“The Frog Principal” 2: So Many Things To Fix

As with all first drafts, there were so many things to fix in that rough draft that I had to concentrate on the big ones to start:

• The voices were too trendy (Petulia would not say “vibe.”)

• Petulia was much too smartass for somebody who’d just changed a guy into a frog.

* Petulia was way too relaxed for somebody who has a Big Secret (not the frog).

• Wyland came in way too late.

• Pet and Wy were both too smartass and at the same time, too flat. No dimension, just smart mouths. (ALL my first drafts are like that.)

• I wasn’t using Geoffrey to full effect. (Lani thought up Geoffrey. “He talked to high school kids about the dangers of magic,” she said, riffing. “He wants to give back.”)

• Colin, who’s going to be back in other stories, wasn’t getting enough attention aside from the fact that he was a frog.

• No foreshadowing of the final solution.

• The continuity is all screwed up, with characters dropping in and out, repeated lines, etc. Hey, it’s a first draft.

There’s more, of course, but that’s where I started.

This stuff is all soft rewrite. There’s no hard analysis because hard analysis often shuts down the creative stuff that just shows up as you write. This is all stuff that’s just obvious. But I do use one bit of hard analysis, the protagonist-goal-antagonist-goal-conflict.

The protagonist is Petulia. Her goal is to get Colin put back as fast as possible because she’s a nice person and doesn’t want him to suffer but also because she has a secret she needs to keep and now her garden is lousy with EMTs and a cop. She needs to get this problem solved now.

The antagonist is Wyland. His goal is to find out what happened to the frog and put it back, but because he’s a good cop, he wants to know how it all happened, what’s going on, everything he can find out. So he’s aligned with Petulia in wanting to save Colin, but he’s in conflict with her on about finding out everything.

Clearly, Wyland the Antagonist needs to show up much earlier. Like AT THE BEGINNING. Jesus. How long have I been doing this?

Okay, it’s a first draft, a Don’t-Look-Down-Draft, so no criticizing the things the Girls sent up, Jenny. Also, I have a suspicion that the previous version may not have been the actual first draft, that maybe I went back and stuck Wyland in the middle which would explain why he comes in late and disappears toward the end. I can’t remember, it’s been several years since I wrote that version, but I think maybe when I started, Tank was the antagonist. Which wasn’t working, either.

So then I did several rewrites and arrived at this draft:

The Frog Principle

Petulia smiled at the frog in the palm of her hand, going for calm and positive. And soothing. Soothing was definitely necessary. “It’s all right, Colin, I called for the EMTs, they’ll be here soon, and everything will be just fine.”

Colin gazed back at her coldly, but then he was a frog. His eyes twitched away from hers, and his tongue lashed out and caught a fly.

“Must you?” Petulia said.

She heard the garden gate squeak open and turned, looking back through the misshapen topiaries and the vines that had run wild. A man in a Riven EMT uniform was coming toward her, accompanied by a chicken.

“Petulia Jones?”

“Yes.” Petulia smiled at him as he crossed the ruined lawn, ducking a tree branch as he came.

Smiles were non-threatening. Mirra said people liked it when you smiled at them. It disarmed them, she said, and since a lot of the people coming at Petulia needed disarmed, a smile was a small gesture in the overall scheme of things.

The chicken followed on his heels, and Petulia smiled at it, too. People liked it when you were nice to their pets.

“You called about a guy turning into a frog?”

“Yes,” Petulia said, losing the smile.

As the EMT came closer, Petulia saw that he was tall and ordinary but cheerful about it, his light brown hair neat and his posture straight.

Also, the chicken was a rooster. Details matter, Mirra had drummed into her. The difference between living and dying could be in the details.

Petulia looked at Colin in her hand and wondered what detail she had missed that had gotten her into this mess. And him, too, of course, but she was still hoping it was somehow his fault–

The EMT put his case down and offered her his hand. “I’m Felix, your Emergency Magic Tech.”

Petulia switched Colin to her other hand so she could take Felix’s. “Very nice to meet you.”

“I know you asked me to keep this quiet, but since there’s a human involved, I had to call in the coppers. But it’s okay, I got a friend who’s a ‘tec.”

The gate squeaked again, and Petulia looked back.

This guy heading toward them was not ordinary and not cheerful, medium height, broad across the shoulders and then tapering down so that he looked like a human tornado as he strode toward them, his blunt face scowling under a mop of dark hair that he must have combed with his fingers.

“Felix,” he said, nodding to the EMT, and Felix grinned at him and said, “Wyland!”

The cop looked down at the chicken. “Geoffrey.”

