Frogged (6 page)

There was no way for communicating such things as
Hello,
or
My, what a pretty shade of green you are,
or
Please excuse any unintentional rude behavior—I'm new to being a frog.

All of a sudden, several of the frogs croaked, “Sky!” Or, Imogene wondered, would simply
Up!
be a more accurate translation? The frogs didn't seem to have much of a grasp of the world.

It was only when a shadow passed over her that she took into account the higher pitch of their croaks, a tone that she knew—once she thought about it—signified
Danger!

Some of the frogs had dived below the surface of the water. Others remained perfectly still, pretending to be a bit of dead debris afloat in the stream, boring and unappetizing.

There was no time for her to seek the safety of going underwater, which she judged the more likely defense: any movement now would be sure to attract the predator. Which also meant that Imogene had to fight the inclination to raise her head to track what had to be a bird swooping in for lunch. Whether it was a hawk or a seagull or any other type of bird who ate frogs, what difference would knowing make? But it was hard
not
to know.

If it's coming after me, it's coming after me,
Imogene reasoned, then she simultaneously braced herself to die and sent out and upward to the incoming bird the mental thought,
The male frogs are fatter!

The shadow passed entirely over her—but barely. It was a heron, which explained why its shadow was so long, and it hit the water no farther away than the breadth of one of Imogene's hands—one of her human hands, true, but that was still terrifyingly close—and it snatched up one of the frogs who had hidden underwater. “Ouch!” was the only thing the frog said.

Imogene felt a little bit sad that someone had gotten eaten, but a whole lot glad that it hadn't been her.

As soon as the heron and its meal were airborne, the frogs in the stream resumed what they'd been doing. “Good food!” and “Hey, girls!” once more rang out over the water. Not a single
Poor Fred
or even an
Oh my!

Imogene, however, was shaken. She paddled her froggy legs to the edge of the water. There could well be snakes and other dangers on the land, she realized. And no frogs to croak out a warning. But she felt less exposed on the marshy ground than in the open water.

She could even see the back of a house from here. And a boy, throwing meal out to some chickens.

Imogene had had enough of trying to solve her problems on her own. She would go to this boy and ask him to transport her back to the castle. Surely her parents or one of her parents' various advisors would be able to come up with some solution.

And, she told herself as she began to jump toward him, a boy who lived so close to the house of the witch must certainly be used to seeing unusual things. He would not be as likely as other villagers to take alarm at a talking frog who claimed to be the princess of the realm.

She jumped through the marsh grass, then through the tall grass that bordered the marsh, then through the grass that formed the yard—cropped shorter by the goat that almost stepped on her because Imogene was concentrating on the boy so much that she didn't see the goat till the last moment.

Oh, don't go inside,
Imogene mentally begged the boy, because she could see that he'd finished feeding the chickens.

Fortunately, the boy was not a conscientious worker: he hoisted himself onto the top rail of the fence that kept the goat away from his mother's wash line, and sat watching the chickens. Since chickens are not all that interesting, this had to be pure laziness on the boy's part, but it worked out to Imogene's advantage.

“Hello,” she called to the boy.

He made a startled little jump and gave what Imogene could tell was a guilty-for-sitting-down-on-the-job glance around the yard. Then he hurriedly upended the meal bucket and shook it as though the only reason he'd sat was to give himself the chance to get every last bit of meal out for the chickens.

“Hello,” Imogene repeated.

The boy looked from the back of the house to the yard, no doubt trying to determine where the voice was coming from, since no one was in sight.

By then Imogene had reached the fence. “Over here,” she said. “By the gate. Look down.” She figured that directly by the fence post was a safe place where the boy was unlikely to accidentally step on her. And if somehow he looked likely to, she could hop backwards beneath the lowest rail into the other section of the yard.

But the boy didn't get to his feet at all. “Oh,” he said. “What do
you
want?”

Well!
Imogene thought. There was not being frightened because one was used to seeing unusual things from living next door to a witch, and there was sounding downright bored—at a talking frog.

