Once Upon a Toad

by Heather Vogel Frederick

  “It’s not all that bad,” I admitted grudgingly. “Except for Olivia.”

  Great-Aunt Abyssinia gave me a shrewd look. “A bit of a pill, isn’t she?”

  I looked up at her, surprised. Most grown-ups think Olivia is perfect. That halo of blond curls fools them every time.

  “It does, does it?” said Great-Aunt Aby.

  I started. Had I spoken that last thought aloud?

  Great-Aunt Aby inspected some moss on the side of a nearby tree.

  “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on between you two,” she said, and listened quietly as I told her everything that had happened over the past week. She chuckled at my description of how I’d sabotaged the diorama and dunked Olivia’s toothbrush in the toilet, and scowled when I got to the “Catbox” tap dance.

  “Little weasel,” she muttered.

  Encouraged by this reaction, I told her about the stuff that had happened when we were younger, too, like the time back in third grade when Olivia cut off my bangs while I was sleeping. “She swore up and down that she’d had nothing to do with it, and that I had been sleepwalking and had cut them myself.”

  Great-Aunt Aby’s big teeth peeked out from between her lips, took a look around, then vanished as she squelched a smile. “She did, did she? And did your father and Iz believe her?”

  I wrapped my arms around myself. The sun had disappeared behind the clouds again, and the wind was picking up. “I think maybe Dad thought it sounded fishy, but he didn’t say anything. I know they really want us to get along, so sometimes they kind of ignore things, you know? But it’s not fair!”

  “Not everything in life is fair, Catriona,” Great-Aunt Aby replied. “However, sometimes it’s possible to stack the deck a little in one’s favor.”

  “Really?” I replied cautiously. I wasn’t sure if this was an offer to help or not. I hoped she wasn’t going to pull another plastic bag out of her pocket. Stepsister-B-Gone that doubled as antiperspirant or flea powder or something.

  “I understand that Olivia doesn’t have the most generous of spirits, but it seems to me that what you two need is to find some common ground.”

  I snorted.

  “Surely there’s something you two share that you can build on?”

  I shook my head. This conversation had taken a disappointing turn. I’d been hoping for something with a little more oomph, not just a piece of lame advice. Like maybe an offer to spirit Olivia away in the RV. That would serve her right. See how she liked living on pickled eggs and seaweed.

  Great-Aunt Abyssinia smiled, her eyes glinting behind her glasses again. “You have a delicious sense of humor, Catriona. You’re very like your mother was at your age—and like the Catriona for whom you were named.”

  I looked at her in surprise. “You knew my great-great-grandmother?” Exactly how old was Great-Aunt Aby, anyway?

  “Very,” she replied, then coughed. “I mean, of course I did. I mean—oh, never mind.” She cocked her head sharply, suddenly alert. “Your father’s heading home early,” she announced. “We’d better go back.”

  My mouth dropped open. How could she possibly know that? Ignoring me, Great-Aunt Aby turned abruptly and charged back down the Wildwood Trail. I had no choice but to follow her, my head spinning from all the strange twists and turns of our conversation.

  “Such a lovely little cottage,” my great-aunt said as we emerged onto our street again. “And such a lovely family.”

  “Except for Olivia,” I muttered under my breath.

  Great-Aunt Abyssinia gave me a fleeting smile that told me she’d heard what I’d just said. She might be old, but she had ears like a hawk.

  “Would you like to come in for a minute?” she asked, gesturing at her RV. “Archibald would love to see you again.”

  I nodded. “Sure.”

  Archibald stretched and hopped down from his perch on the sofa when we came in. He’s the best thing about Great-Aunt Abyssinia’s RV. He’s huge, twenty pounds at least, which could be why Great-Aunt Aby picked him. “Big woman like me needs a big cat,” I remember her telling me back at Mount Rushmore.

  “Hey, Archie,” I said, scratching him under his chin. “Remember me?”

  He twined himself around my legs and blinked up at me, his bright green eyes glowing like traffic lights against his coal black fur. When you talk to my great-aunt’s cat, he cocks his head to one side like a dog. You could swear he understands every word you say.

  “Have a seat,” said Great-Aunt Aby. “Help yourself to anything you’d like in the fridge.”

