Field guide · the swamp court, term by term
Field Guide to the Swamp Court
New to the case of the wholesome bog frog framed by his own twin? Start here. Every recurring term in the file — the forensics, the geography, the currency, the cell block — defined in one place, each with a pin pointing to where it turns up in the record.
- tongue-print
In this swamp you don't sign your name — you sign your tongue. The print at the tip is as individual as a claw-mark and, in living memory, unfakeable. PeePoo's lies flat and honest as a fresh lily pad. The whole frame job hangs on whose tongue signed what.
In the file: the evidence locker- the curl
The tiny hook at the very tip of a tongue-print where a tired forger's own nature leaks back in. PeePoo's print has no hook. The other twin's does. You can imitate a frog's manners for a season; you cannot un-curl your own tongue. The entire case is the curl.
In the file: Forensic Flossie's sworn analysis- shell ponds
The three still pools a forger runs stolen swamp-bucks through to lose the trail before the money goes out the far side. Followed honestly, that trail led home to a frog asleep on his own pad who had eaten a sensible number of flies and signed nothing.
In the file: the seventeen checks, chapter four- swamp-bucks
The local currency — what a card table across the pond converts a forged check into. PeePoo has never had many and has never once needed more, which is exactly the problem with pinning seventeen bad checks on him.
In the file: the ledger across the pond- Cell Block C
The wing PeePoo was booked into at 3:47 AM for a crime committed three ponds away. The wrong twin in the right cell — a filing error the whole case has been trying to correct ever since.
In the file: the arrest at 3:47 AM- Lily-pad Lockup
The swamp's jail, where a bailiff watched an innocent frog cry real tears he was physically incapable of faking — and cried right along with him. Even the guards are character witnesses here.
In the file: Bailiff Marsh's affidavit- Cattail Cove
The quiet corner of the pond where PeePoo, unasked and unwatched, folds a neighbor's cattails flat and squares the corners. A frog who tidies the reeds when no one is looking is not the frog who signed checks in the dark.
In the file: same clutch, same pond, chapter one- Artificial Ignorance (AI)
The defense's official power source, per the footer of every page: not intelligence but a deep, wholesome refusal to believe the worst of anyone. It is how a frog stays this pure with this much evidence stacked against him.
In the file: the case for the defense- the far lily pad
The pad across the water where an unnamed frog with PeePoo's exact face sends the smug, unsigned transmissions. A frog who won't sign his own boasts knows precisely what a signature is worth in a courtroom. Oblique references only.
In the file: a signal from the far lily pad
Glossary maintained alongside file PP-08-21-9420. Terms are load-bearing; the case rests on them. Do not remove pins.