Once Upon a Toad Read online

  “Why are you staring at me?” he asked.

  I gave a start, then blushed. “Sorry. Yeah, sure, of course you can come to Texas. That would be really fun. I’ll get my mom to call your mom once I get home. My other home, I mean.”

  The thing was, Oregon felt like home now too.

  I glanced across the cafeteria. Mrs. Kumar was talking to Iz and Great-Aunt Aby. She was wearing one of her prettiest saris—a bright orange one with lots of intricate embroidery. I noticed my great-aunt fingering the edge of it.

  Uh-oh, I thought. I could only imagine what Great-Aunt Aby would look like in a sari.

  Later, when we got back to my dad’s house, I went upstairs to change out of my concert clothes.

  “Hey,” said Olivia, trailing into our room after me. She flopped down on her stomach on her bed.

  “Hey yourself. What’s up?”

  “Um, can I ask you a favor?” she said.

  I shrugged. “Sure.”

  “I was, uh, wondering if maybe you could put in a good word for me with your fair—with your great-aunt and see if she could, you know, wave her wand or something and make Connor Dixon like me.”

  I snorted. “Fat chance.”

  Olivia reddened, and I sighed. “I didn’t mean it that way,” I told her. “I didn’t mean fat chance Connor would ever like you, all I meant was fat chance Great-Aunt Aby would agree to help. For one thing, I don’t think she even owns a wand, and for another, Mom says she’s more into life lessons than magic and spells and stuff.”

  “Oh,” said Olivia, deflated.

  “Plus, what if she got in a muddle again? Things could be a whole lot worse next time around.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  I pointed out our bedroom window. It was a beautiful June evening, and the Dixon brothers were in their driveway making the most of it. “Connor’s right there,” I told her.

  She lifted a shoulder. “Yeah, I know.”

  “You like basketball, right?”

  “I guess.”

  “So, what are you waiting for?” I asked. “Go on out there and play a game with him! Boys can be friends, too, you know, not just crushes.” That reminded me, I’d promised to call A.J. after the concert.

  “I guess,” she said again, still sounding uncertain, but she didn’t put up a fight when I propelled her through the door and toward the stairs.

  Iz poked her head out of Geoffrey’s room when she heard us. My little brother was lying flat on his back on his Traffic Tyme rug again, apparently afflicted with another case of spaghetti leg. It still happened occasionally at bathtime. “Your great-aunt is getting ready to leave, Cat,” my stepmother told me. “The rest of us have all said our good-byes. I thought maybe the two of you would like a private moment.” She smiled at me, and I smiled back.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, and went downstairs. I found my great-aunt on the porch swing, watching Olivia.

  “So, what do you think?” she asked. “Happily ever after?”

  “Um, I don’t know if I’d say that, exactly,” I replied. Olivia was standing in the Dixons’ driveway, giggling hysterically at something Connor had just said. She sounded like a chicken about to lay an egg.

  My great-aunt laughed. “She does, doesn’t she?”

  I didn’t know if I was ever going to get used to her reading my thoughts.

  “Sure you will,” she said, heaving herself to her feet and slipping her large arm through mine. “Walk me to my RV? I don’t want to keep Archibald waiting, and I know he’d like to say good-bye before we hit the road.”

  “I wish you didn’t have to go,” I said. I really meant it too. I felt like I was just getting to know her.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” she told me. “I’ll be back. That’s the thing with fairy godmothers—we’re like yo-yos, or Velcro. You’re stuck with me.”

  Archibald was sitting on the step by the RV’s door. I picked him up and gave him a snuggle—well, if you can call hefting a twenty-pound cat a snuggle—then set him down again. He disappeared inside, twitching his tail. Great-Aunt Aby gave me a hug, then followed after him, shutting the door behind her.

  A few seconds later, as the RV’s engine roared to life, I suddenly remembered the little good-bye ritual that my great-aunt and my mother always shared.

  “Abysinnia!” I cried, lifting my hand in farewell.

  My great-aunt poked her head out the driver’s window and grinned. “Not if I be seeing you first!” she called back, and tossed something at me. I caught it.

  It was a toad.

  As she pulled out of the driveway, I heard her RV backfire as usual.

  And I swear it actually went, “Croak.”

  ALSO BY HEATHER VOGEL FREDERICK

  The Mother-Daughter Book Club

  Much Ado About Anne

  Dear Pen Pal

  Pies & Prejudice

  Home for the Holidays

  Spy Mice: The Black Paw

  Spy Mice: For Your Paws Only

  Spy Mice: Goldwhiskers

  The Voyage of Patience Goodspeed

  The Education of Patience Goodspeed

  SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2012 by Heather Vogel Frederick

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  ISBN 978-1-4169-8478-8

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