There’s movement. I drop the flowers. The frog hops farther away.
“Get it, you idiot!” A shrill voice behind a crypt. I look toward it and see Sieglinde, Sieglinde and Meg. They’re locked in some sort of combat, Sieglinde holding Meg at bay as if under some sort of spell.
“Get it, Johnny!” Meg says. “You can do it! It has to be you!”
That’s all I need. I lunge for the frog. Siegfried lunges at the same time. The frog hops away. We both miss catching it and are locked, arm in arm, for an instant. I see his face.
He’s a kid. A big kid, but a boy younger than I am. Maybe fourteen. Definitely not old enough to drive legally. I can take this kid.
Except, oh yeah. He’s got magical powers.
But maybe not. When I saw him at the port, he shot me with a gun.
Yeah, a gun is way less threatening than magical powers.
I see the frog again, hopping away past a tombstone that says BELOVED WIFE. For an instant, Siegfried seems to freeze. I run at the frog. I lunge. Siegfried recovers and dives through the air. The frog makes to jump again.
“You have to trust me, Philippe!” I say to him. “I’m here for your family. These guys want to kill you! One of us will get you, and you want it to be me.”
The frog stops midspring, and I tackle him, just as Siegfried finally reaches me.
I summon all my strength, more strength than I knew I possessed, and kick him in the stomach. He yells in pain. I wrap the frog in my shirt. At the same moment, Meg breaks free from Sieglinde’s spell-lock and rushes toward me. “The cloak!” she yells and pulls it from my still-open backpack.
Sieglinde’s right behind her, screaming, “You fool! Idiot!” at Siegfried, but he’s down for the count. She runs and lunges for the cloak just as Meg gets it wrapped around both of us.
“You have the frog?” she says.
“Yes.” I feel its cold frog heart beating against my stomach. It doesn’t struggle. “Yes!”
“I wish I was in my bedroom!” Meg whispers.
I feel the cloak being ripped away from me.
Chapter 39
“Where are we?” Meg asks me.
Not her house, that’s for sure. The room is dark, lit only by moonlight, and strange objects surround us. And yet, as my eyes become more used to the darkness, I make out the mast of a pirate ship, a giant parrot, stuff I’ve never seen before.
“Ribbit!” In my hand, the frog croaks his indignation. I push myself up on my elbow and look out the window.
Tombstones. The cemetery. Sieglinde!
I hear a woman’s voice, shrieking. She’s out there. Right outside screaming at Siegfried for letting me get away. I realize the shapes around me are old Fantasy Fest floats. A jester’s mouth grins wide at me from a corner. The cloak took us to a bedroom, but not Meg’s.
“We’re at Caroline’s house,” I whisper to Meg. “But why . . . ?”
I tug at the cloak and look at it. It’s been ripped in half. Sieglinde must have the rest.
“I think we lost our transportation,” I say. “I guess it couldn’t take us that far.”
“But we have the frog,” Meg says.
“For how long, though? She’s right out there.”
A shadow crosses the moon.
“If only we could make him back into a prince,” Meg says. “It would be easier to keep track of him.”
“Good luck,” I say. “We need to find someone who loves him. And he’s a jerk.”
“Ribbit! Ribbit!” The frog hops and croaks in protest.
“There, there, little frog.” Meg pats him, and he calms down. “It would help if you could be nicer to him. What did the spell say exactly?”
I try to remember Victoriana’s words. “The spell can be broken . . .” I picture Victoriana’s balcony, the ocean, her blond hair streaming in the breeze. It was a week ago, but it seems like forever. “. . . by the kiss of one with love in her heart.”
“Love in her heart,” Meg repeats. She reaches over and puts her hand out for the frog. “Come here, little guy. You’re a cute little froggie.”
“What are you—?”
“Well, he was hot, and it’s not like I have a boyfriend or anything. Plus, he’s a prince.” The frog hops onto her hand. She places it in one of the few bare spots on the floor.
