"I hope we won't be thought to have stolen him!" said Arunacub with concern.
"No one could think that," said Elfi. "He badly wants to go with you for some reason."
So the cubs set out for home with the frog. They hoped they had not been gone for more than an hour ... being a little late for their studies was one thing, but they did not like to keep Uncle Annamalai waiting even a moment for his lunch.
They had not gone far before the little frog began hopping up and down on Omcub's back.
"He's trying to tell us something," said Om.
They all stopped, and the frog jumped down. They listened carefully. He did seem very keen to tell them something.
"I think he is hungry," said Spotty.
"Well let's get him back to the cave. Mum LIoness is sure to have a snack waiting for us."
Sure enough, when they arrived at the cave, Mum Lioness was waiting with a fresh supply of iddlies.
"These are very special ones," she said. "Freshly blessed by Bhagavan."
The frog hopped up on the rim of the iddli bowl and took a big bite.
"Spottykins, you must have been right that he was hungry," said Tirucub.
Within half a second, a most extraordinary thing happened. The frog turned into a little child!
"Whew!" said the boy. "I thought I was never going to get back to my usual form!"
Mum Lioness looked from cub to cub, her eyes saying: tell me what on EARTH you have been up to.
"We ... we found him in the safe," said Arunacub.
"But as a frog," added the child. He ran to each cub and hugged them. "Thank you for getting me out of there! It was so lonely in the safe, and so dark."
"How did you turn from boy to frog?" asked Mum Lioness.
"That swami did it to me! I told him to give everyone's treasures and money back, after his prosperity puja didn't work. He said it DID work ... it was a perfect demonstration of everyone's childish attachment to material possessions and his demonstration was a greater gift to them than all the diamonds in the world. I laughed at that, because everyone could see he cared about the stuff more than anyone else did, and then he had a big temper tantrum and turned me into a frog."
"Have another iddli," said Omcub.
The child took another and hungrily ate it. Then he smiled. "I know who every single one of those treasures belongs to. Let's give them all back!"
"Yes, starting with the Gurunathans' money and Jyoti's mangalsutra," said Tirucub. "But first we must make Uncle Annamalai's lunch. You can help us."
The little boy was alternately turning summersaults and eating iddlies, overjoyed to be out of the safe. "How can I help?" he asked cheerfully.
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