Attack of the Ninja Frogs

by Ursula Vernon

  “Wendell!” he hissed, catching up with the iguana. “Don’t be an idiot! Big Eddy won’t hit a girl!”

  “Does Big Eddy know that? ” Wendell hissed back.

  “Sorry,” said Suki again, trying to move away. Eddy’s cronies, Harry the chameleon and Jason, a salamander rather larger and uglier than Suki, blocked her path.

  “You oughta watch where you’re going, squirt,” said Eddy.

  “It was an accident,” said Suki, sounding ready to cry.

  Wendell skidded past the last table and raised a trembling fist.

  Danny had a vision of Wendell being pounded into the ground like a tent peg. Big Eddy’s fists were bigger than the iguana’s head.

  Wendell drew a deep breath and opened his mouth. “Y-you leave her—”

  Big Eddy turned.

  “Hey, Big Eddy!” said Danny, jumping in front of his friend. “Did you know somebody wrote something rude about you in the second-floor bathroom? ”

  Eddy blinked at him. “What was that, dorkbreath?”

  “In the third stall. I’m just telling you.”

  Big Eddy shook his head, like a horse shaking off flies. It was difficult for him to change thoughts that quickly. “Somebody wrote somethin’ about me?”

  Danny nodded, eyes wide and innocent. “You might want to go scribble it out. I don’t think I’d want anybody saying that about my mother.”

  Big Eddy growled and turned away, Suki forgotten. His flunkies fell in hastily behind him as the Komodo dragon went in search of the graffiti.

  On the way out of the cafeteria, he reached out and grabbed Danny’s lunch. Danny watched his corn dog exit with the rest of Big Eddy’s entourage and sighed.

  “You okay? ” asked Wendell.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” Suki wrapped her arms around herself. “Just should have looked where I was going . . .”

  “Come and eat lunch with us,” said Wendell.

  Danny stifled another sigh. On the one hand, cooties—on the other hand, his parents always said that you came together and helped each other in times of crisis. He was pretty sure they’d meant earthquakes and tornados and lance-wielding knights, but Big Eddy was a natural disaster all on his own.

  They sat down. Suki sat across from them. Danny wasn’t sure how much eye contact you were supposed to make with girls—did you look at them, or didn’t you look at them? If you looked at them, were you staring?

  Suki solved the problem by mostly staring at her lunch. So did Wendell. Danny stared at the ceiling and wondered when the situation had gotten out of control.

  “Thank you for chasing off Big Eddy,” said Suki after a long pause. She picked at her sandwich. “Is there really something written on the bathroom wall? ”

  “There sure is,” said Danny proudly. It had taken him twenty minutes with a protractor, and he’d needed Wendell’s help spelling some of the bigger words.

  “That was very nice of you,” said Suki.

  “Well, he is my nemesis,” said Danny.

  Wendell rolled his eyes.

  WEBBED WARRIORS

  It had been a long lunch and an even longer day at school. Danny was glad to finally be away from Big Eddy, plate tectonics, and Suki.

  Unfortunately, fate did not seem to be on Danny’s side today. He and Wendell were walking home along the edge of Birchbark Park when they heard a scream. Both of them froze.

  “What do we dooo? ” asked Wendell, paling.

  It was an interesting question. If somebody was being murdered, you were supposed to get the police, but at the same time, if you could stay and be a world-famous hero—well, you’d hate to miss it.

  “I think we’re supposed to get a teacher or policeman or something—” said Danny’s mouth, while the rest of Danny was busy shoving through the hedge and into the park.

  “This doesn’t look like getting a policeman,” said Wendell.

  “Maybe we’ll run into one on the way.”

  Danny’s tail vanished through the hedge. Wendell realized that he was alone with a murderer on the loose and hurriedly shoved through the hedge after him.

  There was another scream. This one sounded more mad, and it seemed to be coming from behind the little building with the restrooms.

  “GO AWAY!”

  “I think it’s Suki!” said Wendell. He gritted his teeth, lowered his head, and suddenly Danny was running to try and keep up with his best friend.