  Fat chance, I thought, but I checked anyway, more out of curiosity than anything else. Sure enough, there were half a dozen bottles of Great-Aunt Aby’s favorite breakfast beverage, the green stuff my mother and I had dubbed SuperGloop, along with a half-eaten burrito, two lemons, some prickly pear yogurt (I didn’t know it came in that flavor), the ever-present pickled eggs, and what looked like leftover fish sticks but which I was pretty sure had never been anywhere near the ocean. Surprisingly, there was also a can of root beer. I reached for it and sat down at the table.

  “Now, where the dickens did I put that rascal?” muttered Great-Aunt Aby, stooping down in front of the bookshelves that lined the short hallway leading to the back of the RV, and her bedroom.

  I looked around curiously. Everything seemed pretty much the same as the last time I was here. Same knickknacks; same clutter. The wall of souvenir plates had expanded—I spotted one with a picture of Old Ironsides and another of the Alamo—and I was pretty sure she’d added another shelf over the dining table for her growing collection of fairy-tale snow globes. I would have remembered the Little Red Riding Hood one for sure.

  And the books! Another of my great-aunt’s hobbies is collecting secondhand books, and there were piles of them everywhere, including on the table in front of me. I picked up the one on top, a dusty old volume with PACIFIC NORTHWEST FLORA AND FAUNA printed on the cover.

  “Great-Aunt Aby, can I use your phone for a sec?” I asked, suddenly remembering I’d promised to call Rani about our science homework. “I left my cell in the house.”

  “Sorry, honey, I don’t have one,” she replied, distracted.

  “How about your computer, then?” I could send Rani an e-mail or an IM that way.

  She shook her head regretfully. “No computer, either, I’m afraid. And no VCR, DVD, or GPS. No alphabet soup of any kind—well, except for TV. I love the Food Network. Other than that, though, I’m off the grid.”

  Great-Aunt Aby watched cooking shows? This was surprising news. You sure wouldn’t know it by the contents of her fridge. Then something else occurred to me. “But I thought you said you talked to my mom last night.”

  “Did I?” She straightened, blinking owlishly at me. “Oh—pay phone. Yep, that’s it. Pay phone.” She turned back to the bookshelf and ran her fingers across the spines. “Perrault, Grimm, Andersen—it’s got to be here somewhere.”

  I sipped my root beer, puzzled. A pay phone? Did they even exist anymore? And how would my mother have known which one to call, anyway? Before I could ask, though, my great-aunt gave a cry of triumph.

  “Aha!” She plucked a tome off the shelf and blew on it. Dust flew everywhere, and Archibald sneezed. The book’s green leather cover was shabby and worn; the gold lettering on its spine faded. I couldn’t make out the title. Great-Aunt Aby leafed through the pages.

  “No, no, not that one,” she murmured, scowling. “Nasty side effects.” She flipped a few more pages, then paused again. “This could work.” She tapped a large finger against the side of her equally large nose. “Hmmm. Perhaps not, though. Those scales were most unpleasant.”

  What on earth was she talking about?

  I opened my mouth to ask, but just then Archibald leaped up onto the fabric-covered bench beside me and started kneading my leg.

  “Ouch, Archie! Quit it!” Distracted, I carefully detached his claws from my jeans and placed his paws on the bench instead.


  “Now, this one,” continued my great-aunt, “this might just do the trick. Yes indeed, folks, I think we have a winner.”

  “Winner of what?” I asked her.

  She snapped the book shut, sending up another puff of dust. Beside me, Archibald sneezed again. “None of your beeswax,” Great-Aunt Abyssinia replied loftily. “Let’s go say hello to your father.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Monday morning I was the first one up, which was unusual. Most days I’m awakened by the sound of my father rattling around in the kitchen or by the smell of his coffee. The two of us are early birds, but he’s a really early bird. He’s always first in the shower, then me, then Olivia. Except when Olivia decides to sneak in ahead of me and hog it.

  Today, though, the house was completely silent. Well, except for what sounded like a flock of geese coming in for a landing behind Geoffrey’s door but which was only his snoring, of course.

