A Frog-ly Prince

Okay, yes, I’m taking a little bit of ‘poetic license’ here.Even though this couldn’t remotely be considered a poem. Ahem… Remember the story of SnowWhite? Wherein a girl lived withseven men, married an eighth and no one thought it remarkable? Well SnowWhite’s ‘happily-ever-after’ included a teenaged daughterwho loved to play with a golden ball her father gave her.
I am not making this up (though someone obviously did…).Nope. Beautiful Princess Penelope had a golden ball—her favourite toy.
Now one day whilst happily playing in the garden, she lost theaforementioned ball of golden. You know how these happen.
You throw something into the air and it lands…elsewhere.Husby does it all the time with garbage and the trash receptacle.
Well it happened this time vis-à-vis ball and the nearby stupidly-deep(Penelope’s description) well. Tears ensued. And a princess-ly tantrum.
Stemmed only when a very small voice at Penelope’s feetspoke up. “Princess. I can get your ball for you!”
Admittedly, it took a while for our sweet princess to evenhear the voice, openly and vocally aggrieved as she was.
But finally, she began to pay attention to the large frog ather feet. The one…you know…speaking. Human words.
Now I’ve caught a lot of frogs, what with my riverside upbringing,and never have any of them talked to me.
And, trust me, I’ve coaxed. But this one did. He toldPenelope he could fetch her precious ball. For a price.
She was definitely listening now. If he didn’t have her at ‘Hello,Princess’, he definitely had her at ‘Pay me!’
The price? She had to let him eat from her plate at everymeal and sleep on her pillow at bedtime.
She agreed. Because…ball. But let’s face it, she probablydidn’t really think things through. A frog at bed, bath and beyond?
I know what my parents would have said. DID say. I can stillhear their loudly-voiced veto from the distance of decades.
But her tearful pleas and/or her convincing story of familyhonour resting on the fulfillment of a contract did the trick.
She suddenly had a very entertaining and talkative newroommate. One who was with her morning, noon and night. Quite literally.
The two grew to be friends. The princess even graduated thefrog from pocket to pillow transportation. A big leap. (Snort.)
Then the frog’s next request was voiced. (That’s the thingabout frogs. Give them an inch; they swim all over you.)
An itty bitty kiss. I’m quite sure the princess at least…blinked.That’s quite a request. Even from a best-friend talking frog.
But, hey. I mean, they’d been friends for days now. And what’sa kiss between friends? She considered it a moment.
Then shrugged, held the frog up…and kissed it. Right on the bigol’ ‘kisser’. Can anyone say ‘Ew?’ Oh, yeah. Me.
Immediately, or maybe sooner, the frog began to shimmer. Thenshiver. Then change from a…frog…into something a heck-of-a-lot more human-ish.
Before she knew it, Penelope was staring at a full-grownman. In her bedroom. All sorts of alarms went off.
A small voice from the bottom of the dogpile featuring everysingle one of Penelope’s body-guards finally garnered some attention.
Slowly the guards got to their feet and pulled the frog-manto his. And then the whole sordid story came out.
He was actually a prince who had been enchanted by a jealous,overly-amorous and unrequited witch. A terrible combination, you’ll agree…
The spell she had placed upon him was keyed, ironically, tothe act of kissing. Only a smooch would save him.
Once the furor had died down the two, girl and former frog,discovered that their budding friendship was actually something more.
Marriage followed. And yadda, yadda, yadda…happily everafter. It’s amazing how often that happens. Fact or fiction, it makes me happy.
Today’s post is a word challenge! Each month one of us chooses a number between 12 and 50 and the rest craft a post using that number of words one or multiple times.
This month’s number is: 21It was chosen by Mimi of Messymimi'smeanderings!


Now go and see what my friends have created!Baking In ATornadoMessymimi’sMeanderings