Ribbit

I didn't want to hear the frog. Well, and I certainly didn't mean to.. But here we are, me, feeling like a modern day Alice in Wonderland, except no one mentioned how Alice must have felt. Not being able to tell anyone, wondering if it was all a dream? Thinking she must be completely crazy.

Well, I feel you girls. Because this dumb Kaeru or FROG has now inducted me into to the "Girls who can talk to Animals" club. And to be honest, I'm not loving it.

I look down at the little green creature sitting next to me. "Ribbit"

"Stop that. You know you can just talk. Don't be annoying." I glare at him.

"What a rude human." He sounds offended, but this frog has a hard to place accent, so I'm going to chalk it up to that.

I ignore the comment anyways. "Are you going to enlighten me? Where are we going Kaeru?" I call him frog to his face, because even though he's told me countless times to call him 'Kyle'... I just can't do it. Enough people have been openly staring at me as I sit and chat with Kyle, it just somehow doesn't seem right to refer to him by a human name.

"To the fish market, Sayaka-chan." He jumps in my lap as he says this and then turns and adds conspiratorily,"This is a rescue mission!"

... "What?"

"Yes, my friend.. who is indeed a tuna.. sent a secret call for help two nights ago. I believe he is in grave peril. It's our job to rescue him."

The bus we were on was pulling into the city at last.

"Why did I even come? Are you NUTS, Frog? First of all, I seem to have completely lost my mind. I am talking to a frog. And second, I don't even know why I followed you, other than a brief lapse in judgement the cause of which is clearly, insanity."

"Ribbit." An old woman passed by to exit at her stop and stared at me .. us... like I had three heads. Fantastic. So far, and I had checked, no other animals could talk to me or at least I couldn't understand them like I could the frog..Kyle.

"The next stop is ours, Sayaka. Better pull the rope," whisper/croaked Kyle.

And I did, because somehow Kyle had become the unofficial leader of our unlikely duo.

Sure enough, we were at a fish market which was crowded and the smell.. Phew.

I followed the frog. He hopped and weaved between the crowds of people. Fish and other seafaring creatures were displayed - some already dead and on ice; some in depressing looking buckets. I almost lost Kyle at one point, and when I finally caught up to him I had to snatch him away from a hungry looking peddler.

He directed me from that point on, and I limited my responses to him and kept things to brief affirmative nods so that it didn't look like I was talking to a frog to all the people around me. I mean, I was carrying one around in my two hands in front of me, like some sort of prince, and the looks I was getting for that were bad enough. Luckily, I was moving fast and the crowd was large.

At last, we made it to our destination. A desolate looking stall at the far edge of the market, closest to the beach.

"There, Sayaka! I can feel him! Magu-chan must be there!" the little green frog leaped from my hands and quickly closed the distance between us and the stall. By the time I got there, I realized that Kyle had jumped into a tank near a covered stall and appeared to be animatedly.. conversin.. under water.. with a fish. A Big fish.

The owner of the stall smiled a toothless smile at me and sort of half-leered. Charming.

"Uhm, good morning, sir.. I have seemed to misplace my frog. I will just be grabbing him from your lovely fish tank here, and we will be on our merry way." As I reached down to grab that stupid Kaeru, ole toothless decided he would try to grab me. I yelled and shoved my hands into the water to snatch Kyle, but he was glomped onto the giant tuna. "C'mon Kyle!" I screamed, "We... don't.. have time... for ... this!"

It was quite the scene (and creepy old man grabbing a young yukata clad girl, who was holding tight to and pulling a frog that was holding even tighter to a giant fish) and the rest of the crowd was starting to take notice of the commotion.

Finally, something in me snapped and I slammed my foot down on the old man's hard. He yelped and briefly released his grip on me. The loss of that force so suddenly, sent myself, Kyle the frog, and Magu-chan the Tuna spiraling away and I used that momentum to pick us up and continue running as fast as I could down the beach.

I could hear several voices yelling behind me in the distance, but I didn't stop. Magu-chan started glowing and chanting (I could understand he was saying something but didn't know what language it was) and we all collapsed in the surf. Magu-chan flickered and suddenly became a shining figure in grand robes. What the heck?

"Sayaka, thank you for freeing me from that market prison. As a reward, the Prince of the Sea, shall grant you one wish. What is your heart's desire?"

"Uhmmmm.."

"Sayaka, don't keep his lordship waiting." came the voice of the always-helpful Kyle.

"How about a ... ummm... oh I know!"

"Yes, what is it, dear? I hate to rush you but I do need to get back to the ocean."

"Can you remove Kyle's curse?"

"It is done."

And sure enough, as I turned to the once-frog, now human boy, everything started to make sense again. Well, sort of.