She kneels and leans toward him. “Let’s just see if it works.”
“Wait!” I grab her arm. “What are you doing?”
“This.” In the moonlight, I watch as she holds the frog down, stretches out her neck, and before I can speak again, she plants a kiss on his warty green head.
Chapter 40
He was no frog but a king’s son with beautiful eyes.
—“The Frog Prince”
“Mon dieu! Where am I?” The man—because that’s what he is now—is in my lap, flailing his arms, and speaking with a French accent. “Who are you? And where . . .” He turns, squashing my knee as he does. “. . . where is ze fair maiden who has saved me?”
Meg laughs. “I’m afraid that’s me.”
“You?” Even in the darkness, I see surprise contort the Prince’s handsome face. He looks at Meg, wrinkles his nose, then looks back at me. “She?”
“Yeah, her. Would you mind shoving over, buddy? You’re sort of on my leg.” I’m trying to stay calm even though, in that one instant before Meg kissed the prince, I realized the truth, the wonderful truth that filled me with joy, the awful truth that struck me down with despair.
I love Meg. Not Victoriana. Definitely not Victoriana. Meg. Meg, who tried on my shoes and encouraged me. Meg, who showed me the parade route from the top of the Empire State Building, Meg, who saved me from Sieglinde. When I picture myself being with someone, maybe for the rest of my life, it’s not a glamorous blonde in thousand-dollar shoes. It’s a skinny, dark-haired girl in an apron. All those times, in New York, in the tree, at Mallory Square, I should have kissed her.
I realize I thought Meg loved me. And yet, she kissed the frog, and he became a prince. She did say he was hot when she saw his photo. Is that love? My only hope is that he won’t like her back. Then I’ll help her get over it.
But the prince stands and offers his hand to Meg. “Ah, oui. I did not recognize. I was so dazzled by ze beauty before me zat I did not see . . .”
And Meg, who never giggles or act girly, stares up at him. “Wow, you’re so . . . tall.”
“And I have an excellent physique. I lift weights on every morning, except in ze past few weeks, when I have been a frog. But now, I start again to please my beloved.”
Meg giggles. Giggles! “Aw, that is soooooo sweet.”
“No sweeter zan you, fair lady. You have saved my life and broken ze spell. Now you will haf your reward. I will take you back to Aloria to become a princess. A queen, even. You are a lucky girl.”
Lucky girl? Ha! I wait for Meg to tell this clown where to get off. But she doesn’t. She just sits, mouth slightly open, and stares.
And, I realize, he’s hot. It’s exactly like me with Victoriana. Meg’s seen this guy on the cover of magazines they sell in the lobby. He’s inches taller than me with a build you don’t get from repairing shoes. Meg might be immune to the hotness of a guy like Ryan, but Ryan’s not a prince. A handsome prince—isn’t that what every girl wants?
“Close your mouth, Meg,” I tell her.
“What?” Her eyes never leave the prince’s face. “Oh, sorry. I was just thinking about how lucky we are. Now we can both go to Aloria, me with my sweet prince, you with your princess.”
My princess. I think of Victoriana. Can I be happy with her? Do I have a choice?
“We should leave,” I tell Meg, who’s still drooling over Prince Philippe. I have to repeat it because she doesn’t hear me the first time. Or the second.
Finally, though, she says, “But how? I don’t think the cloak works.”
I wrap what’s left of the cloak around me and quickly wish I was home. I do wish that. I wish I was any
where but here. But she’s right. It doesn’t work. Taking us a few yards away from the cemetery was the cloak’s last-gasp act. Now, we’re stuck here with no transportation, and this miserable prince, easy prey for Sieglinde.
“Hey! Who the heck is in here?” Someone else is in the room. “Meg, look out!” I pull Meg away from the prince, in front of me, and we start to run.
“I have a gun, and I’m not afraid to use it,” the voice continues. Caroline!
“Caroline, it’s us!” I start to stand, but she turns on the light, and I dive behind a papier-mâché SpongeBob so no one can see through the window.
