Bully the bullfrog was huge and fat. He was also extremely ugly (my friends and I had often quarrelled whether something uglier than him existed on the face of the earth) and he smelt like anything. But as fate would have it he was my sister?s favourite and by default the family?s only pet. And she loved him to bits.

On a regular day Bully could be found sitting happily inside the small bathtub in the guest bathroom croaking happily or enjoying a cool bath in a bucket. Let?s just say he was our resident bathroom bullfrog. Thanks to him life was never too dull.

Once when Aunt Sonia came to visit us she went to the bathroom to get refreshed. She filled the bath and was about to lie in the cool waters when (she later recalled) she heard a deep cough (pretty much like that of an old man) coming from the foamy water. Needless to say, she jumped out of her skin and ran for cover.

Bully was a gentleman and perhaps too much foam got to him.

We reached the bathroom, after a nearly incoherent Aunt Sonia ran out of the bathroom wearing my father?s pyjamas and my tee-shirt. We saw him sitting on the rim of the tub contemplating and croaking over the issue of the invasion of privacy.

Though he was named Bully, he was exactly the opposite. To put it tenderly, Bully was a coward.

He was discovered as a baby in a dirty Eshornia pond where he was sitting alone on a rock ? petulant and croaking. He was in a pathetic state and his expression was somewhat of a man (very ugly) who was morose, contemplative and constipated, at the same time. I later realised that it was his permanent expression. It was because of that expression that my sister decided to bring him home.

Bully?s age was not known. He liked my sister and my family but my mother and I, sort of, ignored him. Not that he was unhappy.

As for my father, his expression was unreadable when he looked at Bully croaking on the sofa for the first time. But my father croaked?rather spoke?to voice his consent much to my mother?s alarm.

Months later, one clear star-studded night my sister and I were trying our best to sleep, but with Bully serenading us it proved a little difficult.

His croaks that grew louder and more emotional finally forced me to nudge my sister, who in her turn kicked Bully?s cage and shouted: ?Go off to sleep you dirty frog.?

Bully stopped and I thought we had insulted him to sleep. But the truth was that the kick had left his cage door open and Bully had happily hopped off to his heaven ? the bathtub in the guest bathroom.

It must have been two in the morning when I was woken up with a sound of a clatter and a subsequent scream coming from the drawing room.

We jumped from our beds and ran towards the room where we found our parents, with a man with large and yellow teeth brandishing a small revolver.

Behind him there was another man holding a sack stuffed with my mother?s silver ware and grinning?he looked almost stupid.

?You might as well give us all your money?? he said smiling. ?Oh give him whatever he is asking for,? said my mother in a loud whisper.

My father handed the man with the yellow teeth the almirah keys. The man snatched the keys and gestured to my father to follow him. ?You better come with me and no smart moves,? he said. While he departed he gave us a grinning look. The one with the sack remained behind.

Suddenly there was an exclamation, followed by a loud ?oof!? a shot and the noise of something large falling. The companion with the sack ran towards the sound and soon we heard yet another ?awwww? coming from the room.

Then my sister, mother and I, we ran towards the room expecting the worst.

We found our father sitting on the small divan in the room while the two men were lying on the floor unconscious.

My mother stared at my father as if seeing him for the first time.

My sister gaped, while I hooted and said, ?Cool dad!?

?It wasn?t me, it was Bully,? he said hoarsely. ?What?? that was my mother.

?Where is he?? my sister asked. ?I don?t know he was scared by the gun shot??

?How did he do it?? asked my mother again, incredulously.

?Well, you had forgotten to unlock the almirah yet again,? (my mother tried to look sheepish) and so the robber yanked the half-shut door open and instead of a wad of notes he found a bullfrog staring at him. He was startled. I don?t blame him, so was I! Then Bully jumped on this man and he accidentally fired his gun, which hit amma?s trunk, and it fell on him,? he said.

?Then when his friend ran in after him he tripped on his friend lying unconscious and banged his head against the almirah. I did nothing!?

?Wow!? you had to say that because not everyone can say that an ugly frog rescued him or her. Suddenly my sister stifled a little scream. She had walked to the end of the room.

There lying in a pool of blood looking at us with his bulging froggy eyes was Bully ? still not a sight for sore eyes maybe, but our family?s hero nonetheless.