The Story of the Princess-turned-snail-turned-frog..
By me!



Once upon a slushy time in history, there was a princess-turned-snail-turned-frog. Her name was.. uhh.. ok, who cares what her name was? At this point, she was a ugly little frog!

Anyway, right, it was a very slushy time in history. The princess-turned-snail-turned-frog really hated the slush. She tried to run, she tried to hide.. but there was no escaping the horrible slush. It was everywhere. What was the poor princess-turned-snail-turned-frog to do? She was at a loss.

Suddenly, she heard foot steps. Closer and closer they came. She looked up to see a handsome young dude walking by her. She saw a large pack on his back, heavy and hanging low to the ground. The princess-turned-snail-turned-frog thought she could jump onto it. Hey, it would get her out of the slush, right? Right. So, she jumped on. Oops, missed and landed nose-down(do frogs HAVE noses?) right in a big slush puddle. Hmm.. have to try hitching a ride with the next person.

Speaking of the next person.. eww, that's an ugly one, we don't want that one. Ah, here comes a fine looking one! Ooh, wearing royal clothes.. a prince? Let's hope. But what in the world is he doing out in this slush? Who knows, who cares.. Not carrying anything to jump on, so let's just hitch a ride on his shoe.. eeek he's trying to kick us off! (when did I go into *us*? hmm..) But he sees that the princess-turned-snail-turned-frog is not going to let go, so he leans down for a closer look. "What in the world are you doing on my shoe?" he asks. I'm sure he wasn't expecting an answer, but our little froggy couldn't let him go without one.

"Oh dear prince," she begins, "I can't bear to walk in the slush any longer! Please, please carry me past all of it!"

The prince is taken aback. Is this frog really talking? He looks around to make sure nobody else is around to hear. "Did you just TALK to me??"

"Duh!" she says. "Aren't you smart!"

Our dear princy-pooh is so shocked that he can't shake the creature from his shoe anyway, so he keeps on walking. "Hey!" says the princess-turned-snail-turned-frog. "I'm getting slush splashed on me from here!"

The prince shakes his head, still not believing the frog is talking to him. "Fine, I'll carry you in hand," he offers.

"Better than nothing!" she says.

As they're walking along, the princess-turned-snail-turned-frog starts to remember an old story she heard once, about a prince being turned into a frog and a princess coming along to kill him(oops, she meant kiss him), and how he turned back into a prince. Could this story be true? Could it work with a princess-turned-snail-turned-frog being kissed by a prince? She didn't know, but she had to find out.

"Hey yo, prince!" she said to him.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"I want you to kiss me!" she answered.

The prince looked stupid.. uh, i mean stupefied. "You want me to WHAT?!"

"You heard me, princey! Give me a big ol' smacker, right on the lips!"

"Uh.. why?"

"Because if you do, I might turn back into the princess I once was!" she tells him.

"Were you a good looking one? Because you're a really ugly frog!" he says.

"Yesssss!" she hissed. (she'd gotten into that habit after being chased down and almost eaten by so many snakes.. snakes eat frogs, right?) "Now kiss me!"

"Ok.. if you say so!"

So our stupid (er.. stupefied) prince brings the frog up to his face, closes his eyes, and gives her a big smacker.

When he opens his eyes, he's very shocked to find that not only is she NOT a princess, he is now a frog. The (now frog) prince is not very happy at this new discovery. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME??" he yells, in his now froggish voice.

"Hey, I didn't know it would have the reverse effect!" she ribbits back at him.

"What do I do now?? Nobody will ever believe I'm a prince!" He is clearly upset over this.

"Hello, like they believe I'm a princess!"

"I did!"

"Well, you're stupid!"

"Hmmph-ribbit!"

The two seemed at an impasse. They were now both ugly frogs, stuck in the yucky-mucky slush.


==================


After a few moments of impenetrable silence, the princess frog sighs.

"What now?" her grouchy prince-frog companion snaps.

"I didn't mean for this to happen," she says.

"Which part?" he snaps back.

"All of it!" Our dear froggy was close to tears(do frogs produce tears, anyway?). "All I ever wanted was to be beautiful! I didn't want to become the world's first princess-turned-snail-turned-frog!"

The princey frog looks at her. "How can you go from trying to be beautiful to THIS?"

"Well.. (sniff sniff).. I'd always been told that I was pretty, but nobody ever told me I was beautiful.." she said through her salty froggy tears.

"You mean to tell me, I'm a frog stuck in slush because YOU weren't BEAUTIFUL enough?!" The once prince was outraged. "Could you BE anymore selfish?"

"I know, I know! I wish I could take it all back!"

The prince frog started feeling sorry for the princess. She looked even worse with all those tears. "Here, let's try to get out of this yucky slush, and you can tell me how you got us into this."

The princess frog lifted her tear-stained muzzle(what do you call a frog's face anyway?) and stared at him. "How do I know you're not going to get out of the slush and then leave me here?"

"Where can I go looking like this? Nobody would ever believe I'm me."

"Alright.. " The two royal frogs struggled and finally made it to a rock that was overlooking, but was not in, the yucky mucky slush.

Our leading lady attempted to dry her face as well as she could(but come on, she was a frog.. what can you do?) and started to tell her tale of woe. "All my life I've been told stories of these beautiful princesses who become even more beautiful queens. I've seen pictures - it's true! They're all beautiful! How could I ever measure up to that with just being pretty?"

"I think there's more to it than tha--"

"Please, let me finish!"

"Soooorrrry!" his high(short and green)ness said.

