amphibian this morning, and I must say, it has been acting in the most un-amphibian-like ways. Yes, this explains everything. Let’s go to my rooms and see if it's him."
Maisy was looking at her cautiously. "What's an amphibibian?"
"It's a scientific word for something which is either a frog OR a toad. And maybe some other things that live on the land and in the water, too." She frowned. She hadn't read all the rest of the definition in the biology book. She had better read over that again this evening, once all this was sorted out.
5.
Kate and Maisy sprinted up the stairs to Kate's bedroom. Once there, they found the toad sitting back in front of the dresser mirror yet again, staring at itself. They both peered doubtfully down at it. "Is it him?" Kate asked.
Maisy chewed her lip consideringly. "Well… I didn't get a real good look at him afore he hopped off."
Kate mulled it over. "I know! We'll do a scientific test. Will he still understand us, Maisy?"
"I dunno."
"Well, we'll try it. Rupert, if you're the toad, croak once!"
Rupert, who had been following their every move with eager eyes, was so excited by this attempt to communicate with him that he accidentally croaked several times, then stopped and croaked once.
Kate frowned and looked at Maisy. "I don't think it's him."
"Try again," Maisy said. "Maybe it didn't sink in real well. His brain is much smaller, now."
The toad croaked once, indignantly. Kate turned her frown on it, scolding, "Not yet!" She breathed in deeply. "Okay. Rupert, if you're the toad, croak once."
The toad croaked once.
"How old are you?"
The toad croaked nine times.
"Hmm. How old am I?"
Another nine ribbits.
Kate looked to Maisy. "I don't think any ordinary toad could count, so it must be him. How do we change him back?"
"I dunno. We got to get him to me Mam; she'll know what to do."
"Okay then. Rupert, jump into my pocket." The toad just looked at her. Sighing, Kate picked him up in her hand and slipped him into her cloak. She supposed it would be a difficult jump for a toad that wasn't used to being a toad.
She pursed her lips thoughtfully as she followed Maisy out of the room. "You know, I have to say, Rupert, even though you have only been an actual toad for a day, you have been behaving like a toad lately. I'm not at all surprised you turned into one. It probably would have happened even without Maisy, eventually, if you'd carried on that way, like natural evolution, like Tutor Alfred told us about last month. No wonder I didn't recognize you. If you'd been turned into a toad last summer, I'd have known you right away, I'm sure."
She opened her mouth to say more, but by then they were in the palace courtyard and Maisy dashed off, yelling back over her shoulder, "It's not far!" Kate abandoned conversation and ran to catch up, pausing to catch her breath when she reached the trees at the edge of the forest. Huffing and puffing, she looked across at a cosy little house with its own little brick well. The toad in her swaying pocket let out one long mournful howl. They had reached the witch's cottage.
6.
"Mam!" Maisy yelled, running towards the closed door of the cottage. "Mam! I've got the toa— the prince! Me and Princess Kate have got him!"
The door quickly opened and out popped an ordinary-looking face. It might have belonged to a serving maid, or a farmer's wife, or the queen. Seeing Kate, the witch hurried out and said, with a slight bob of her head, "Good day, Princess. Where's your brother?"
"He's here in my pocket."
"Well, pass him up." She held out two capable hands and Kate reached into her pocket, closed her fingers around her squirming brother, and plonked him into the witch's cupped palms. "Hello, there, Prince," the witch said, bringing the toad up close to her face for a good look. "I'm sorry about what Maisy did. She's just a witch-in-training." She closed her fingers around the toad gently so he couldn't hop away. "Come on inside, Princess Kate, Maisy. I'll have to have a think about this."
"You mean, you don't know how to turn him back?" Kate worried.
"Nope, I'm not sure that I do, but we've all got brains. We'll figure it out."
Inside, she put the toad on the table and covered him with a bucket. He crouched there in the darkness as the women sat down and thought.
"Have you ever known a person to be turned into a toad before?" Kate asked, to start things off.
"Nope. There was that time I accidentally turned the town mayor into an ass but he changed back by himself when the townsfolk said his braying made more sense than his usual speeches and elected someone else. I'm not sure what to do for this one. Tell me again exactly what happened," she ordered Maisy.
So Maisy told her story, and Kate, who was hearing it for the second time, huffed indignantly on her behalf and said, "Oh! Rupert's become a right monster lately."
