Hero

“‘My name is Sunday Woodcutter—’”

“Grumble,” croaked the frog.

“If you’re going to grumble through the whole thing, why did you ask me to read it in the first place?”

“You said your name was Sunday Woodcutter,” said the frog. “My name is Grumble.”

“Oh.” Her face felt hot. Sunday wondered briefly if frogs could tell that a human was blushing or if they were one of the many colorblind denizens of the forest. She bowed her head slightly. “It’s very nice to meet you, Grumble.”

“At your service,” said Grumble. “Please, carry on with your story.”

It was awkward, as Sunday had never read her musings aloud to anyone. She cleared her throat several times. More than once she had to stop after a sentence she had quickly stumbled through and start again more slowly. Her voice seemed overloud and the words felt foreign and sometimes wrong; she resisted the urge to scratch them out or change them as she went along. She was worried that this frog-who-used-to-be-a-man would hear her words and think she was silly. He would want nothing more to do with her. He would thank her for her time, and she would never see him again. Had her young life come to this? Was she so desperate for intelligent conversation that she was willing to bare her soul to a complete stranger?

Sunday realized, as she continued to read, that it didn’t matter. She would have Grumble know her for who she was.

For as long as she had sat under the tree writing, she thought the reading of it would have taken longer, but Sunday came to the end in no time at all. “I had meant to go on about my sisters,” she apologized, “but...”

The frog was strangely silent. He stared off into the Wood.

Sunday turned her face to the sun. She was afraid of his next words. If he didn’t like the writing, then he didn’t like her, and everything she had done in her whole life would be for nothing. Which was silly, but she was silly, and absurd, and sometimes ungrateful, but she promised the gods that she would not be ungrateful now, no matter what the frog said. If he said anything at all. And then, finally:

“I remember a snowy winter’s night. It was so cold outside that your fingertips burned if you put them on the windowpane. I tried it only once.” He let out a long croak. “I remember a warm, crackling fire on a hearth so large I could have stood up in it twice. There was a puppy there, smothering me with love, as puppies are wont to do. I was his whole world. He needed me and I felt like... like I had a purpose. I remember being happy then. Maybe the happiest I’ve been in my whole life.” The frog closed his eyes and bowed his head. “I don’t remember much of my life before. But now, just now, I remember that. Thank you.”

Sunday clasped her shaking fingers together and swallowed the lump in her throat. He was definitely a man in a frog’s body, and he was sad. She couldn’t think what in her words had moved him so, but that wasn’t the point. She had touched him. Not just him as a frog but the man he used to be. A more gracious reply Sunday could never have imagined. “I am honored,” she said, for she was.

“And then I interrupted you.” Grumble snapped out of his dreamlike tone into a more playful one. “Forgive me. As you can imagine, I don’t get many visitors. You honor me by indulging me with your words, kind lady. Do you write often?”

“Yes. Every morning and every night and every moment I can sneak in between.”

“And do you always write about your family?”

Sunday flipped the pages of her never-ending journal—her nameday gift from Fairy Godmother Joy—past her thumb. It was a nervous habit she’d had all her life. “I am afraid to write anything else.”

“Why is that?”

Maybe it was because the honesty was intoxicatingly freeing or because he was a frog and not a man, but she felt strangely comfortable with Grumble. She had already told him so much about her life, more than anyone had ever before cared to know. Why should she stop now? “Things I write... well... they have a tendency to come true. And not in the best way.”

“For instance?”

“I didn’t want to gather the eggs one morning, so I wrote down that I didn’t have to. That night, a weasel got into the henhouse. No one got eggs that morning. Another time, I did not want to go with the family to market.”

“Did the wagon break a wheel?”

“I got sick with the flu and was in bed for a week,” she said with a smile. “‘Regret’ is not a strong enough word.”

“I imagine not,” said Grumble.

“And now you’re wondering what would happen if I wrote that you were free of your spell.”

“The thought had crossed my mind.”

“You might not come back as a man but as a mouse or a mule or a tiger who’d eat me alive. You might come back as a man but not the man you were. You might be missing something vital, like an arm or a leg or—”

“My mind?” Grumble joked.

“—breath,” Sunday answered seriously.

“Ah. We must always be careful what we wish for.”

“Exactly. If I write only about events that have already come to pass, there is no danger of my accidentally altering the future. No one but the gods should have power over such things.”

“A very practical decision.”

“Yes.” She sighed. “Very practical and very boring. Very just like me.”

“On the contrary. I found your brief essay quite intriguing.”

“Really?” He was just saying that to be nice. And then she remembered he was a frog. Fu

“Will you read to me again tomorrow?”

If her ridiculously large smile didn’t scare him off, surely nothing she wrote could. “I would love to.”

“And would you... be my friend?” he asked tenuously.

The request was charming and humble. “Only if you will be mine in return.”

Grumble’s mouth opened wide into what Sunday took to be a froggy grin. “And... if I may be so bold, Miss Woodcutter—”

“Please, call me Sunday.”

“Sunday... do you think you could find it in your heart to... kiss me?”

She had wondered how long it would take before he got around to asking. A maiden’s kiss was the usual remedy for his particular enchantment. Normally Sunday would have declined without a thought. But he had been so polite, and she was surely the only maiden he would come across for a very long time. It was the least she could do.

His skin was bumpy and slightly damp, but she tried not to think about it. After she kissed him, she straightened up quickly and backed away. She wasn’t sure what to expect. A shower of sparks? Some sort of explosion? Either way, she wanted to stand clear of whatever was involved in turning a frog back into a man.

Sunday waited.

And waited.

Nothing happened.

They stared at each other for a long time afterward.

“I don’t have to come back, you know, in case you were offering just to be courteous.”

“Oh no,” he said quickly. “I look forward to hearing about your sisters. Please, do come back tomorrow.”

“Then I will, after I finish my chores. But I should go now, before it gets dark. Mama will be expecting me to help with di

“Until tomorrow, Sunday.”

“Sunday, where have you been?”

Mama was a woman of few words, and those she was begrudgingly willing to part with could sting enough to make eyes water. She took one look at Sunday’s skirt and answered her own question. “Dawdling in the Wood again. Well, I’m glad you decided to come back before the bugaboos made off with you. I’ll thank you to take that spoon from your brother and get to stirring the pot. He’s been at it long enough.”

“Yes, Mama.” Sunday removed the kerchief from her hair and slid her book into the pocket of her pinafore.

“Thanks, Sunday!” Trix happily handed over the spoon and scampered off to meet Papa, Peter, and Saturday at the edge of the Wood, at the end of their workday, just like he always did.