  “Wendell, wait!” Danny was confident of his ability to handle a murderer—he almost knew kung fu, after all, and he’d even breathed fire once under extreme duress—but he wasn’t so confident of Wendell’s skills. If Wendell was in a kung fu movie, he would be listed in the credits as “Screaming Victim #4.”

  “She’s in trouble ! ”

  “LEAVE ME ALONE!”

  Somebody was in trouble . . . but judging by the tone of voice, Danny thought it might be Suki’s attacker. The dragon put on an extra burst of speed, and he and Wendell skidded around the corner of the building together.

  Suki was hanging between two creatures, kicking at them and slapping furiously with her tail.

  Danny knew that they had to go rescue her—that was just what you did—but for a moment, all he could do was stare.

  Suki’s attackers were identical. They wore black suits that covered everything but their eyes, and they had broad, sticky pads on their fingers. One of them had a pair of sais* shoved into his belt.

  They were frogs.

  Ninja frogs.

  *COOL NINJA FACT #1: SAIS ORIGINATED IN OKINAWA. THE PRONGS ARE USED TO CATCH SWORD BLADES WHEN FIGHTING SAMURAI.

  “Holy mackerel,” breathed Danny. “Ninjas!”

  The frogs stared at Danny and Wendell. Danny and Wendell stared at the frogs. Suki wrenched herself sideways and cracked her tail across one’s foot.

  It occurred to Danny that he ought to do something, but they were real live ninjas and—and—

  His thoughts pretty much stopped after that.

  The two ninja frogs looked at each other, then, as one, dropped Suki and leaped onto the roof.

  They cleared it in a single bound, went over the top, and were gone from sight.

  “Oh my God,” said Danny. “Oh my God—oh—did you see—ninja frogs—thatisthecoolestthing ever!”

  Wendell and Suki stared at him as if he’d lost his mind.

  “Are you okay? ” Wendell asked Suki.

  “—real live ninjas and they had masks and sais —ohmyGodohmyGodohmyGodohmyGodohmyGod—”

  Suki stood up and brushed herself off. “I’m fine, I guess.”

  “Are they still around? Should we get out of here? ”

  “—I wonder if they know ninjitsu they must’cause they’re ninjas I wonder if they could teach me—”

  “They’re probably still around,” said Suki gloomily, “but they only seem to come after me when nobody else is here. Thanks for showing up.”

  “What did they want? ” Wendell wanted to know.

  “I wish I knew. They just started—Danny, will you shut up already? ”

  Suki sat down on a park bench. “I think they’re coming after me. I started seeing things—just out of the corner of my eye—but there was one outside my window this morning, and then one nearly jumped me outside the girls’ bathroom.”

  Danny took his hands off his mouth and managed to say, in a normal tone of voice, “Well, at least they waited until you were outside the bathroom.”

  “Maybe they don’t have any girl ninjas to send in, I don’t know.” Suki folded her arms.

  “But why are they coming after you? ”

  “I don’t know!” Suki threw her hands in the air. “They didn’t say anything! They just grabbed me and tried to haul me somewhere! I don’t know what’s going on!”

  “Have you told somebody? Maybe your host parents? ” asked Wendell.

  “Oh, yeah, that’d work really well,” said Suki bitterly. “‘Mr. and Mrs. Schwartz, please don’t think I’m crazy,
but I’m being attacked by ninjas.’ The best thing that could happen is that they’d tell me I had an overactive imagination from reading too many comic books.”

  “That’s true,” said Danny, who had listened to that particular speech at least three times himself. 1

  “I guess I’ll find out what they want when they finally manage to kidnap me,” said Suki, kicking the park bench savagely.

  “We won’t let that happen!” said Wendell. “Will we, Danny?”

  “Hmm? What?” Danny had fallen off the side of the bench and was on his hands and knees on the ground.

  “Danny!”

  “Sorry.” Danny held up a bit of metal. “I think one of them dropped this.”

  “What’s that spiral design? ” Suki wanted to know.

  NINJA FACT #2: THE WORD “SHURIKEN” MEANS “SWORD HIDDEN IN THE HAND.” IT’S A TRADITIONAL NINJA THROWING WEAPON THAT COMES IN A VARIETY OF SHAPES.

