plates, her mother said, and nobody's reaching for anybody else's food. Shreya grinned, tracing her finger down her list of numbers, watching the answer sit right there in her own handwriting.

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So they're not squabbling, Shreya said slowly, because they're not really after the same thing at all. Their sizes keep them out of each other's way. Her father tapped her notebook. Scientists have a name for it, he said — sharing space by not needing the exact same slice of it. Shreya liked that better without the fancy name. She liked picturing five frogs on one thread of water, each one quietly, comfortably, minding its own plate of insects.

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That night, in the wooden cottage smelling of woodsmoke and cardamom tea, Shreya copied her measurements neatly onto a fresh page and drew five frogs in a row, smallest to largest, like a staircase. She titled it The Frogs Who Never Fought Over Dinner. Outside, the same stream kept trickling in the dark, five frogs still spaced along it, each one exactly the right size for its own small, particular hunger.

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