“The Nile seems better today,” Enoch whispered a few days later as he and Ben worked shoulder to shoulder, scrubbing the tiles of the courtyard at the Red House. “Yesterday I noticed that the blood had mostly washed on down the river, along with most of the dead fish. Today the water looks almost normal, and the birds are beginning to hunt along the shore again. By tomorrow it will be normal.”

That was good news. The truth was, in the days since Moses had turned the water to blood, Ben was beginning to wish he had never heard of Moses. Everyone, Egyptians and Israelites alike, had had to find some other source of water. They had found it by digging pits near the river’s edge. But that was hard work. Besides, the fish had died in the bloody river and floated by the tens of thousands in the fouled water at the edge of the river, stinking horribly. Ben had dipped several jugs of water from a pit that morning himself —standing with his back to the river. After his experience on the day the water turned to blood, Ben was more afraid of the river than ever.

“Do you think Moses will leave Pharaoh alone now?” Ben asked. “His tricks are doing no good. Life has been worse for all of us.”

Enoch scrubbed the stones silently for a moment, then playfully butted Ben’s shoulder with his head. “You’ve lost faith in him already?”

Ben thought about the welts and bruises on his father’s back —even more of them since the water had turned to blood. “Maybe it’s Pharaoh I don’t trust. Either way, I doubt that Moses’ arguments will bring about our freedom.”

More and more of the Israelites seemed to feel that way. Just that morning, as Ben had walked to the Red House, the talk on the streets of the village was all about Moses. “If he was going to curse Pharaoh and the Egyptians, why’d he curse us at the same time?” one old man had growled.

“Who asked him to help us, answer me that,” his wrinkled companion had said, spitting into the sand. “We might not be rich here, but at least we didn’t have trouble, not till Moses came.”

“No, and all his tricks don’t amount to much anyway. Pharaoh’s magicians can turn their staffs to snakes too, just like Moses, and they can turn water to blood.”

That, Ben had to admit, was true. He himself had seen the court magicians turn their staffs to snakes, and he’d heard that when Moses had turned the Nile to blood, Pharaoh had turned to his court magicians, who had likewise turned water to blood.

Enoch slopped some water over Ben’s hand and chuckled when Ben drew his hand back in surprise. “Don’t give up yet, Benjamin, my friend. I think Moses is doing something bigger than we understand. The day may come when we’ll talk to our grandchildren of these days. They’ll sit spellbound as we tell of the wonders God worked through Moses.”

It was Ben’s turn to chuckle. “Will our grandchildren be that interested in hearing us tell of scrubbing cobblestones?”

Enoch shrugged. “Who knows? How does anyone know, while he’s trying to live through it, whether the days of his life are the stuff of great stories and tales that will be told throughout all time?”

Ben worked quietly, thinking about what Enoch had said, until Enoch sat back on his haunches and laughed. “And how about you, little one?” He reached to the side and picked up a small green frog. “Do you think we’re living in days that will become legend? And where did you come from, anyway?”

Ben pointed with his scrub brush toward the courtyard wall. “He came with his friends.” Two more frogs sat in the shade of a potted palm, one of them squatting on the foot of the statue of the frog god, Heket, in its little garden shrine.

“So he did,” Enoch said. “It is odd, though. I haven’t seen frogs in the —”

Suddenly there was a shriek from somewhere across the courtyard, and Ben and Enoch both jumped to their feet. Enoch tossed the frog into his bucket of water as they raced toward the sound.

The shriek sounded again, and now the boys could tell that it was coming from the kitchen. Enoch made it to the doorway first. Ben, right at his heels, burst into the kitchen and saw that Naomi, the Hebrew cook, was standing on a stool. Her flour-covered hands were over her mouth. She pointed toward her worktable. “Get them! Quickly! Please! I have no idea how they got in there!”

Enoch and Ben rushed to the worktable and peered into a huge bowl full of batter.

A half-dozen small grayish tree frogs slogged through the heavy batter or stumbled across its surface, their feet and legs so coated that they could barely move.

“Quickly! Get them out of here!” Naomi insisted shrilly.

But Enoch just glanced up at her, then looked at Ben, one eyebrow raised. “Well, I’d heard Moses had something else up his sleeve. I think we just discovered what it is.”