  I figured my father must have been wiped out from the field expedition and all that driving yesterday, to sleep in past six. The two of us had had a long talk last night after dinner, and he’d managed to convince me to go back to school.

  “I’m not saying it was okay for Olivia to call you that name, because it wasn’t, but you don’t need to do a belly flop into the puddle of self-pity because of it,” he’d said, using one of his favorite expressions. “Suck it up, Kit-Cat. ‘Sticks and stones,’ remember? We Starrs are made of strong stuff. Your ancestors came across the Oregon Trail in a covered wagon!”

  I gave him a crooked smile. That’s another of my dad’s favorites, one he loves to trot out whenever he feels I need encouragement.

  “Plus,” he continued, “the Hawkwinds need you. You can’t bail on them the day before the talent show.”

  He had a point.

  I squinted at the clock by my bed, yawning. I had enough time to eat breakfast first, before it was my turn in the bathroom. Putting on my robe and slippers, I started to tiptoe out of the room, pausing by Olivia’s bed. She was sound asleep on her back with her mouth wide open. I fought the temptation to do something, like maybe drop a dirty sock in it. Dad had read us both the riot act last night, though, and made us promise to shape up. So I left her where she was and crept quietly out of the room.

  On my way downstairs I glanced through the stained-glass window on the landing. Great-Aunt Aby’s RV was gone, just as she had said it would be. For a fleeting second I found myself wishing I could have gone with her. But maybe now that Dad was home things would be different. Besides, I was starting to look forward to the talent show. Great-Aunt Aby had asked me to play my bassoon for her, and she’d praised my Bach piece to the skies.

  She hadn’t asked Olivia to tap-dance, I’d noticed.

  I was just sitting down at the kitchen counter with a bowl of cereal when my little brother appeared, clutching his smelly blanket.

  “Hey, G-Man, how about some breakfast?” I asked.

  Something plopped into my bowl, sloshing milk onto the counter. Geoffrey’s eyes widened. He pulled his index finger from his mouth, which was shaped in an O of surprise, and pointed at my breakfast. “Cat?” he whispered.

  I glanced down and nearly fell off my stool. An equally surprised-looking toad was crouched in my cereal, staring back at me.

  “Whoa!” I cried in astonishment.

  Plop. Another toad joined the first one. The two of them splashed frantically in the bowl, trying to escape. Geoffrey stared at them, then at me. His face got that worried look it always does when he’s about to cry. Or barf.

  No way, I thought. Absolutely no way had I just made that happen! It would be completely crazy to think that those toads had anything to do with me. And just to prove it, I said my brother’s name aloud.

  “With a G,” he added automatically as toad number three tumbled into the bowl.

  I shrieked, only the sound came out as a croak, along with another toad, which missed my cereal and skittered across the counter, then fell to the floor at Geoffrey’s feet. My little brother backed away and started to cry. With panic rising in me, I jumped down from my seat, grabbed him by the hand, and dragged him into the living room. I didn’t want him to wake anyone—especially not Olivia. I had to figure out what was going on first.

  “Shhh, G-Man, it’s okay!” I said, setting him on the sofa.

  Geoffrey’s sobs escalated to wails as another toad plunked down beside him. I scooped it up and stuffed it into my bathrobe pocket, looking around for something to distract him with. I grabbed the remote and turned on the TV. Fortunately, Robo Rooster was on. The wails subsided as he eyed the screen, toads temporarily forgotten. After waiting until his finger had crept back into its usual place, I ran upstairs, my heart racing and my hand clamped firmly over my mouth, just in case.

  I went directly to the attic. It was the only place I could think of to hide. I needed to be alone while I figured out what was going on. There had to be a logical explanation. This was a trick or a coincidence or something. Spring was probably toad season here in Oregon and everybody had just forgotten to tell me. Maybe they’d crawled into the house through the dryer vent.

  The attic was just as dim and dusty and cold as it had been the other day when I was up here. Wrapping my bathrobe tightly around me, I moved closer to the trunk by the front window and took a deep breath.

  “Hello,” I said softly to the empty room. A toad sprang to the floor.

