Frogged

by Vivian Vande Velde

  “Oh,” the frog said. “Not likely. It’s a small kingdom. We’re north of here.” Before Imogene could do more than open her mouth, he added, “Well, sort of north-ish. By way of east-northwest. Anyway, it’s very small. You wouldn’t of ever heard of us.”

  “I see,” said Princess Imogene, not wanting to be discourteous, even though it all seemed very strange. “It’s only that you don’t sound very much like the other princes I’ve met.”

  “Oh, that’s very nice!” the frog snapped. “Make fun of my accent.”

  “No, it’s not so much an accent—”

  “And of the fact that I sound like a frog. Come on, Princess, keep up! Weren’t you listening to the whole the-witch-changed-me-into-a-frog part? This is the way frogs talk, except you never noticed before on account of you not being a frog and all.”

  It made sense. Sort of. Imogene supposed.

  “So, you going to help me out, Princess?” the frog asked.

  “Help you out?” Imogene repeated.

  The frog sighed. “You aren’t very well-read for a princess, are you, Princess? A witch puts a spell on a prince, turns the prince into a frog, the only way to break the spell is if a princess comes along and . . . you know . . .” The frog puckered his lips.

  “Oh.” Imogene could feel her face begin to flush. “I’ve never kissed a boy,” she admitted, figuring that kissing her little brother Will on the cheek or forehead didn’t count.

  “Hello!” the frog said. “I’m not a boy. I’m a frog. Who used to be a prince. Princess, you got to pay attention.”

  “I am,” Imogene told him, beginning to feel miffed at the frog’s attitude. But she didn’t want to sound snooty or overly suspicious, like her mother. “It’s just this is all new to me.”

  “Well, yeah!” the frog said. “Think how I feel about it!”

  And it was by doing exactly that—thinking how the prince-turned-frog must feel—that Imogene decided to help him.

  “All right,” she said, “how do we do this?”

  The frog rolled his eyes, which is not a pretty sight in a frog. “Well, it seems to me that either the lips gotta come down to the frog, or the frog’s gotta go up to the lips.”

  Imogene considered. Though the hem of her dress was already thoroughly wet, she didn’t want to sit or kneel on the soggy ground. But she didn’t relish the idea of picking up the frog, which seemed much more her brother Will’s type of interest. Besides, she didn’t know how this kissing-a-frog-back-into-a-prince thing worked. Would he instantly resume his human form? While she was holding him?

  As she was weighing her options, the frog said, “Don’t worry, Princess: I got my clothes on. They changed right along with me.”

  “Oh my!” said Imogene, who hadn’t even thought to worry about that. Eager to get this over with, she decided to kneel down after all, which entirely soaked the bottom half of her dress before she thought that what she should have done was ask the frog to hop to higher ground with her.

  Too late now. She bent all the way down, stretched her neck forward, puckered her lips, and—at the last moment—closed her eyes.

  Something cold and slightly spinach-y touched her lips. Imogene forced herself not to shudder, forced herself to kiss.

  She hadn’t been favorably impressed with the frog, but a tingly sensation washed over her entire body, so she told herself maybe it was true love after all. She rather hoped not, but she’d read about such things.

  Except . . . except that the tingling didn’t stop when the kiss did. It escalated. She was willing to accept the dizziness, but her body became downright fizzy. Her skin tickled and prickled. This is what a gherkin must feel like, she thought, when it picklefies. She couldn’t recall a single book or love ballad she’d ever heard mentioning such a sensation.

  Imogene opened her eyes, and the dizziness doubled, tripled, quadrupled. The world tipped and broke into little pieces, then reassembled itself differently, reminding her of the time she had looked through the wrong end of her father’s telescope.

  She quickly closed her eyes again, squeezing them tightly to keep that disorienting world out.

  “Princess?”

  Imogene wondered if the frog prince was experiencing the same effects.

  “Princess, you all right?”

  Except his voice sounded much steadier than she felt.

  And loud.

  And high up.

  It must have worked, she thought. He’d turned back into a person, and he was standing up over her, while she still knelt in the mucky weeds.

  “I’m sorry, Princess,” the frog prince said. “It was the only way to take the spell off of me.”

  Sorry didn’t sound good.

  Imogene opened her eyes, and the world once more shifted a bit, then settled.

  The prince—Imogene didn’t like to think of herself as a snob, but she thought he had a very shabby appearance for a prince, even for one just recently rescued from frog-hood—the prince absolutely loomed over her.

  More oddly, so did the marsh grass.

  Imogene looked down to the ground—which was a lot closer to her than she’d have expected.

  That was when she saw her skinny green legs. And her webbed feet.

  A startled “Rrrribitt” escaped from her mouth.

  And that was how Princess Imogene Eustacia Wellington became a frog.

  Chapter 2:

  A Princess Should Be a Good Listener

  (Of course, “good” doesn’t mean she should believe everything she hears)

  Princess Imogene glared at the boy who had formerly been a frog, the boy who had never been a prince—the boy who was, in fact, the son of the wagon maker, the wainwright’s boy. “Did you know that was going to happen?” she demanded. Her voice was small and a bit croaky, just as his had been, back when he’d been a frog.