"In my kingdom, we have this old tale.. I suppose you could it an old wives tale.. if you go to the well in the middle of the kingdom, throw in 3 acorns, a pineapple, and a handful of salt over your shoulder, you'll be granted a wish!"

"Oh brother.. this is one of THOSE stories?" the prince moaned.

"I thought you were going to shut up and listen! One more peep out of you and I'll push you back into the slush!"

The prince wasn't sure if she was capable of this, but he didn't want to test her.

"Anyway, the first time I went, I could only find 2 acorns instead of 3, but I thought I would try it anyway. I threw everything in, closed me eyes and made my wish - to be beautiful - and when I opened my eyes, I was a snail. A snail!! Not a very pretty one at that. I couldn't believe this had happened."

"How did you become a frog then?" asked our prince, who suddenly was interested enough in the story to forget that he'd been threatened with slush.

"Well, I had to try it again. It's a lot harder to gather everything when you're only a few inches tall, but I managed. I don't even know how - the pineapple was 10 times bigger than me, and I've seen what happens to snails when they're around salt! But somehow, I got everything into the well and made my wish again. This time when I opened my eyes, I was a frog."

"But," the prince asked, "if you had everything this time, why didn't you become the beautiful princess you were wanting?"

"I don't know. I suppose it was because I wasn't a princess when I made the wish." The princess frog was getting bored and tired of sitting on this rock. "I think we'd better see if we can go find someone to help us," she told her green friend.

So on they walked.. err, hopped. Right through the yucky mucky slush. Neither one of them had a very good sense of direction(it's something in the royal blood), so they just went whichever way they felt like it. Soon our royal amphibians came across some dry land, a spot that had yet to be affected by the slush. They were both so exhausted that they hopped up on some lily pads(which just happened to be there, despite the fact that they were not on a pond) and fell asleep.


==================


Our frogs slept so soundly that they never heard their attackers coming up on them until it was too late. The princess awoke to a huge, ugly face in front her, and the prince's experience was quite similar. "Help! HEEEELLLLPPPP!!!!" The prince could hear the princess's froggy cries for help. Man, she had a set of lunges on her(I've never actually dissected a frog, but I know they DO have lunges)! He'd been blindfolded(with a piece of grass - a large one, but still, it was grass.. he was appalled) and couldn't see where he was going or who was taking him.

When the group finally stopped, they put down the royal frogs and took off their blindfolds. Their highnesses were shocked to see that they'd not only been captured by a band of mutated frogs, but had been set up on what seemed like some soft of pagan alter. Were they going to be sacrificed to the frog gods?

"Wait!" yelled the princess. "I demand to know what's going on!"

The other frogs just stared at her. "Can't you understand what I'm saying??" she yelled again.

An older looking frog stepped up. "We can, but we don't know why you're yelling at us, princess!"

Both of our royal frogs gasped. "What did you call me?" the princess asked, shocked at all of this.

" 'Princess', Princess! It has been said, since time before time, that one day, a frog would come such as yourself, accompanied by a Prince, who I can only assume is your noble companion here, and would save us all!"

"Now *I* demand to know what is going on!" said our frog prince, who was quite confused by now.

"Wait a minute, wait a minute," the princess said. "What am I saving you all from?"

"From being frogs, of course! Your highness is surely not a natural born frog, am I correct?"

"Yes, do you mean you aren't either?"

"Of course not!" The big ugly frog reaches out to touch the princess(ew, I do hope he was using a webbed foot and not his tongue). "Will you help us?"

"Of course!!" the princess cried back. She glanced at the prince, who was still clueless as to what was going on(he was a very stupid frog, and an almost as stupid prince). "But how.. I mean.. what do we do to.. how do we become human again??"

"Our legend has it that your royal friend is to kiss all our maidens, and you, your high-princessey-ness, are to kiss all our men, young and old alike, and we shall all be changed back into our original beings!" All the other frogs looked anxious as the princess thought this over.

"Ok!" she said. "We'll do it!"

"Hold on!" cried the prince. "Do you remember what happened last time I kissed a frog? And you expect me to just start kissing frogs I don't KNOW? Who knows what will happen to me then!"

"Just do it!" the princess hissed(even all this time with frogs hadn't broken that habit!) at him.

All the mutated frogs formed lines, male and female, in front of our royal characters and the kissing began. One by one, the frogs were turned back into humans(and thank goodness they were better looking as humans than they were as frogs! Even the big ugly one wasn't too bad). When all was said and done, only 2 remained - the prince and the princess.

"NOW what do we do?" said the prince, who's lips were sore from all the puckering.

"I.. I.. I don't know! I thought we'd be changed back too!" The princess started to cry again.

The ugly-old-frog-turned-into-a-not-so-ugly-man stepped forward. "You didn't let me finish, Princess. When everyone else has been changed back, you and your prince-frog are to kiss each other, and be turned back as well!"

"But.. last time I kissed him, I turned him into a frog!" she said.

"It's worth a try," the prince said. "I mean, it can't get much worse than this."

So they kissed. When the prince opened his eyes he was delighted to see that not only was he human again, but the princess was indeed beautiful. And the princess was so excited to be walking on two legs again that she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him again.

The two of them walked arm in arm back to their kingdoms(which happened to be right next to each other, actually, and they had just never known it), were soon married, and not only combined their two kingdoms, but decided to build a theme park and invest in the stock market. And they all lived happily ever after, and they were always nice and sympathetic too their froggy friends.


The end.



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Rolie Polie Olie !