She fell back onto her previous statement. “Hello,” she said once more, this time speaking in her most formal princess voice.

The boy gave a soft grunt, which could have been a return greeting, or a sound of mild indigestion.

Imogene decided to take the sound, whatever it was, as encouragement. “I'm relieved to see that you're not troubled at my appearance, because I've had a rather unfortunate experience with a witch, and—”

The boy interrupted, “Go on, Harry. What're you playing at?”

Harry?
The only Harry she knew was the wainwright's boy. “Oh,” said Imogene. Then, remembering how Harry had described the witch as living just down the road from his friend, she said, “Oh, you must be Tolf.”

The boy rolled his eyes. “Same as I been all my life.”

“Hello, Tolf. I know this might be hard to believe, though not so hard as it might be for someone who lives elsewhere, but I'm Princess Imogene.”

Tolf snorted. “Yeah, and I'm King Wellington.”

Startled, Imogene took time to consider. Since her world had been turned upside down, it was, in theory, possible that her father . . .

But, no, it wasn't. Tolf talked like a peasant, not a king; and Tolf wasn't overjoyed to see his daughter safe—if somewhat froggified—which her father would have been.

Tolf, she realized, was mocking her.

“No, really,” she said.

“Yeah?” Tolf said, in a tone he no doubt thought was really clever. “Then how'd you know my name? Explain that, why doncha? How would a princess know
my
name?”

“Harry told me.”

“Oooh,” Tolf said. “‘Harry told me.' Pretty convenient, that, since you
are
Harry. But I gotta say, Harry, you almost got that posh princess voice down pat. A little bit overdone to be absolutely believable, but good.”

Imogene had had just about enough of this nonsense. “Look—” she started.

But Tolf interrupted. “No, you look, Harry. I already told you: I'm not calling my sister out here and telling her, ‘Hey, Luella, I bet you're too scared to kiss this here frog.' 'Cause once she did, then Luella would turn around and find some unsuspecting fella to kiss
her
—and, believe me, Luella's pretty good at finding fellas to kiss her, and I don't think a little setback like being a frog would slow her down much. Once she was a girl again, she'd tell Ma how I tricked her, and—whew!—would Ma tan my hide!”

“I am
not
Harry. I am Princess Imogene Eustacia Wellington.”

“Yeah, well,
I
ain't kissing you, neither, Harry, even if you're pretending to be a girl. You got yourself into this mess. You get yourself out.”

“I'm not asking you to kiss me!” Imogene shouted in her loudest croak. “All I'm asking is for you to take me home, back to the castle, so my parents—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tolf said. “Give it up, Harry. You'll never convince the king and queen, neither. And if you did, once they found you out, you'd be in even worse trouble than you are now. You haven't thought this out. Soon's you get someone in the castle to kiss you and you turn into Harry the wainwright's boy instead of Her High and Mighty Highness Princess Imogene Etc., Etc.—whew! That'd be even worse than my Ma finding out I'd tricked Luella into becoming a frog.”

“But—”

“Gotta go, Harry.” Tolf jumped off the fence rail and headed back toward the house.

“But—”

“Good luck to ya.”

“But—”

The door slammed shut behind him.

“You're dumb as a post, Tolf,” Imogene muttered. For good measure, she added, “I'd be willing to stay a frog for ninety-nine years rather than kiss you!”

But then she thought about what she'd just said. And she wondered if staying a frog was exactly what was going to happen to her.

Chapter 6:

(Yeah, lots of luck with that one)

 

 

Boys!
Imogene thought.
They're all just about entirely useless.

She wondered if she'd have any better luck with Tolf's sister, Luella. Or with his parents. But there was no telling if any of them were even home, much less if they would prove any easier to convince than Tolf.

