Chapter 3

‘Before you crashed it.’

‘Yes, all right, you’ve made that point already.’ Sis sighed and sat down on what she thought was a tree-stump, though in fact it was a giant mushroom. ‘Point is, we can’t rely on this silly old system of yours. In fact, any adventures that do come along are likely to be the wrong ones anyway. That,’ she added, ‘is the law of probability. Or don’t you have it here?’

‘Not in the way you think,’ the queen admitted. ‘Around here, if you find yourself captured by a bandit chief and he’s about to slit your throat with a great big knife, you know it’s your lucky day, because it’s a dead certainty he’s your long-lost brother and you’re in for a half share of the year’s takings. It’s getting so it’s hard to find people who’re prepared to be bandits these days. Too expensive, they reckon.’

Sis sniffed, as if she could smell toast burning. ‘This isn’t getting us anywhere,’ she said. ‘Now then, think. Who is there apart from my brother Carl and your dead sorcerer who might know something about your horrid old system?’

‘Don’t think there’s — Just a moment, though.’ A smile leaked out over the wicked queen’s face. ‘There is someone who might just be able to help. Mind you, it’s highly unlikely—’

‘Good.’ Sis nodded firmly. ‘Then by your reckoning it should be a sure thing. Which way? You explain as we go.’

‘I—’ The queen looked round. ‘To be truthful I’m not sure. Usually, you see, there’d be this little old man—’

‘Or an old crone carrying firewood, I know. Come on, think.’

‘All right, I’m doing my best.’ The queen closed her eyes, turned round three times, pointed at random and opened her eyes again. ‘That way,’ she said.

‘You’re sure?’

‘Absolutely positive,’ the wicked queen replied, freeing the hem of her skirt from a stray bramble. ‘Come on, then, don’t dawdle. And I think it’s your turn to carry the bucket.’

‘You again,’ snarled the elf. ‘Don’t you people ever give up?’

The frog dilated its cheeks. ‘No,’ it croaked. ‘It’s a little thing called duty. Not something I’d expect your kind to know anything about.’

‘That’s where you’re wrong then,’ jeered the elf. ‘I know lots about duty. It’s seventeen per cent on gin, whisky, rum and tequila, twenty-eight per cent on cigars.’

‘Forget it. Now, this time it’s going to be different.’

‘You bet,’ grumbled the elf, squirming ineffectually between the frog’s long, flexible toes. ‘For a start, I’m not having anything to do with it.’

‘That’s what you think, is it?’

The elf looked up into the frog’s round, yellow eyes. ‘Be fair,’ she said. ‘If you want to go around eating grandmothers, be my guest. Go for it. Just so long as you leave me out of it, because it’s not my war and I don’t want to get involved. When it comes to the irreconcilable conflict between man and beast, our role is strictly confined to robbing the dead. Okay?’

‘No,’ replied the frog. ‘Now, when I give the word…’

The elf planted her feet against a green toe and pushed with all the strength of her legs. It wasn’t enough. ‘Just think, will you?’ she said. ‘What makes you think it’ll work a second time? They may be woodcutters, but they aren’t stupid.’

‘Maybe, maybe not,’ replied the frog. ‘Actually, I have a theory that constant exposure to fresh sap rots their brains. There’s only one way to find out.’ He blinked twice with disconcerting rapidity. ‘What it comes down to is: who are you more afraid of, them or me?’

The elf subsided. ‘Go on, then,’ she muttered. ‘What’s the big idea?’

‘Better attitude. Now, on my mark I want you to run about and start yelling at the top of your voice The wolf is coming, the wolf is coming! Can you manage that, or would you prefer it if I tattooed your lines on your knees?’

The elf scowled. ‘I should be able to manage that,’ she said. ‘But what’s it going to achieve?’

The frog grinned. ‘Because, my one-thirty-second-scale friend,’ he said, ‘that way they’ll be looking for a big bad wolf, not a frog. Simple, isn’t it, when you think it through.’

‘You’re the boss,’ replied the elf. ‘Okay, ready when you are.’

It worked. As soon as the elf broke cover, the woodcutters leapt to their feet and hurried off in the direction she’d just come from, allowing the small green frog to hop unmolested out of the bushes and squeeze itself through the crack under the door.

Wonderful! He was in.

Now all he had to do was eat the grandmother.

In front of him was a huge black thing, like a low hill. Further reconnaissance proved it to be one of Granny’s shoes. It was then that the frog realised that perhaps, when he was planning the mission, he’d focused a little too intently on getting in and hadn’t given as much thought as he should to what came after that. With a lot of effort, a little luck and a week to do it in, he might just manage to eat one of Granny’s toes.

Then the ground began to shake. He tried to hop, but something huge and burning hot caught him and lifted him high into the air. Involuntarily he closed both eyes; when his conscious mind had recognised that self-induced blindness wasn’t likely to be the editor’s choice for Survival Trait of the Month and had sent word down his cheapjack amphibian synapses to belay that last order, he was staring into a vast pink — Face.

‘Hello, little frog,’ said a girlish voice that reverberated from one end of the galaxy to the other. ‘I’m Little Red Riding Hood. I think you’re cute. Have you got a name, little frog?’

The frog wanted to snarl, lay his ears flat to his lean wedge-shaped skull and bare his teeth; the best he could do was croak ‘Rivet!’ very weakly and kick into thin air with his back legs. The giant red-hot human let forth a silvery laugh that threatened to bend the sky.

‘Oh you’re so sweet,’ said the voice, ‘I think I shall call you Sugarplum and keep you in the pocket of my apron. Wooza itta bitta pretty liddle frog, den?’

The face came slowly down on him, like nightfall on a man condemned to hang at dawn, and the frog could see an opening beginning to form in the sheer rose-red wall of flesh. It was opening its mouth.

Poetic justice, thought the frog, I’m going to get eaten. In a way, it wasn’t such a bad way to go at that. Looked at from the right angle, the food chain’s more like a party conga, winding in and out through the discarded paper trays and slices of cake ground into the carpet and taking everybody with it. He braced himself; then couldn’t help a spasm of terrified pain as the burning hot surface membranes of the all-enveloping mouth made contact with his skin. There was a ghastly slurping sound—

And then, nothing. He hadn’t been eaten after all.

Not eaten.

Kissed.

That was when things really started to happen. It was as if he’d topped off a meal of beans, onions and garlic with a large primed bomb, and his skin was stretching under the force of the blast. He was also falling — the girl had dropped him — and his ears were deafened by her little gasp of surprise. He landed, but found he was going upwards, and standing on his hind legs at the same time. He was growing, dammit, and at a terrifying rate. He was — There happened to be a mirror on the wall opposite. The mere fact that he was tall enough to look in it should have been enough to warn him that things had just defied the laws of physics and got worse. He looked into it. ‘Oh, shit a brick!’ he moaned.

‘Language,’ Little Red Riding Hood warned, wiping her lips on the back of her hand. ‘If Grandmama catches you swearing, she’ll rip your ears off.’

He’d turned into a handsome prince. ‘Turn me back!’ he yelled hysterically, staring at the mirror. ‘That’s awful! I don’t want to be one of those things!’