The Mystery Tadpole

My oldest child is obsessed with two things. Frogs and dogs. She knows the entire lifecycle of both and would cover every inch of her walks in posters of one or the other if we let her.

We had already ruled out getting anything other than a tadpole and my daughter couldn't decide on if she wanted a toad or a frog, much less what specific kind she wanted to raise. She agonized over it for weeks before finally coming to me and asking me to choose for her. She wanted it to be a secret but promised to love and care for any pet she had the chance to.

We had recently moved into a home that still had old lab equipment in the garage which was honestly the reason why I chose the home. Frog and toad eggs are apparently among the easiest to clone and manipulate and have been extensively used as subjects in various experiments. One that intrigued me was the potential for using modified tadpoles to grow animals on other planets. Instead of shipping adult or even baby animals in the harsh environment of space, you would ship the frozen eggs. Those eggs go through the normal stages of becoming a tadpole, growing then transforming into a frog or toad, they become a cow, sheep, horse, or even a dog!

I started researching new developments online and found an active community that was crowdfunding their own research attempts to help third-world communities here on earth.

I created an account and described my dilemma. Their support was overwhelming and before I knew it, an overnight shipping notification had appeared in my inbox and the tadpole was on its way.

We already had everything needed to care for a frog or toad, so all I had to do was let my daughter know about her impending mystery tadpole. I told her to set up the extra webcam to record a timelapse of the tank so that we could make a video out of the changes that occur afterward.

I made her promise that she wouldn't tell anyone where she got it in case anyone ever asked. Of course, I also made her promise not to tell her mother. There was no way she would suspect anyone but me, but I wanted to prolong the confusion for as long as possible.

I avoided even thinking about dog-related items and wanted to act as surprised as everyone else the tadpole started changing into something furry instead of something hoppy.