Still,
she thought,
what do I have to lose?
The sun was quite low in the sky, and back home at the castle servants would no doubt be in a frenzy of getting-supper-ready-to-serve-to-the-royal-family activity. Her absence would be noticed soon, if it hadn't been already. She needed to avoid having her parents worrying about her. Because she had come to learn that parents can act strangely: if they're worried that something bad has happened to their child but it turns out that this is not the case, parents permit themselves one brief moment of relief, followed by hours of
How could you
s and reprimands and “consequences”—which is a fancy word for “punishments.” If Imogene was to avoid this, she had no time to lose.

She jumped closer to the house and examined the door through which Tolf had entered. Unfortunately, he had closed it tight behind him. Where was the boy's carelessness when she could use it? She positioned herself directly below the window at the back of the house. “Hello!” she called. “Announcing a royal reward for doing a small service for Princess Imogene.” Her frog voice did not carry so much as her human voice did—which her mother habitually complained she could hear throughout the castle—and no one came to investigate.

So Imogene jumped her way around to the front. But the front door was closed, too.

Even the door to the small barn in the side yard—home, no doubt, to the chickens and the goat—was shut.

And, now that she thought about it, that was unusual. Most people only closed the barn door at night and in harsh weather, leaving it open during the day just in case the animals wanted to get out of the sun or rain.

Even odder: though the door was closed, the latch was not secured.

Maybe someone was in there, she thought, perhaps a member of Tolf's family preparing the barn for housing the animals overnight. Still, without windows and with the door shut, anyone in there would be working in the dark.

Imogene hopped closer. “Hello!” she called from directly outside the door.

Someone
was
in there, she was sure of it, because she heard faint stirrings. Not faint as in mice running for cover, but faint as in humans trying to be quiet.

“Hello,” Imogene repeated. “Anyone here?”

From inside the barn, a male voice answered, “No.”

Someone shushed him.

Imogene used the only name she had. “Luella?”

The same male voice whispered frantically to whoever was in the barn with him, “It's your mother.”

A female voice, presumably Tolf's sister, Luella, hissed back, “It's not.”

“Well, it's somebody looking for you.” The voice made the speaker sound well-spoken, if not exactly bright.

Some more shushing, this time more insistent.

Imogene said, “I can hear you.”

After sighing loudly enough that Imogene could hear that, too, the girl Luella called out, “Everything's fine in here. Um, no need to come in. I'm just doing a little bit of . . . oh . . . fluffing up the straw for the goat here. Alone.” A forced laugh. “Of course. Of course, I'm alone. Why wouldn't I be? All by myself. I'll be finished in a bit. So, um, why don't you wait for me in front of the house?”

Well, obviously something was going on that shouldn't have been.

Imogene would have declared it none of her business and gone elsewhere—except she had nowhere else to go. Back to the pond, with the frogs and the frog-eating birds? Back on the road, where there were cats and dogs and wagons and people flinging radishes? Back to the witch, who was no help at all—and annoying as well? Imogene told the people in the barn, “Oh, all right. I'll leave and go wait patiently by the house.”

“
In front of
the house,” Luella reminded, since that faced the other direction and someone standing there would not be able to see the barn door.

“In front,” Imogene agreed.

After a brief pause, she heard the male voice whisper, “Is she gone? I didn't hear her leave.”

Of course they hadn't heard her leave. There was nothing Imogene could do about that. Frog footsteps—even annoyed frog footsteps, even annoyed-teenage-girl-frogs-stamping-their-feet footsteps are generally quieter than the most attentively-trying-to-be-secret human footsteps.

“She must be gone,” the male voice stated, maybe in reaction to a headshake or a shrug from Luella. “Inquire whether she's still there.”

Luella tried to hush her friend. “Bertie!” she complained.

Imogene tapped her little webbed foot impatiently.

Eventually Luella and this Bertie must have agreed that if they waited much longer, the person who had been out there would come back. Imogene heard someone—someone with big galumphing boots—tiptoe to the door. She stood her ground, but attentively, ready to jump off to the side if those boots started heading toward her.