“You coulda knocked on the door,” she says.
“I’m sorry. We’ll get out of here right now.” Though I have no idea how.
“Wait! Wait! I was looking for you anyway. You have to tell me about the swans!”
I look at her. She’s holding something strange in her hand, like fat Hawaiian shirts. She’s out of breath, but in between pants, she says, “I have to see the swans! I believe you now.”
I start to hatch a plan. “What changed your mind?”
“The names. That was what he called them. Harry, Truman, Ernest, Jimmy, Mallory, and Margarita. Those were their names. Key West names, like my name, Caroline.”
“Who is zis fool?” the prince asks. Meg takes his hand.
Caroline ignores him. “That’s what he was calling the day I saw him at the pond. My father was devastated when they left. He made me promise something.”
Beside me, Philippe and Meg hold hands. He murmurs something that sounds like “my dear leetle mongoose.” I wish he’d turn back into a frog and hop away. But I don’t want Sieglinde to stick me back in that hole, so I say, “Could we go in the other room, maybe? I’m a little worried about being seen through the window.”
“Sure. Absolutely.”
Once we get to the living room, and Caroline has closed the curtains, she shows me what she’s been holding.
Shirts made out of flowers.
That’s what Margarita said. Their sister had to find them and make shirts out of flowers! She did it. She knew.
“After the swans left,” Caroline says, “my father went on a long journey. He took me with him. I knew he was looking for the swans, but he never found them, and he returned home in despair. That summer, he sat me down. I was only a little kid, but he told me I had to remember what he said.”
“Which was?” But I know.
“That someday I must find the swans again. Before I did, I was to make six shirts of flowers to give to them. When I did these things, the curse would break. He never told me what the curse was.
“He died soon after. I didn’t make the shirts until I was grown-up. By then, I knew my dad was nuts, that I’d never see a swan in Key West again. But I still felt like I had to make them, as a sort of tribute to him.”
“He wasn’t crazy.” I examine the shirts. They’re made of bougainvillea and hibiscus. The flowers still have a lot of color, and I remember my mother, drying flowers and hanging them upside down. “The shirts were the way to turn them human again. But they had to come from you.”
“If you believe in witches and magic,” Caroline says.
“Oh, zere are witches, milady,” Philippe interrupts, and we all turn to look at him. “Witches are where you last expect them. I, like you, did not believe, and I have been a frog zese three months, until my leetle grackle . . .” He turns to look at Meg. “My leetle crow made me human again.”
Please let me slap this guy. Please. Just once. But I think I’ve figured out a way home, and I can keep my promise too. That’s good, at least. “If you drive us back to Miami, I’ll show you where the swans are.”
Caroline looks at the prince, then at me, and shrugs. “I guess it can’t hurt, but . . .” She looks the prince up and down. I look too. He must have been riding when he got enchanted. Either that, or he’s a pretentious jerk because he has on jodhpurs and a red riding jacket and carries a crop. “Is he going to wear that, though?”
Chapter 41
The swan skins flew off, and her siblings stood before her, alive and well.
—“The Six Swans”
Two hours later, we’re in the car. The prince has, with great protest, been talked into a pair of old jeans, a T-shirt that says “I’m a drinker, not a fighter,” and some flip-flops. He’s very confused by the flip-flops. He and Meg are crammed into the backseat of Caroline’s ancient Toyota Tercel, kissing. I sit in front with Caroline, holding some of the flower shirts that wouldn’t fit in the trunk.
“Don’t move around too much,” Caroline says. “Those are delicate.”
At least, if I don’t move, I can’t turn and see Meg and Philippe. She actually likes this guy? Between kisses, he calls her “my dear leetle turtle,” “my tiny newt,” and “my dainty komodo dragon.” I notice he doesn’t choose any cute animals, but maybe he’s developed a thing for reptiles and amphibians during his stint as a frog. Meg giggles every few minutes in very un-Meg-like fashion. I ask Caroline if I can turn on the radio, to drown it out, but every time a romantic song comes on, Meg pronounces it “our song” until I switch to rap. It’s like she’s doing it on purpose to torture me. Except she doesn’t know she’s torturing me because she doesn’t know I love her.
