Frog Meets Girl

Chapter 1--How Does a Nice Girl Get Into This Mess?

Hi, and welcome to my story! Please tell me what you think--even if you decide not to read any more. I want to know why, what you like, what you don't, what confuses you or bores you. Information helps me make it better. That said, if you love it, you can still let me know. I won't complain. Not at all. 

            Princess was frozen. Her hands felt slippery against the frog’s wet, smooth skin. He was inches from her face. “How did this happen?” she asked herself. She looked into his eyes. They were always open wide, but it seemed to the princess that he was asking himself the same question.

Princess Gabriella Persephone Almondine Jane had always known that she would love her prince the first time she laid eyes on him. That’s just how it went. She was a princess and everyone knew that a princess had but to marry a prince to guarantee true love and everlasting happiness. Even if she hadn’t read it in about a gazillion of her books, her parents were proof. Her mama had wandered in, bedraggled and wet, promising a regal bloodline. After one night with a pea and a bunch of mattresses, the handsome prince who would be her daddy whisked her off to her happily-ever-after. Voila!

Sometimes she wished that she could just meet a prince and get on with it. Life was so dreary that sometimes she was sure she wouldn’t survive the next minute, let alone until the time she ran across her true love. The one thing that kept her going was the promise that life would be better once that prince came to make all her dreams come true.

What those dreams were, exactly, she didn’t know, but she was sure that it would be wonderful. Most of the time, she’d settle for some company that didn’t make her want to throw rocks. Whatever her preferences, here she was with a frog in her hand. His slippery, smooth skin felt papery thin in her sweating hands. Yes, sweating. Apparently Princess Gabriella Persephone Almondine Jane could sweat. Her heart was beating, too, and her breath sounded raspy in her ears. “How on earth did I get here?” she asked herself.

It really began hundreds of years before her time and was entirely out of her hands until recent history. However, from her perspective, it began on a lazy summer day. From the frog’s, she’d entered the picture a few days before, just as the sun was dipping below the horizon.

He remembered the way the sun had lit up her face and set fire to her copper hair. Her pale skin had a faint rosy glow as she plucked petals from a yellow flower. The song she was singing sounded vaguely familiar and it brought the first smile to his heart in weeks. It wasn’t the first smile on his face. It seemed that because of the way his mouth was formed, he always had a grim smirk. He intended to one day take it up with the witch responsible. 

Lavender's blue dilly dilly

Rosemary’s green

I will be king dilly dilly

And you will be queen

The song wouldn’t last forever, but he was mesmerized by the way her eyes were flashing and the brilliant petals shimmering as they tumbled through the air. He would have been a little less mesmerized, perhaps, if he could have known what she was thinking.

From a distance, the scampering music of the lute and violin reached through the dancing crowd to provide soft background music. The glistening jewels and swirling colors of brocade and velvet were a hypnotizing backdrop.

Who told you so dilly dilly

Who told you so?

It was my heart dilly dilly

That told me so 

          The frog felt himself relax. He had been traveling from streams to ponds for so long in search of his solution. It could do no harm to pause a moent here before moving on. He quietly leaped onto a lily pad and settled into a crouching position.   

  As he watched, the young woman turned back toward the party at the center of the garden. There was a young man in a velvet doublet walking toward her with three graceful ladies in amethyst brocade following behind him. She sighed and tossed away the flower she’d been plucking.

“Gabriella! There you are!” said the young man as he approached.

The three ladies curtseyed. “Your Highness, we’ve been looking for you. It is not proper for you to be alone in this dark corner of the garden,” said one with long, dark hair.

The frog perked up. She’s royalty!

Gabriella’s back was turned to the frog, so the frog could not see the scowl she sent to the ladies. She turned to the young man, “It’s not as though anyone else is here with me. I’m fine. ”

The smiles on the ladies’ faces froze. “Your Highness, please come with us back to the party. It really is lovely.”

All the courtiers and royal guests did were simper and agree with her, which was nice in its way, but along with feeling gratified, Princess Gabriella found that she was disgusted as well. She didn’t say this out loud. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t move.

After a sufficiently awkward pause in which the ladies’ smiles began to droop, the young man stepped toward her and put his arm around her shoulder. “Gabby, I know you hate these parties, but it’s my birthday. I promise to dance every dance with you so you don’t have to dance with anyone you don’t like. I just want to have you celebrate with me.”

The frog saw Princess Gabriella’s head drop. “I don’t know, Claudio,” she said.

“Please? You know you’re my favorite sister in the whole world.”

Her shoulders drooped even more. “Okay.”

            The evening twilight soon turned dark and the last glimpse the frog had of her was as she disappeared into the throng at the other end of the garden, walking arm in arm with her brother.

The frog decided he would wait around to see her again.