  “What?” the boy asked—difficult to tell if he was going for innocent or dimwitted. Neither was believable. By the way he wouldn’t meet her gaze, she saw that he knew exactly what she was talking about.

  “That wasn’t very nice,” she told him. Even as she said it, she thought it was perhaps the biggest understatement of the world.

  But he only shrugged. Which was pretty halfhearted if meant as an acknowledgment, and woefully inadequate as an apology.

  “How do I turn back to myself?”

  Again the shrug.

  And—once again—she suspected she already had the answer. She just didn’t like it. “I have to get somebody else to kiss me,” she said, not even asking, “and then that person will become a frog in my place.”

  For such a talkative frog, the boy now seemed beyond communicating except through lifting and dropping his shoulders.

  “Well, that’s just . . . just . . .” In her agitation, another “Rrr-bitt” escaped from her little green lips. “Well it goes beyond mean. I could never do that to someone.”

  And yet if she didn’t, would she stay a frog?

  Forever?

  Surely there had to be another way.

  Didn’t there?

  The boy gave another silent shoulderly answer.

  But after a moment, he suggested, “Maybe you could choose someone you don’t like, someone who”—again with a shrug—“deserves it. Then it might not be so bad.”

  “Excuse me,” Imogene said, drawing herself up to her full two and a half inches. “You’re saying you don’t like me? You’re saying I deserved to be turned into a frog?”

  “You were here,” the boy told her, which was not exactly a strong affirmation of his high regard for her.

  “But you chose to use me,” Imogene said. What was she hoping for? He’d already apologized. Sort of. As much, she suspected, as he ever would.

  The boy said, “Look, Princess, you’re a princess. You always got good things your whole life. Me, I got a father what smacks me on the side of the head when he thinks I’m not working hard enough. And more squalling brothers and sisters than it’s fair for any one
boy to have to deal with. And a ma what’s too tired to keep up with ’em.”

  Never mind, Princess Imogene thought, feeling just the slightest bit sorry for herself, that I saw all that and tried to help.

  But before she could decide if she should remind him that she sometimes brought bread for him to eat, he finished, “Maybe it was my turn to have a little bit of luck.”

  Luck, Imogene thought. It was just her bad luck that she’d come here.

  “Well, I gotta go, Princess,” the boy said. “I already been gone overnight, and my father is like to be really mad.”

  “Ribbit!” Imogene called as he turned from her. She quickly managed to come back to human speech. “Wait!” Then, because

  she had been raised to always remember her manners, but mostly because

  he’d clearly indicated he resented her being a princess,

  she added, “Please.”

  He stopped but didn’t turn to face her. “You don’t even know my name,” he pointed out. “Here you go, wanting to call me back, but you don’t know how except as”—he slipped into a la-di-da voice that she could only assume was supposed to sound like hers—“that-poor-boy-I’m-oh-so-kind-enough-to-help.”

  So, Imogene thought, it was a good thing she hadn’t mentioned the bread before.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  He had turned her into a frog, and she was apologizing.

  But still. “I’m sorry I never asked your name.”

  Finally, sulkily, the boy faced her. “Harry,” the boy told her. “My name is Harry.”

  Before he could turn around for good and walk away, she hurriedly said, “Hello, Harry. I’m Imogene.”

  He snorted, which might have meant he thought that was obvious. Or maybe it meant he thought she was talking down to him by not saying, “Princess Imogene.” But they both knew what she was.

  And what he was.

  She said, “Please, Harry, will you tell me what happened?” Then, seeing the I-can’t-believe-you’re-asking-me-that expression on his face, she clarified, “To you. How did you get changed into a frog?”

  But even that question seemed to try his patience. “I done told you,” he said. “You try to act like you’re a regular person, but you don’t listen. I already said.”

  And with that, he did resume walking away.

  “A witch!” Imogene called after him. She started jumping, following as he strode through the grass that separated the mill pond from the road, but she quickly saw she could never catch up. Her frog legs were strong for jumping both high and long, but not so good for a whole bunch of jumps, one right after another. “I was listening. I did hear you. You said a witch turned you into a frog, and you said she did it for no reason.” She didn’t point out that he had also said he was a prince, so he was perhaps not the most reliable person from whom to be getting her information. She finished all in a rush and raised her voice, because the distance between them was growing and he gave no sign that he intended to stop. “But you didn’t give me the specifics.”

  “Specifics,” he muttered, still striding away from her. But then he did finally face her again, though he continued walking—more slowly—backwards. “Specifics.”

  The way he lingered over the word made Imogene suspect that he might not know what it meant, but that he didn’t want to admit so. He had tried to bluff his way through “metaphor.” But he had also sort of gotten it. She said, “Who the witch was. Where the two of you crossed paths. What you were doing when—for no reason—she put the spell on you.” It couldn’t hurt to take his side. “If she said anything to you. That kind of specifics.”

  She had time for all this because he had stopped walking and she’d had the chance to close some of the distance between them. She was, however, panting from all the jumping, which was harder work than she would have ever thought. Not that she had ever thought about any of it: jumping or frogs or jumping frogs.

