Joel, Ben, and Micah stood in the street in front of Joel’s house, looking for frogs. They had agreed the night before to get up early and search for the biggest frogs they could find to keep as pets. And there should have been plenty of them. The day before, by the time Enoch and Ben had helped Naomi get the frogs out of her batter, frogs had been everywhere. They were coming out of every hole in the ground and the walls and were swimming in every liquid. Frogs were climbing in every potted plant the mistress had placed around her home.

This morning, the three boys were surrounded by frogs —all dead. Every frog on the street was dead. And there were thousands if not millions of them. Tree frogs, toads, big green frogs, smaller brown frogs with yellowish legs —they all lay still, looking shrunken and dry.

“What happened to them?” Joel asked.

Ben shook his head. “I don’t know. Do you suppose Pharaoh agreed to Moses’ demands, and so Moses caused the frogs to die?”

Joel snorted, kicking at a pile of dead frogs. “Or else Pharaoh’s magicians killed them. Didn’t you hear that after Moses and Aaron caused the frogs to come out of the river, Pharaoh asked his magicians to make frogs come forth too —and they did? So far, every trick Moses has pulled, Pharaoh’s court magicians have done the same thing!” Joel shook his head. “Why should we think Pharaoh will listen to him?”

Ben poked a stick among the dead frogs, hoping to find one still moving that he could revive with a little water. “All I hear is people saying they wish Moses would just go away so things could get back to normal.” He waved his hand in front of his face, trying to clear away the cloud of gnats that arose from the frogs when he disturbed them.

“You boys!” someone yelled, and Ben and Joel looked up. One of the elders strode down the lane, holding part of his loose sleeve in front of his face. “Find something to use as a rake and begin pulling all of these dead frogs into big piles so they can be hauled away. They’re starting to stink and to attract gnats. Quickly! Everyone must help!”

Ben and Joel looked at each other and shrugged. They weren’t going to find any live frogs for pets anyway. And they couldn’t disobey an elder.

By the time the frogs were raked up, the gnats had become worse than the stink of the rotting frogs —and it was obvious to everyone that the presence of the gnats wasn’t natural. Moses had done it again.

Ben tossed aside the forked stick he’d been using as a rake and ran back home; it was time to gobble some food and hurry off to the Red House. His mother had a scarf tied across her face when he rushed into their house.

“Oh, Ben,” she moaned. “These gnats! I’d rather have the frogs! At least you can pick up a frog and throw it away, but what can you do about gnats?” She brushed several of them away from her face, then handed Ben a bowl of porridge. “This isn’t much, I know. I’m sorry. But with these gnats . . .”

Ben grabbed a piece of bread to dip into the porridge. Then he stopped. “There are gnats in it!” he cried.

“Well, scoop them out,” his mother said wearily, sitting near him and pulling her head cloth closer around her face so that nothing but her eyes showed. “I’m sorry, but what can I do? They’re everywhere.”

Ben took a bite of his bread . . . and immediately spit it out. “Pfah! There are gnats in my mouth!” He looked at the piece of bread in his hand. Gnats swarmed all over it. He looked up at his mother to yell out his frustration. But when he opened his mouth to suck in a breath, he got more gnats than air and immediately choked. He tried swiping the gnats out of his mouth with his fingers, and he tried spitting them onto the ground. But in the end he swallowed most of them. Tears sprang into his eyes.

His mother pulled him close to her. “I don’t understand this,” she said. “Since Moses came, we’ve had nothing but more work, bruises, and mouthfuls of gnats. I just don’t understand.”

But that evening, as Ben and his family struggled to eat dinner without swallowing more gnats than food, they were all strangely excited. “The master was very upset this afternoon,” Ben said gleefully, pulling aside the scarf that covered his mouth and nose. “This time Pharaoh’s magicians couldn’t make the gnats appear from the dust as Moses did! They even admitted to Pharaoh that they thought it was the hand of God that caused the gnats to appear, and that he’d better listen to Moses!”

Ben’s father nodded, hungrily shoving into his mouth a piece of bread dipped in the meat-and-vegetables dish Ben’s mother had prepared. There were gnats all over it, but his father didn’t seem to care. “And while our Egyptian overseers were as cruel and impatient as ever,” he mumbled around the mouthful of food, “they also seemed worried.”

Ben’s mother shook her head, still swathed in cloths to keep the gnats away. “We’re fooling ourselves. Pharaoh won’t listen. And besides, we’re as bad off as the Egyptians. We have to suffer through the gnats too! If Pharaoh doesn’t listen this time —which he won’t —then what will Moses unleash on us next? If Moses is supposed to be our savior, then he’s saving us to death!”

