The Prince of the Pond, page 1
THE PRINCE OF THE POND
A frog spends its life leaping out of the way of predators. But the stranger still seemed in a state of shock. He opened his mouth and his tongue fell out.
“What’s the matter with your tongue?” I said. “Snap it back inside quick.”
He pulled his tongue back into his mouth awkwardly, as if he wasn’t used to doing this dozens of times a day.
“That’s better.” I looked him over. “You’re a handsome green frog.”
“Fawg,” he said.
“Fawg?” I thought that over. “Did you say fawg?”
“Am I a fawg?” he said louder.
“Are you a fawg? Oh, are you a frog?” I shut my mouth and waited. I’d never heard an adult frog ask such a question before. I mean, sure, tadpoles ask it all the time: Am I a frog yet? Am I a frog yet? But this fellow’s body was almost twice as long as mine. His tadpole days were a distant memory. I spoke carefully. “Yes, you are a frog.” I swallowed. “And a very fine one.”
He hung his head. “I’m a fawg.”
Donna Jo Napoli
THE PRINCE
of THE POND
Otherwise Known As
DE FAWG PIN
ILLUSTRATED BY
Judith Byron Schachner
PUFFIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books USA Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2
Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England
First published in the United States of America by Dutton Children’s Books,
a division of Penguin Books USA Inc., 1992
Published in Puffin Books, 1994
Text copyright © Donna Jo Napoli, 1992
Illustrations copyright © Judith Byron Schachner, 1992
All rights reserved
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE DUTTON EDITION AS FOLLOWS:
Napoli, Donna Jo.
The prince of the pond: otherwise known as De Fawg Pin / by Donna Jo Napoli; illustrated by Judith Byron Schachner.—1st ed. p. cm.
Summary: Having been turned into a frog by a hag, a frog-prince makes the best of his new life as he mates, raises a family, and instills a new kind of thinking into his frog family.
ISBN: 978-1-101-66568-8
[1. Frogs—Fiction.] I. Schachner, Judith Byron, ill. II. Title.
PZ7.N15Pr 1992 91-40340 [Fic]—dc20 CIP AC
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Version_1
To our families,
near and far, up and down and sideways, and to Lucia, with love.
DONNA JO AND JUDY
I thank Joanne Casullo, who opened my eyes to the other sides of fairy tales with her wonderful poem. May all our frogs sit under gibbous moons.
D. J. N.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE The Hag
CHAPTER TWO Water
CHAPTER THREE The Turtle
CHAPTER FOUR Food
CHAPTER FIVE Singing
CHAPTER SIX Eggs
CHAPTER SEVEN Tadpoles
CHAPTER EIGHT Jimmy
CHAPTER NINE Battle
CHAPTER TEN The Bullfrog
CHAPTER ELEVEN Back to the Well
He was sitting in the middle of the slate walk by the hag’s house. I knew immediately I’d never seen him before.
“Hey,” I called.
He looked at me with one eye. I waited for him to leap over beside me. He didn’t move.
“Well, don’t just sit there. Get off the walk.”
He blinked. His skin looked strange. Almost dusty, like a toad’s. But he was no toad.
“What’s the matter with your mucus glands?” I said.
He twisted his upper body and thrust it forward, cocking his head.
I had never seen a frog do that before. “Are you all right?”
He blinked. He looked at me with one eye. Then he turned his head and looked with the other eye. His head jerked from side to side. It was as though he wanted to see me with both eyes at once. I couldn’t imagine why.
“What’s the matter with your eyes?” I said.
He sat very still.
Near him was a pile of cloth. Even from where I sat in the dirt under the scraggly rosebush I could make out dark blue shiny stuff and the soft rumples of deep yellow fuzzy stuff. In the middle was a cap made of animal skin with plumes sticking out of it. I’d been around enough to recognize what this stuff was: the clothes of a human. There was probably a naked human close by. “You better get over here before the human comes.”
He jumped at that. But it wasn’t an ordinary jump. It wasn’t the high hop of a toad or the long leap of a frog. His right foreleg stuck straight out ahead. His left flew up at an angle and smacked him square in the face. His hind legs, which were of extraordinary bulk and power, shot out behind him and crossed each other. He landed in a splat on his pale belly and bounced.
I came out from under the bush, looking in every direction. “Are you still alive?” I called.
His webbed feet were hooked together at the ankle. He bent his knees and straightened his legs and bent his knees and straightened his legs, but he couldn’t get his feet unhooked.
I jumped closer.
His eyes were frantic. He thrashed around.
“You’re making a spectacle of yourself,” I said. “If the naked human doesn’t get you, a hawk will.”
He opened his mouth and his long tongue flopped out. He drew it back in with difficulty. “Hep,” he said. “Hep, hep.”
“Hep?” I jumped beside him. A bird swooped over the witch-hazel bush. It was a harmless swallow, thank heavens. “Hep?”
He rolled onto his back and threw his forelegs about.