The chicken nodded. “Wyland. Good to see you again.”

“Hello?” Petulia said to the chicken and looked at the cop to see if it was a joke. Maybe he was a ventriloquist.

Sharp, dark eyes bored into hers, hot with suspicion.

Not a ventriloquist. Or a joker. Possibly not human.

“Hello,” Petulia said and gave up on smiling.

“This is Petulia Jones,” Felix said to the cop.

The cop nodded, looked at the frog in Petulia’s hand, and then looked at her again. “I’m Protector Wyland Fox. Tell me about the frog.”

“What about this chicken?” Petulia said, looking down at the poultry. “It really talks?”

“He,” Wyland said distinctly. “He talks.”

“Also I’m a rooster,” the chicken said. “And you turned a guy into a frog, so let’s not point fingers.”

“You don’t have any fingers,” Petulia said, stunned that she was talking to a chicken. Rooster. Bird.

“I’ll just take the frog and we’ll get started,” Felix said, cheerfully.

“Ma’am,” Wyland said, and Petulia jerked her head up from staring at Geoffrey the talking chicken. “If you could tell me about the guy you turned into a frog—”

“I didn’t turn a guy into a frog,” Petulia said, as Felix took Colin from her hand. “He kissed me, and then he turned into a frog.”

“So your story is that he turned himself into a frog,” Wyland said.

“It’s not my story, it’s what happened.” Petulia scowled at him. “Why would I turn him into a frog? I just met him.”

“That is the question,” Wyland said, watching her without blinking.

Petulia shook her head at him. Unbelievable. A thousand cops in Riven and she had to get this guy.

Felix knelt down and put Colin on the stone wall around the fountain.

“Careful,” Petulia said. “I don’t know if he can swim.”

“He’s a frog,” Wyland said.

Petulia looked at him, exasperated. “Well, yes, he is now. But half an hour ago, he was a guy.”

“And then you kissed him and he turned into a frog.”

“No,” Petulia said, holding onto her temper. “I’ve kissed guys before, and they never turned into frogs. It’s not me.”

“So you did kiss him.”

“No, he . . .” She took a deep breath and then looked down at Felix and Geoffrey who were conferring quietly at her feet. “Can’t you just turn him back into a guy so we can send the law back to . . . wherever?”

“Not without knowing the source of the magic,” Geoffrey said, his eyes looking worried over his beak. “Maybe he was always a frog and a spell made him a man and now he’s what he’s supposed to be.” He squinted at the frog. “Are you sure this is him?”

“Well, he has blue eyes,” Petulia said. “Frogs usually don’t. Colin did. And when Colin disappeared, this frog was sitting in his pants. So, yes, I think it’s Colin.” She looked back at the frog, more distressed now as the enormity of it all finally overwhelmed the abnormality of it all. “He wasn’t frog-like before the kiss. He was very normal. Charming. Handsome.” Hot, actually. “A little pushy maybe. I was not expecting to get grabbed and kissed, but otherwise he was a normal guy.”

Felix grinned up at her. “I think it would be completely normal to want to kiss you.”

“Thank you,” Petulia said, smiling again. Smiling was important. Even if you felt like screaming, you kept smiling.

“About the frog,” Wyland said, those sharp eyes still fixed on her.

If she ever needed to sic a cop on anybody, she’d send this guy; he was like a terrier crossed with a bear.

“If it wasn’t you,” Wyland said, “who turned him?”

“I don’t know. There wasn’t anybody else here.” Petulia looked at the old stone fountain behind her. “We just moved in. I haven’t spent much time out here. Maybe it’s a magic fountain.”

Felix smothered a laugh, and Geoffrey clucked.

“There’s no magic here,” Geoffrey said, encompassing the garden with a sweep of his wing. “Trust me, I’d know.”

Petulia folded her arms. “Okay, fine, I don’t care, just put him back.”

Felix held up Colin and sniffed his back. “Smells like cold magic. We’ll know in a minute.” Felix put Colin back on the fountain and took some cotton swabs out of his bag.

Geoffrey tapped Petulia’s leg with his wing to get her attention. “Maybe it was something you ingested.”

He’s not a chicken, Petulia told herself. He’s Geoffrey. “We had lunch at Ruby’s. It’s a bakery down the street–”

“Ruby won’t let magic in her place,” Wyland said. “It wasn’t there.”

Geoffrey scratched at the dirt by the fountain. “I don’t suppose you heard anybody chanting in the underbrush.”

A chicken is asking me if there was somebody muttering in my weeds. Petulia met Wyland’s eyes. “You know, life here in the city is strange.”