  “Some kind of sigil,” Wendell said.

  “The what now? ” said Danny.

  “Their sign. A picture like a signature.”

  “Maybe it’s the sign of the ninja clan.” Danny propped his snout up on his hand. “Maybe they followed you from Japan. Maybe your father’s in the Yakuza, like in Painted Shadows, and they’re trying to get at him by kidnapping you—”

  “My father’s a botanist,” interrupted Suki. “He studies corn.”

  Danny was never one to let a promising idea go.

  All three of them sat in silence for a minute. Wendell scanned the trees nervously for shadowy amphibian figures.

  “We can’t just let ninjas get you,” he said.

  Suki smiled faintly. “Thanks.”

  “Well,” said Danny, leaning back, “ninjas are Japanese, so what do you do back home in Japan when you get a case of ninjas? ”

  Danny put his hands up defensively. “Jeez, no need to yell—”

  “You’re an idiot!” Suki yelled.

  This did not faze Danny, who had been called much worse things, occasionally by the emergency room staff. (Seriously, though, why would anyone make chocolate-flavored laxatives? It was just asking for trouble.) “I was just saying—”

  “Japan isn’t some kind of fantasy land full of ninjas!” Suki said. “I mean, they’re practically mythological!”

  Danny snapped his fingers. “That’s it!”

  “Oh no.” Wendell put his hands over his eyes.

  “What? ” Suki looked confused.

  Danny jumped to his feet. “C’mon! Let’s go to my house!”

  “Whaaaat . . . ? ”

  “I know all about mythology,” said Danny as Wendell and Suki fell in behind him. “After all, I’m a dragon.”

  TO THE BUS!

  All things considered, Suki was taking things rather well.

  Once they had established that Danny was a real dragon—not a bearded water dragon, not a Komodo dragon, but a real honest-to-goodness mythological dragon—she seemed to relax.

  “You’re very calm,” said Wendell.

  “I’m convinced he’s delusional,” said Suki.

  “No, he really isn’t. I’ve seen him breathe fire. Well, once.”

  “It’s harder than it looks,” said Danny.

  “Ah.”

  Danny’s house was pleasant, airy, and smelled faintly of brimstone. Danny’s mother was upstairs working, but came down when she heard the front door slam.

  Wendell introduced Suki, while Danny raided the fridge.

  “Mom,” he said, when everybody had been mutually introduced, and Mrs. Dragonbreath was getting out cookies, “who do we know that might know about Japanese mythology?”

  “Your great-grandfather,” said Mrs. Dragonbreath promptly. “He lives just outside of Izumo Province in Japan.” She tapped a claw thoughtfully against the cookie jar.

  “Right!” Danny stuffed a few extra cookies in his backpack. “We’ll be back, Mom. Got to go track down some ninjas.”

  “Have fun, dear.” Mrs. Dragonbreath headed for the stairs. “I have to finish this article tonight, so we’ll have to have leftover pizza for dinner.”

  “Excellent . . .” Danny tapped his claws together. Real live ninjas, a trip to mythological Japan, and pizza for dinner two nights running. Could life get any better?

  Wendell slowly lifted a finger and Danny looked up.

  “We’d better head to the bus,” said Danny grimly. “It doesn’t look like we’ve got much time.”

  “So let me get this straight . . .” said Suki, who was obviously holding on to calm by the tips of her fingers. “We’re going to take the bus.”

  “Yup.”

  “To mythological Japan.”

  “Yup.”

  “To see your great-grandfather.”

  “Just go with it,” Wendell advised. “We took a bus to the Sargasso Sea last month, and that’s in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.”

  “But this isn’t possible,” said Suki. “I had to take a plane. It took forever.”

  The city bus pulled up with a hiss of brakes, and all three climbed on.

  Suki stared at Wendell for a moment, then folded her arms and settled grimly back into her seat. Wendell winced.

  They rode the bus in silence for nearly twenty minutes, past the mall and the library and the dollar theater. Several passengers got off. The only people left on the bus were the driver and an old woman who was snoring gently among her bags of groceries.

