“Hey,” one of the princes sputtered in relief. “They’re calling us in for the eve-
ning meal. You’d better go back to wherever it is you came from,” he continued,
looking aloofly at Robert. “I doubt that you were invited.”
Robert stayed where he was, and the princes were the ones who eventually
retreated, heading back to the palace with nervous laughter and occasional snide
remarks.
When they were out of sight, Robert cupped the frog in his hands and held
it up so they saw eye to eye.
“I’m sorry,” Robert said. “You can never tell with royalty. I hope they didn’t
hurt you. I’ll make sure you get back to where you belong.”
He leaned over to put the frog back into the moat.
Lilly was impressed. Just before he released her into the water, she leaped up
from his hand and gave him a froggy kiss on the cheek.
The stable master called just then, so Robert hurried back to the castle, never
noticing that the plop! the frog made in returning to the moat was rather larger
than a frog would normally make. Of course, it was just average for a princess,
which was what she was again.
“A kiss breaks the spell. Isn’t that just like Aunt Matilda?” Lilly said with a
chuckle.
Now she was faced with the problem of getting from the moat to her bed-
room. This might not normally have been a serious problem, except that she
wasn’t wearing any clothes. Fortunately she could swim around to the back of
the castle, where the kitchen staff had been hanging out linen to dry.
There may have been servants who wanted to ask why the princess was walk-
ing through the kitchen dressed in a sheet and leaving green footprints, but they
were all too well trained to say anything. Using the back staircase, Lilly was soon
in her room. A warm bath and a new dress later, and she was feeling much bet-
ter, especially since she had already made an important decision.
She looked at the bottle of Pond Water. Aunt Matilda had made an excellent
choice of gifts, as always. There’s so much a frog can learn that a princess cannot.
So it was that Lilly entered the ballroom that evening on the arm of a very
confused stableboy named Robert. He had no idea why he was there, but when
a princess invites you to the ball, even a stableboy knows it’s bad manners to
refuse. He and Princess Lilly danced every dance together, much to the chagrin
of the princes in attendance, and at the end of the evening, she gave him a kiss
on the cheek.
It felt oddly familiar.
ALOOFLY MEANS IN A
STAND-OFFISH, SNOOTY WAY.CHAGRIN MEANS
DISTRESS AND
EMBARRASSMENT
AT HAVING FAILED.23