"So you say he'd been acting like a toad?" Maisy's mam noted.
"Well, yes," Kate agreed.
"So if he stops thinking like a toad, he should stop being one," she suggested.
Rupert ribbited, to let them know that hadn't worked.
"What about love?" Kate asked. "Love is pretty powerful, isn't it? I still love him, even if he has become a toad. What if I picked him up and gave him a cuddle?"
"Well, it's worth a try, love."
Rupert blinked rapidly as two big hands curled around him and lifted him into the air. "Dearest Rupert," Kate said, peering closely at him, her lips huge and her words loud to his toad senses. "I'm sorry for yelling at you this morning, even though it was because you were being a toad. I wish you would not be a toad and be my brother again, instead." She held him close to her chest for a cuddle. "I love you."
"Maybe you need to kiss him," Maisy said. Kate and her mother stared at her.
"What?" Kate asked.
Maisy flushed and looked down. "Well, you know. Kisses go with cuddles."
"Ooh, but I don't know if I could kiss him right now. He's so ugly."
"I said he was an ugly toad," Maisy said. "A big, ugly toad."
Kate's face brightened. "Why don't you just say that he's a boy again? Maybe that would work."
So Maisy said, "You're not a toad. You're the Crown Prince," but it didn't change Rupert back. They sat there for a while, and the witch decided it was time for them to have some afternoon tea while they mulled things over, so they ate delicious ginger cake and drank apple cider. Rupert watched them enviously, wishing his first instinct wasn't to zap his tongue at the flies that were hovering near the cake crumbs.
7.
"All right," Kate said suddenly, when she had finished eating and had thought through the options. "I'll do it." She picked up the toad and stood, staring down at it. "I want you to know, Rupert, that if I was like Cousin Garil thinks I should be then I would never kiss a toad, not for all the silly silver slippers in the world. But I," she drew in a deep breath, "am a scientist. And this is an experiment. Rupert, prepare to be kissed!"
She squinched up her lips, stared at the green toad perched on her hand, leaned forward — a bit more, and a bit more. Smooch. She pulled back. "There! I did it!"
Bllllliiiiiimp. Bonk. Where before there was a toad, now stood Rupert. "I’m back!" Rupert cried out, feeling his body with his hands, like he was searching his pockets for something. He bounced up and down on his toes, beaming with joy. "I’m really truly back!"
"Getoffofmyhand!" Kate yowled. She had been pulled to the ground as Rupert changed and her hand was sandwiched between his shoes and the floor. Her face was squashed against the floor as well.
"Oh!" Rupert stepped off her palm quickly. "I’m sorry." He reached down to help Kate up, but was so overcome with gratitude that his helping hand became hugging arms, and he kissed his sister on the cheek. "Thank you, Kate! I'm so sorry I was such a toad! Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!" His dancing around brought him face to face with Maisy, and he stopped and stared at her. Maisy put on an innocent, please-forg
ive-me look and stared back hopefully. After a moment, Rupert said, grudgingly, "Well, I guess I won't put you in the dungeons."
Maisy smiled, then reached for her mother's hand and tugged her forward. "And?"
"And what?" Rupert asked.
"And what about what you said about me learning to read and write?"
"Oh. That. I guess you're allowed to."
"She certainly is," Maisy's mother said. "Your father, the King, made that legal many years ago, and the last time I checked, he hadn't changed the law. If he had, we would have shifted south."
Rupert looked abashed for a moment. Kate slid her arm through his and said, "We should go and let everyone know that Rupert's okay." Rupert nodded with relief. He was looking forward to having a bath — a proper bath, in water that wasn't filled with slime and flesh-eating turtles.
"All right, Princess, Prince. Maisy and I would be pleased to see you again if you'd like to visit."
"We would," Kate said in delight, although Rupert's response was far more lukewarm. He didn't exactly have happy memories of their cottage.
The prince and princess left Maisy and her mother waving at the door of their cottage and ran together down the hill towards the palace with their hands clasped, until Rupert declared that they were having a race, and then it was each person for themselves, trying to get to the palace garden hedge first. Kate won by a hairsbreadth, and Rupert said it was because he was out of practice with human legs. They giggled at the idea and walked arm-in-arm through the palace grounds, getting their breaths back. When they reached the stables they found a