  Luckily, he answered—luckily because she didn’t have breath for any more questions or jumps.

  “She’s the old lady what lives in the house down the way from where my friend Tolf lives, you know, the house behind where the cooper has his shop?”

  Imogene managed to croak out, “Who lives behind the cooper’s shop: Tolf or the old lady?”

  Harry rolled his eyes. “Tolf. The witch’s house is down the way from him. But before you get to the blacksmith’s shop. She has apple trees in her yard. More apple trees—more apples—than anyone could ever use.”

  Imogene had a suspicion she could guess where this story was going, but she nodded to encourage him.

  Harry said, “I heard tell she was a witch, but I figured that was talk she started herself, so as to keep people from pestering her. Either that, or people call her witch causin’ she’s as ugly as the wrong end of a wild pig.”

  Imogene didn’t interrupt to ask him which was the wrong end of a wild pig. That is, she supposed she knew, but she wasn’t sure, since she wouldn’t want to come face to face with either end. And the end that, technically speaking, had a face to come face to face with had nasty sharp tusks, and surely those were something most anyone would want to avoid.

  Her own parents didn’t believe in witches, not outside of stories, and they certainly didn’t believe in name-calling those who were unfortunate in their physical appearance.

  But before she could become too distracted by either of those lines of thinking, Harry finished, “And, I mean, if you were a witch what knew spells, wouldn’t the first spell you cast be to improve your looks from ugly to at least passable?”

  “Yes,” Imogene said, because what instantly came to mind was all those princesses who were as good as they were beautiful, and she’d always wanted that. Well, truth be told: she was more interested in the beautiful part than the good part. But then she said, “Well, no, probably it would be the second thing I’d wish for.” Because—as nice as it would be to be beautiful—it was more important to be healthy and of sound body. As someone who had just had her body changed into that of a frog, she knew the importance of this. But that was selfish, because of course she’d also want her family to be healthy, so she amended her statement to “Well, actually the third.” Her mind kept spinning and bouncing off different possibilities. “Or, no, wait a minute: the fourth, because— Except . . . Maybe the fifth . . . Unless it was the sixth. Or it could be—”

  “Princess,” Harry interrupted firmly, and even a bit crankily for all her dithering.

  “What?”

  “It would be one of the first.”

  She pondered that, weighing it.

  “If you were a witch?” Harry sounded exasperated. “With lots of years to cast lots of spells?”

  “But isn’t that the point?” Imogene said. “She did turn out to be a witch. Who hasn’t made herself attractive. For whatever reason.”

  “You always got to be right, don’t you, Princess?” Harry snapped.

  “You’re the one who brought it up,” Imogene snapped right back.

  “Anyways,” Harry said, “I didn’t believe she was a witch, even though you probably would of on account of you being a princess and being so smart about everything. And there was her yard, with all them apples nobody was eating except for the worms once them apples fell off them trees, and with me with never enough to eat.”

  “So you went into her yard?” Imogene said. “To take an apple because you were hungry? And she caught you and changed you into a frog for that?” It hardly seemed fair.

  Harry squirmed. “Well,” he admitted, “with me and my brothers and sisters with never enough to eat.”

  “All right,” Imogene said. “So you took . . . several . . . apples? For your brothers and sisters?” She thought there might be six of the children, total, but she wasn’t absolutely certain.

  It was hard to believe someone could be so cruel to begrudge six—or even seven—hungry children an apple each, and Imogene took a few moments to think about going to someone like that and a
sking for help in de-frogging herself.

  Moments Harry apparently spent thinking about something, too.

  “Well . . .” he said.

  That brought her back quickly. “What?”

  “A few of them apples—you, know, the ones on the ground—they were wormy. And mushy. They were no good to eat.”

  Imogene tapped her little webbed foot. “And so?” she prompted.

  “So,” Harry admitted, “I threw a few of them, for target practice.”

  “Target practice?” Imogene demanded. “Don’t tell me you were throwing apples at the witch.”

  “No!” Harry assured her. “I’d never do that.” His squirming resumed. “Not intentionally.” He sighed, as though she was interrogating him. “All right, all right, I was throwing them at her door. How was I to know she was home? How was I to know she’d choose then to come out?”

  Imogene sighed, too. “And that was when she turned you into a frog? After you accidentally hit her with an apple?”

  Harry considered for a bit too long before saying, “More or less.”

  “More or less what?” Imogene snapped.

  “I was throwing the apples fast,” Harry said. “And I’m a very good shot. Maybe two hit her.”

  Imogene just looked at him and waited.

  “Three at the most.”

  “Anything else you need to tell me?”

  “No, Princess, that’s about it. What do you need to know all this for, anyway?”

  It was so obvious, Imogene couldn’t believe he had to ask. “So I can track her down. And convince her to take the spell off me without my having to pass it on to someone else.”

  Harry snorted. “Yeah, well—good luck with that!” he said.

  Chapter 3:

  A Princess Ought to Be Fearless

  (That’s just crazy: the only people who are fearless are people who have no imagination)

  Princess Imogene had hoped that Harry would come with her. But the way he wished her good luck sounded like the end of the conversation.