Wyland nodded. “Where exactly did you come from?”

“The mountains,” Petulia said.

“It’s cold in the mountains.”

“Not in the summer,” Petulia said, turning away from him. “So, Geoffrey, have you always been a chicken?”

“No,” Geoffrey said. “EMT accident.”

“I’m sorry.” Petulia considered kneeling down to be at his level, if only to get away from Wyland’s glare, and then thought that might be condescending. “I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.” Although looking at the frog was probably doing that already. Colin, she reminded herself. Not frog.

“Oh, hell, no,” Geoffrey was saying, flapping a wing at her. “I talk to school kids about it all the time. Magic is dangerous, but they don’t believe it until they hear what happened to me.”

“That’s really generous of you,” Petulia said.

Wyland was still glaring at her, she could feel it on the side of her face like a sunburn.

Geoffrey shrugged, ruffling his feathers. “I like to give back.”

Petulia nodded. “Of course.” I just watched a chicken shrug. Because he wants to give back.

“We got called to a hot spot,” Geoffrey said, “and we found an unexecuted spell somebody had left behind when it hadn’t worked. People think that means they’re just duds and leave them and then something triggers it and—” Geoffrey flapped his wings and clucked.

“Oh,” Petulia said. “And you can’t reverse it?”

“Well, if we reworked the bad spell, there’s a chance,” Geoffrey said, “but there’s an equally good chance it would go the other way.”

“The other way?”

“Full Poultry.” Geoffrey ruffled his feathers. “It’s okay. I’ve adapted.”

“So that’s what would happen with Colin? You might turn him back into a guy, but he might go Full Frog?”

“He’s already Full Frog.” Wyland had a notebook out now, black leather with a thin gold band. “Let’s start at the beginning.”

“Wait,” Petulia said. “Maybe that’s what caused this. An unexploded hot spot.”

“You were standing right beside him when he turned?” Geoffrey said, looking very focused for a chicken.

“He was kissing me when he turned.”

Geoffrey shook his head and his wattle followed a second later. “Not a hot spot. You’d be a frog, too.”

“Oh.” Petulia drew a deep breath. “Well, that’s one thing that’s gone right for me today.”

“Interesting,” Wyland said, gazing at her with more suspicion.

Petulia ignored him to squint down at Felix, who was on his knees next to the fountain, putting a cotton swab in a test tube. While she watched, the liquid in the tube turned blue.

“Yep, cold magic,” he said.

Wyland tapped his notebook. “So your name is Petulia Jones and you came from the mountains where it’s cold, and now you reside in this house at 425 Garnet Lane.”

“Yes,” Petulia said, giving up.

“When did you move in?”

“Last Friday. Five days ago.”

“You live here alone?”

“No, I live with my stepmother and our butler.”

Wyland’s pen froze over his pad and Felix jerked his head up.

“Stepmother,” Felix said. “That’s not good.”

“That,” Petulia said sternly, “is just prejudice.”

Wyland fixed her with those eyes again. “Your stepmother’s name?”

“Mirra Smith.”

“Your stepmother have any special talents?”

More than you could imagine. “She makes a mean muffin.”

“Oh, muffins,” Geoffrey said, real longing in his voice.

“No magic?” Wyland said.

“Of course not,” Petulia said, relieved to be telling the truth. “And even if she did, she’s not home. She’s been at a meeting since early this morning.”

“Stepmother’s Anonymous?” Felix said.

“She’s been very good to me,” Petulia said, frowning at him. “That stuff about stepmothers being evil is just old wives tales.”

“Yeah?” Wyland said. “Be a cop for a week. You’ll change your mind.”

“It wasn’t Mirra,” Petulia told him. “She’s never even met Colin. I went to the bakery for bread and met him there, and he walked me home and kissed me and bam! He was a frog. So I called the EMTs, and they brought you.” She took a deep breath. “They brought you.”

Wyland nodded. “Where in the mountains?”

“What?”

“Where in the mountains did you come from?”

“Grusbaden,” Petulia lied.

“Never heard of it.”

“It’s very small.” That at least was the truth.

“Why did you come to Riven?”

Petulia thought about protesting and decided that would just make her look guilty of something. “My stepmother had business in town and she thought it was time I saw the city.” Got married.

Wyland waited a minute, possibly hoping she’d confess, and then said, “She wanted you to see the city so she brought you to the Edge?”

“She rented the house before we got here. She said it was a much better part of town when she was here twenty years ago. And we have Charles for protection.”

“Charles?”

“The butler.”

“You brought a butler for protection.”