“Stop it,” I said. “What ridiculous behavior!” I flicked my tongue and lassoed his right ankle. I gave a strong tug. His feet came unhooked. A delicious-looking aphid scooted off the slate into the grass, heading straight for my rosebush. I leaped after it.
“Hep!” he called again.
I swallowed the aphid. Then I looked at the newcomer. He was still on his back.
“Hep,” he said. “Hep me.”
“Hep me?” I thought about it. “Hep me. Hmmmm. Oh, help me. You mean help me.”
He moved his head up and down vigorously. His tongue fell out of his mouth.
I jumped aside in case he was about to throw another fit.
He stopped moving and looked at me with an emotion I had never before seen in a frog’s eyes. He didn’t want to fight me or mate with me or scare me off. He wanted something I couldn’t understand. His eyes bulged, the normal gold-colored irises bright and intelligent. But there was that mysterious something else.
I wasn’t used to helping other frogs. But, then, I wasn’t used to being asked to help, either. This was an unusual frog. Big, too. And good-looking. I jumped near and gave him a shove. He flipped over and sat with his short forelegs splayed. That’s when I happened to glance up the walk. “The hag’s coming! Hurry!” I leaped back under the rosebush.
“Hag,” he said slowly.
“Hurry, you crazy frog!”
He looked up the walk. The hag had stopped at her herb garden. Several plants lay flat on the ground, crushed. She straightened one thistle plant carefully, crooning to herself and swaying from side to side. The crystal in her ring glowed amber.
The stranger looked back at me with desperate eyes. “How?” he said.
“What’s the matter with you?” I shouted. “Hurry!”
And he did the second strangest jump I’d ever witnessed and landed splud, sploof, right in the thorn branches. “Yeeeeoooowww!”
“Oh me, oh me, oh me, oh me.” I shook the branches till he fell on the dirt beside me. “This way. Little jumps. You hear me? L-i-t-t-l-e. No more big jumps. You got it?”
He threw his head up and down again the way he had done when he was on his back on the slate walk.
I took a little jump and disappeared into the grasses. “Come on,” I whispered back to him.
He landed in front of me on his head.
I jumped forward and shoved him again. This time he righted himself quickly.
The hag was now beside the pile of clothes, searching through them. She picked up the plumed cap and flipped it onto her head while she cackled softly.
“Where are you, froggy? I’ve brought you a present.” She held up a crippled cockroach and cackled again. “Your first meal as a frog. Doesn’t it look scrumptious?” There was a wet whistling noise from her beaked nose. “Where are you?” She held up the blue shiny stuff. It was a ruffled shirt. She shook it hard, then she threw it down.
“You thought you could just come marching along, looking so handsome and jaunty, didn’t you?” She held up the yellow fuzzy stuff. It was a pair of trousers. She felt in the pockets. “I saw that sm
She stood upright and scratched her skinny, knobby throat thoughtfully. “Crossing my land. Trampling my thistle patch.” She gave a little shudder. “Poor thistle. Why, I can make the best choking potion ever from that marvelous thistle.” She looked down at the pile of clothes. “No respect!” she screamed. “No respect at all!” Her eyes grew small, and her voice was like a thin reed. “I hate the sight of you! You and your whole royal family. All you big-footed, smiley-mouthed nincompoops. I hate you all!” She twisted her hands together and hissed like a snake. “But this time I got you!”
She kicked through the clothes with the sharp tips of her black boots. Then she looked up and down the slate path, in the grass on both sides, now under the rosebush where I’d been just a moment ago. She was curved over with her nose only inches from the ground, and I could see the black hairy growths on her teeth. I was grateful in that moment that frogs don’t have a good sense of smell. The air that whistled in and out of her nose was wet and hot. My skin quivered.
Slowly she shook her head, and a thin smile made its way across her face. “Ha. I showed you, didn’t I? No matter where you are now, you’re not safe. Anyone and anything can hurt you. And no one will ever think you are handsome or jaunty again. Ha ha ha ha.”
The hag did a crazy dance, pulling the plumes out of the hat as she twirled and swirled. “Maybe I’ll even eat you someday, froggy. Maybe I’ll catch you next time I fix a froggy stew for me and my bats.” She laughed. “If you live that long!”
I sat motionless.
Fortunately, the big male did the same.
“You’re certainly fat enough,” I said, inspecting him all around. “You’ve been out of hibernation at least a month, I bet.”
He sat in the damp hollow between the raised oak tree roots and breathed deeply. He blinked his eyes over and over again.
I had already recovered from our close scrape with the hag. After all, a frog spends life leaping out of the way of predators. But the stranger still seemed in a state of shock. I watched his chest rise and fall. “You’re the biggest green frog I’ve ever seen.”
He stopped blinking and stared at me.
“I’d think you were a bullfrog if the skin folds on your sides didn’t go all the way down to your hind legs.”
He opened his mouth and his tongue fell out.
“What’s the matter with your tongue?” I said. “Snap it back inside quick.”
He pulled his tongue back into his mouth awkwardly, as if he wasn’t used to doing this dozens of times a day.