And it’s a four-hour drive to South Beach!
We approach the Seven Mile Bridge, which is, as its name suggests, a seven-mile-long bridge that connects the lower Keys to the upper. It’s only two lanes wide, which makes it scary. By day, it’s a beautiful view, suspended between sky and water. Now, it’s a black hole, an abyss, like going through Space Mountain at Disney World without a lap bar.
“We will move to my castle in Aloria, of course,” Philippe says to Meg over the rap, “and be married right away.”
Four! Hours!
“You mean, after I finish college, right?” Meg says.
“College?” Philippe says the word like he’s never heard it before, even though the rest of his English is good. “But why, my leetle lizard? No wife of mine will have need of college. You will not have to work, after all.”
Hoo-boy. Meg’s not going to like that one. But she says nothing, probably giving Philippe more rope so he can hang himself.
And he does. “Education in a young woman is unnecessary. It only encourages zem to ask . . . unattractive questions and form negative opinions. A princess must be charming.”
Here’s a quote—Steve Martin in the movie Roxanne: “As much as I really admire your shoes . . . I really wouldn’t want to be in your shoes at this particular time and place.”
I wouldn’t want to be in the prince’s flip-flops at this moment, when he’s telling Meg not to act too smart.
I wait for Meg to rip him a new one, but she says, “So, what would I be doing every day if I’m not working or going to college. Your laundry?”
“Laundry?” The prince laughs. “You make me laugh, my leetle hyena. We will have servants to do zat.”
“And me?” Meg’s voice is still calm. “What will I do?”
Philippe pauses, like he’s thinking, which is obviously a difficult process for him. I watch the black, churning water hundreds of feet below us. Finally, he says, “You will do what my muzzer does, and my grandmuzzer before her. You will shop, socialize, have babies, work on your appearance . . .”
“My . . . appearance?”
Danger! Danger! I chuckle to myself, which makes the flower shirts rustle so Caroline glares at me. “Sorry.”
“Oui,” Philippe says. “A princess must always look her best, and it is a full-time job too—nails, hair, makeup, ze workout. Of course, ma mère and sister, zey are natural beauties, but zere are also excellent surgeons in Europe.”
“Oh!” Meg’s shriek is so loud it startles Caroline, and the car jerks to the left, almost into the path of an oncoming car. She overcorrects, and I see my life flash before my eyes.
“Are you mad, woman?” Philippe yells.
“E
xcuse me?” Caroline turns to glare at him, which causes the car to lurch again.
“He’s sorry,” Meg says, “but can you please look at the road?”
“I am not sorry,” Philippe says. “Zis is why women should not drive.”
“Of course,” Meg says. “That’s really very sensible.” In the rearview, I see her edge closer to Philippe. “So do you want to tell me more about the plastic surgeons? I always wanted a smaller nose.”
“Ze nose is not a problem. You have a lovely nose.”
“Well, thank you.”
“It is your chin which is too small.”
“You know,” Meg says, “you are really hot. Maybe we should just make out instead of talk.”
They kiss, and I wonder what it would be like if we fell off the bridge.
I try to sleep, though it’s difficult because Caroline scolds me every time I move. I wake long enough to give Caroline directions when we reach the mainland. Then I sleep some more.
It’s almost five in the morning when we pull into the valet at the Coral Reef. Home. I think about all the things that have happened in the past few days, and I wish I could go back in time to when I knew about bills, knew about hard work, but didn’t know about talking animals or witches or giants, a time when Meg was my best friend and wasn’t going to be queen of Aloria.
I wonder how many people think their lives are difficult, when really, they could be a lot worse. I wonder how many people don’t know how good they have it.