Ben was at the Red House two days later when he discovered just what it was Moses —and God —would unleash next.

Ben hadn’t noticed much out of the ordinary at first —just a few more flies than usual —until the master rushed home early. “Enoch!” he yelled, sweeping into the house’s main salon on the first floor and tearing off his cloak. “Gather everyone! I want every window covered, every door, every opening in the house! Pharaoh’s court is already overrun, and they’re moving this way!”

“What, sir?” Enoch asked, bursting breathlessly in from the courtyard.

“Flies,” the master said impatiently, pointing at a few that were crawling along the wall near the window. “Don’t just stand there! We’ll soon be drowning in them if you don’t move! Get everyone, the entire household! Find every sheet, every towel, and cover everything! Keep them out! Move!”

Everyone in Egypt knew that flies were more than just an annoyance; they often carried disease. Enoch barked out his orders, and Ben and the other servants in the household leaped into action. Soon, while the master and mistress and their children huddled in an inner room, Ben and the others were racing through the house with armloads of cloths pulled from every chest and cabinet in the house, trying their best to cover every opening to the outside, but it wasn’t working. The flies were growing more numerous every minute.

Suddenly Ben heard his master’s voice bellowing from the room where he and his family had taken refuge. “Ben!”

He rushed into the room. The entire family huddled on the floor in the middle of the room under an immense cotton cloth.

“Is no one taking care of the animals?” the master barked.

“No one, sir. You told us all to —”

“Take two others and go out to the pens. Bring all of the animals into the barn.”

“Yes, sir,” Ben said, then ran from the room.

Outside, the sheep and goats were running back and forth across their pens, trying to escape from the flies. “Azariah!” Ben yelled to the smaller of the two boys he’d brought with him. “Go into the barn and close all the doors and windows! We’ll bring the animals to you!”

When the last sheep had been shoved into the barn, Ben said to the other boy, “Come on, Nathan, now the ducks and geese.”

“What about them?” Nathan asked, sobbing, the tears striping his dirty cheeks. “Just leave the ducks and geese.”

“We can’t just leave them,” Ben said, regardless of how badly he wanted to do just that. “The master said —”

“I don’t care!” Nathan shouted, slapping violently at the back of his neck, at his shoulders, at his arms. “They’re biting me through my clothes!” Then he turned and ran —not toward the Red House, but toward home.

Ben wanted desperately to follow him, but he was afraid of what his master would do to him if he disobeyed. “Azariah!” Ben yelled as he tried to brush away the flies crawling up his legs. “Are you all right?”

“I guess so,” the younger boy answered, his voice shaking. “They’re not quite as bad in here.”

“I’ve got to go do something about the birds,” Ben said. He ran around the barn and pushed through the gate into a wide pen dominated by a shallow pond. The ducks and geese inside were panicked. Rushing from side to side, their wings spread and flapping, they ran into the woven fence of the enclosure trying to escape from the flies.

Honk!

The sound was so sudden, so loud, and so hostile that Ben looked up in surprise, forgetting about the flies. There were three huge male geese, their eyes blood-red and angry, their oversized wings spread, their necks outstretched —and they were coming for him!

Ben turned and ran. He made it through the gate, but not before one of the geese had bitten him painfully on the calf. And as he dragged his leg through the opening, that gander came through the opening too before Ben could slam the gate shut behind him. The huge goose lunged forward, its beak snapping, grabbing Ben’s clothes, trying to get to his face.

Ben turned and ran for home, yelling, slapping at his body and at the air around him. The goose still snapped at his heels. Ben swatted at the flies that bit and swarmed and crawled under his clothes and into his eyes . . .

Until suddenly the flies weren’t crawling across his face anymore. Ben stopped in surprise, then quickly turned and looked behind him. No, the goose was gone too. Ben had been running for some time; he was already back to the edge of the Israelite village. He shook himself like a dog shedding water, getting the last of the flies off, and then looked around in wonder. A few flies here and there, but nothing unusual. A normal day.

Then he looked back toward the city of Rameses. It was too far away for him to see the flies themselves, but he could see cloudy patches in the air caused by the swarms of flies. And he could see people and animals running, slapping at something. Yes, the flies were still there.

But not here.

And then he remembered what his mother had said the night before: We’re as bad off as the Egyptians. We have to suffer through the gnats too! Had Moses finally done something right —hurting Pharaoh and the Egyptians in a way that didn’t also hurt the Israelites?

The breeze from the river brushed through Ben’s hair, and he lifted his face to enjoy the lightly scented air, so free of flies or gnats.