“Charles knows how to defend a door,” Petulia said sternly, trying to be quelling.

“Right,” Wyland said, unquelled. “I would like to talk to Charles.”

“He’s out right now.”

Wyland nodded. “Sure he is. Does Charles do magic?”

“No,” Petulia said. “None of us do magic. We’re just regular people. It’s not us.” She looked around the abandoned garden again. “I think it’s this place. It’s creepy.”

“This neighborhood has gone downhill fast, what with the forest coming in,” Felix said, standing up again. “Nice house, but it’s been empty a long time.” He looked at Wyland. “Anything could have moved in there.”

“We’ll have a look in a minute,” Wyland said.

Petulia thought about what he might trip over poking around inside. Nothing that would get her in more trouble than she already was, she decided. Mirra was careful.

“So,” Wyland said, “Your stepmother sent you to Ruby’s for bread this morning?”

“No,” Petulia said. “Charles did. After breakfast. He said, ‘We’re out of bread, can you get some from Ruby’s?’ and I said, ‘Absolutely.’”

“Does Charles always send you for bread?”

“We’ve been here five days. We haven’t had time to establish an ‘always’ yet. But Ruby makes amazing bread.”

Wyland nodded, the first sign of humanity he’d shown. If things got too bad, maybe they could bribe him with Ruby’s bread.

Then he frowned at her again. “Wouldn’t it be the butler’s job to get the bread?”

“He’s a butler, not a cook. And anyway, Ruby’s isn’t that far. He had a lot of errands to run. I had nothing to do.” I wanted out of the house, and Mirra wasn’t there to stop me, so I grabbed the chance.

“Anything happen on your way to Ruby’s? Anybody talk to you, give you anything?”

“No,” Petulia said. Like I’d let anybody get close enough to give me anything.

“So you got to Ruby’s and then what happened?”

“I bought the bread and some sweet corn rolls and some sugar twists—”

“Sugar twists,” Geoffrey said.

“—and I paid the guy at the counter–”

“What guy at the counter?” Wyland said.

Petulia shook her head. “He said his name was Bacon. He told me I was sweet as a sugar twist.”

“Terrible line,” Felix said.

“He was being nice,” Petulia said. It was a terrible line. “And then I turned to go and this great-looking guy stopped me and asked if I’d ever had Ruby’s Beef Rumple in a Bread Bowl, and I said I was new in town so no, and he said his name was Colin Butler, and he owed it to the Riven Chamber of Welcome to introduce me to the Rumple, and he was really great-looking–”and I’m supposed to meeting eligible men—“so I said yes, and we ate Rumple which was very good, and then he bought two raisin cakes—”

“Raisin cakes,” Geoffrey said with longing.

“–and we walked back here and ate the cakes, and he was very charming, and we laughed, and then we got to the gate, and he opened it for me, and I told him he couldn’t come in because my stepmother wasn’t there, but he followed me in anyway and kind of swooped in and kissed me, which was a surprise, and then he vanished and there was a frog in his underwear, which was another surprise, so I called the EMTs and Felix and Geoffrey came, and then there was you.” Petulia glared at him, breathless.

Wyland looked at her with what she could only see as exaggerated patience. “Let’s go back to this guy Bacon at Ruby’s counter. Are you sure he talked to you inside the bakery?”

What did I do to deserve you? Petulia thought, and then behind them, the fountain suddenly burbled, a stream of water shooting out of its long dead mouth, making them all jerk back. Then it stopped as suddenly as it began.

“I don’t think it’s anything from Ruby’s,” Petulia told him. “I think it’s something here in this garden. Like this fountain. This fountain is–”

“Where’s the frog?” Wyland said.

“What?” Petulia said, looking around, startled.

The edge of the fountain was empty, Colin nowhere in sight.

“Damn it,” Geoffrey said. “If he’s gone Full Frog, we’ll never get him back.”

“What?”Petulia said grabbing Wyland’s arm since she couldn’t grab Geoffrey’s.

“You guys find the frog,” Wyland said, closing his notebook. “Miss Jones and I will check out the house.”

I knew we should have stayed in the mountains, Petulia thought as her heart hammered. What if I’ve killed Colin?

“Miss Jones?” Wyland said.

Petulia let go of his arm, patted his sleeve back into place, and smiled at him. Your smile could disarm anybody, Petulia, Mirra had said.

Wyland scowled back at her.

Of course, Mirra had also taught her to disarm people with a kick to the solar plexus followed by a sharp elbow to the kidney.

“Follow me,” Petulia said, not smiling, and led him toward the house.