  I sank down on the trunk, fighting the urge to cry. This was no illusion, then, no trick. It was me. I nudged the creature with the toe of my slipper and watched it hop off into the shadows. It was definitely an amphibian of the order Anura, from the Greek an (“without”) plus oura (“tail”). I wasn’t a wildlife biologist’s daughter for nothing. I knew a real live toad when I saw one.

  I drew a shaky breath. It still made absolutely no sense. Middle schoolers didn’t just spontaneously start spewing toads. How could this be happening? How could that creature have come from me? My mouth still tasted of breakfast cereal, not toad. Not that I knew what toad tasted like.

  I must be dreaming, I thought. Yes, of course, that had to be it! This was just a nightmare. A weird, vivid nightmare involving my little brother, breakfast cereal, and toads. It was that chili I had yesterday for lunch, or maybe Great-Aunt Abyssinia’s root beer. All I needed to do was wake up.

  I hopped down off the trunk and jogged to the other window and back, then did some jumping jacks as I tried to jolt myself out of the nightmare.

  “Hey! Keep it down up there!” my father shouted, his muffled voice rising through the floorboards.

  “Sorry!” I called back, releasing yet another toad.

  As impossible as it seemed, this wasn’t a dream, it was really happening. I moved across the attic, as far from Dad and Iz’s bedroom below as possible. I wanted to try an experiment.

  “Good morning,” I whispered: one toad. “Good morning,” I sang: two toads. Ditto for humming. I made a mental note to myself to avoid music. Except for whistling. Whistling didn’t produce toads, for some reason.

  Pretty much everything else did, however, and three minutes later the attic was carpeted with them. It didn’t matter how loud or soft I said anything, whether I sang or spoke, or what language I chose to speak in—French (“Bonjour!”), German (“Guten Morgen!”), Spanish (“Buenos días!”), or Swahili (“Jambo!”)— every time I opened my mouth and made a noise, a toad appeared.

  I watched unhappily as they hopped, scrabbled, and skittered off across the floor. There were twenty-seven by my count, most of them looking as dazed as I felt.

  What the heck was I going to do? I knew I should probably go downstairs and talk to my father and Iz, but what exactly was I supposed to tell them? That I’d suddenly turned into a freak show?

  Should I call my mother again? A toad infestation of this magnitude absolutely, positively qualified as an emergency. She might even leave the space station and come back to Earth for something like this. This was a hopeful thought. I de
cided it was worth a try, and began picking my way across the toad minefield toward the attic door. Then I stopped in my tracks.

  Olivia.

  What if my stepsister found out? “Catbox” would seem like a compliment compared to what she’d come up with if she caught me spouting toads. I couldn’t risk it.

  There was only one solution.

  I couldn’t tell anyone.

  Not yet.

  I had to keep this whole thing a secret until I figured out what was happening and until things got back to normal again.

  What if they don’t go back to normal? whispered a little voice in my head. What if you’re stuck like this forever?

  Tears welled up again at this appalling thought, and this time I couldn’t hold them back. Fortunately, it turned out that crying didn’t cause toads, nor did snuffling. What it did cause, unfortunately, was sympathetic croaking. The toads I had already produced, including the one still stuffed into my bathrobe pocket, interpreted my sounds as some sort of amphibian song or distress signal, and they began to chorus back to me from all corners of the attic.

  A toad’s croak is not like the ribbit sound a frog makes. It’s more like a creaky hinge. A single toad isn’t all that loud, but twenty-seven of them croaking in unison is enough to wake the dead.

  “WHAT IS GOING ON UP THERE?” my father yelled, and this time I heard his footsteps pounding up the attic stairs.

  I picked up the hem of my bathrobe and flapped it frantically at the toads in an attempt to scatter them under the eaves. My father couldn’t know about this. Not yet.

  “Nothing!” I called back, adding yet another to the amphibian population. Twenty-eight, I thought, counting automatically. “I’m just—uh—practicing my bassoon. For the talent show.” Twenty-nine and thirty.

  “For crying out loud, Cat, it’s six thirty in the morning! Put that thing away!” The door started to open, then halted as a bloodcurdling scream echoed down the second-floor hallway.

  “Mom!” screeched Olivia. “Help me!”

  I heard my father’s footsteps pounding back down the attic stairs. I crossed swiftly to the door, opened it, and listened.