  The bus pulled out of the theater parking lot, swung to the right, and entered a patch of trees. After a minute, the trees thinned out and seemed to lose their branches. A dusting of white covered the ground.

  “Here we are,” said Danny. Suki was staring in openmouthed astonishment.

  “That’s . . . that’s bamboo! And snow?! And—was that a shrine?!”

  “Told you,” said Danny, without any particular heat. Wendell hadn’t believed him the first time either. He pulled the cord, and the bus rumbled to a halt. The driver let them out.

  “This isn’t really Japan, is it?” Suki asked the driver. “I mean, it’s like . . . Japantown or . . . something . . . right? ”

  The driver rolled her eyes. Since she was a chameleon, there was a lot of eye to roll. “What does it say on the schedule?”

  “Mythical Japan,” said Danny helpfully.

  “Then that’s what it is. If you have a problem, please take it up with the transit authority. They have a 1-800 number. Now, if you don’t mind, I have a schedule to keep . . .” The chameleon looked pointedly toward the bus stop. Wendell grabbed Suki’s arm and steered her off the bus.

  “This is not possible . . .” said Suki plaintively, staring up at the bamboo. “I mean . . . the plane . . . I had a six-hour layover in Detroit . . .”

  “Dragons aren’t possible either,” said Danny cheerfully. “But we manage. Now, let’s see . . .” He lifted his snout and sniffed the air. “Granddad’s place should be . . . thataway.” He started off into the bamboo forest.

  “Do you know that with some kind of special dragon sense? ” asked Suki, hurrying to keep up.

  “Nah.” Danny tapped his nose. “Granddad always rubs this awful camphor stuff on his joints. He says they ache. You can smell it for miles.”

  Now that Danny mentioned it, Wendell did detect a distinct smell coming from the northeast—camphor and mint and the faint, familiar scent of brimstone. He squared his shoulders and set off into the woods after Danny.

  NINJA QUEEN

  The bamboo forest was surprisingly dense for not having much in the way of branches, but they rapidly found a path in the direction of the smell. The snow was less than an inch deep, and in patches, the dark earth of the forest floor showed through. It was cold, but not painfully so.

  “You doing okay?” Wendell asked Suki in an undertone as they plodded along the path.

  “Yeah . . .” Suki shrugged. “I mean . . . it’s awfully strange, but I’ve had ninjas chasing me for three days, so I should be used to strange things b
y now.”

  Danny grinned to himself. Suki was pretty tough. You know, for a girl.

  After they’d walked for half an hour, the bamboo thinned out and the path led into a cobblestone walkway. At the end of the walkway was a small neat house with a pagoda-style roof and an entryway guarded by stone dogs.

  The smell of camphor was eye-wateringly strong now. Wendell and Suki inched past the stone dogs and looked around nervously.

  Danny, being Danny, walked up to the front door and pounded on it.

  “Eh? ” came a querulous voice from inside. “What? Somebody there? ”

  “It’s me, Great-Granddad!” yelled Danny at the top of his lungs.

  “What? Danny?”

  The door slid open.

  Danny’s great-grandfather was a dragon, but a different sort of dragon than Wendell had ever seen before. He had a long snaky body, cracked yellow claws, enormous catfish whiskers, and glasses even thicker than Wendell’s.

  He was also extremely hard of hearing.

  “SPEAK UP!” he roared at Wendell after the iguana tried to introduce himself for the third time. “Don’t mumble! Kids today, always mumbling! In my day, we knew how to enunciate!” He poked a yellowed claw at Wendell’s chest.

  “I’m Wen–dell!” Wendell yelled.

  “Wanda? You don’t look much like a Wanda . . . Are you Martha’s girl? ”

  Wendell turned bright green. Danny snickered.

  “I HEARD THAT!”

  “Sorry, Great-Granddad . . .”

  “Hmmph!” Great-Grandfather Dragonbreath adjusted his glasses. “And who’s this?” he asked, leveling his ancient claw at Suki.

  The little salamander bowed deeply to the old dragon and said, “Ohayo gozaimasu.”