“That’s better.” I looked him over. “I’m sorry if I offended you. You’re a handsome green frog. Nothing like those boorish, gluttonous bullfrogs. I like the black splotches on your back and sides. They’re distinguished. And your throat is creamy yellow. Very nice.”
“Fawg,” he said.
“Fawg?” I thought that over. “Did you say fawg?”
“Fawg,” he said.
“Well, I don’t know what fawg means,” I said. I noticed something move over on the other side of the oak root. “Sit still,” I said.
“Am I a fawg?” he said louder.
“Are you a fawg? Oh, are you a frog?” I shut my mouth and waited. I’d never heard an adult frog ask such a question before. I mean, sure, tadpoles ask it all the time: Am I a frog yet? Am I a frog yet? But this fellow’s body was almost twice as long as mine. His tadpole days were a distant memory. I spoke carefully. “Yes, you are a frog.” I swallowed. “And a very fine one.”
He hung his head. “I’m a fawg.”
Suddenly someone hopped from the oak root onto the wet dirt right in front of us. It was a big, brown, bumpy toad. “Get out,” he barked.
“Oh, now, you don’t have to be so rude.” I looked at the stranger, who sat quietly beside me. “Come on, let’s go.”
“Fawg,” said the stranger to the toad.
“Fawg?” asked the toad.
“He means frog,” I said.
“Frog?” said the toad. “I’m no frog!”
“Of course you’re not,” I said. “He means he’s a frog.”
“Well, I know that,” said the toad. “Anyone can see he’s a frog.”
“Fawg,” said the stranger again in a sad voice.
The toad hopped close to him. “Don’t say frog again.”
“Fawg,” said the stranger.
The toad hopped right beside him. “I’ll frog you all right.”
“Leap,” I shouted to the stranger. “Leap away. His skin is poison.” I leaped out of the hollow into the grasses.
The stranger came catapulting after me. He landed on his right shoulder with a thud. He quickly got back into normal crouching position.
“Don’t play games with toads,” I said.
“Toad?”
“Didn’t you know that was a toad?” I leaned away from the stranger. “Can’t you tell a toad from a frog?”
He shook his head.
Now I leaned toward him. “Oh me, oh me, oh me, oh me. How on earth have you survived so long without knowing that?” I stared at him.
He didn’t answer.
“Well, you certainly won’t last very long around this pond if you don’t learn fast,” I said. I cleared my throat and spoke in my most commanding voice. “A toad has dry, warty skin.” I looked hard at him. “A frog has wet, smooth skin. Got that?”
He blinked.
“A toad has bean-shaped bumps behind his eyes and sometimes even between his eyes and other places, too. A frog has, at most, lovely folds of skin here or there.”
He blinked.
“A toad likes dark places and is gloomy. A frog enjoys the sun and is a happy sort.” I leaped in a circle around him to make my point. “Understand?”
His face stayed sad. If I weren’t so patient by nature, I might have left him right then. But he was so very unusual, who knew what he’d do next? I sat and stared at him, waiting.
He blinked. “Poy-en,” he said.
“Poy-en?” I searched my brain. “Poy-en, poy-en. What on earth? Oh, poison? Is that what you said, poison?”
He blinked.
“Yes, most toads have toxins in their skin. Most frogs do, too. Even you, though your poison isn’t strong enough to make anything really sick. But that toad’s poison is strong. You’d die if you stayed in the hollow with him.”
He looked properly impressed.
“Actually, some frogs and toads are hard to tell apart. But if he’s short, fat, and ugly, with squat little legs, bet he’s a toad and you’ll probably be right.” I listened to the growl of my stomach. “Let’s go eat.” I leaped off toward the pond.
The stranger jumped in his own peculiar way, staying pretty much by my side, making better and better jumps as he went.
The pond was close. I never stray too far from water. I’m a sensible sort. We sat on the mud at the edge. The soft wet squish was a delight to my sensitive skin. “Doesn’t that feel just right?” I said.
“Mud,” he said, lifting one foot, then another. “Muddy, muddy mud.”
The mud was full of all kinds of yummy things. “Look!” In the flick of a tongue I ate a slug.
“Ugh,” he said. He leaned over the water and jumped back as if in terror. Then he leaned over again and stared.
I stared, too. There was nothing there. Only the big male’s reflection.
“Mmm,” he said, shaking his head slowly. Then he put his mouth in the water.
“What on earth are you doing?” I pushed him.
He fell face first into the water. Then he coughed and jumped back onto the mud.
“No self-respecting amphibian drinks,” I said. “We absorb water through our skin. If you’re thirsty, take a swim.”
“Wim,” he said.
“Yes, swim.” I leaped into the water. “Come on.”
He jumped in beside me and thrashed his forelegs like a paddle wheel. He kicked his hind legs out in front. He sank.
I lassoed him with my tongue and pulled him to shore. “Don’t you even know how to swim?”
“I wim,” he said.
“Oh no you don’t,” I said. “That was the poorest excuse for swimming I ever saw.” I leaped back into the water. “Watch. The power’s in your hind legs, like this. See?”
