15. Contagi-Anne

Chapter 15: Contagi-Anne

There's nothing like waking up to the pitter-patter of raindrops… that is, when you don't actually have to go outside. As long as you're somewhere that's dry and warm, the sound of rain can be very soothing… as long as you're all bundled up, maybe with a nice cup of tea or hot cocoa, and no responsibilities. There's nothing like a nice, rainy Saturday morning.

But, sadly, weekends don't seem to exist when you live on a frog farm in a frog world. On this particular rainy Saturday, we had to cover up the crops so they wouldn't get ruined… which I guess would be okay if it was only normal-raining. But this is Amphibia, and nothing is ever normal here. This was more like one of those monsoons that tend to hit Thailand, which I know about because whenever I complained about going out on a rainy day, dad would tell me that this was nothing compared to those. So… no. No to any of that.

But how was I going to get out of it? There was one very obvious answer: fake being sick. Now, this would have never worked back home. My mom can spot a faker from a mile off. But here, I'm working with people who don't know a thing about how humans work, so all I had to do was fake a few coughs and I was on easy street. Needless to say, HP totally bought it, so I had the whole day to myself to do whatever I wanted. Hmm… maybe if I do it a few more times, I could even convince Hop Pop that humans are naturally frail in their environment and never have to do any hard work again! I think I may have stumbled upon the perfect crime here…

Well, now I feel like crap.

I had the absolute time of my life today, but while I was enjoying myself, Hop Pop, Sprig and Polly all managed to get themselves really, really sick. And some of these symptoms, wow. Hop Pop keeps secreting some kind of sticky ooze, Sprig's tongue is so swollen it doesn't fit in his mouth anymore (and when a frog tongue gets swollen, you'd better believe things get messy), and Polly's eyes are all inflamed. It's actually really uncomfortable to look at, so I can't imagine how it feels.

And well, I can't help but feel this is all my fault. While I was living it up inside, they were forced to do my share (and two of them are an old man and a baby, while here I am an able-bodied teenager). Would they have gotten sick if I was there to help?

Well, the least I can do is take care of them until they're better. Which hopefully won't be too long. How bad could it be?

Man, nursing frogs back to health is intense work. Making sure HP has a steady supply of hot towels, keeping Sprig's tongue from flopping all over the place, hydrating Polly's eyes on a steady basis, and everything else that needs to be done… it's a constant grind that never ends. I've got a newfound appreciation for what mom had to go through on those occasions when I wasn't faking and actually was sick.

Hmmm… speaking of… whenever I got sick, mom would always make this special broccoli-kale soup. Stuff tasted narsty, but I always felt better after eating it. Something to do with super-nutrients and such. I wonder if the stuff works on frogs? Only one way to find out…

Well, I think I managed to replicate mom's soup as best I could. I had to substitute cricket legs for the chicken bones, and some of the herbs mom used aren't available. Also I tossed in this weird-looking mushroom I found in the pantry 'cause Sprig likes mushrooms. It smells kinda weird but I'm confident the stuff should do the job.

I think I made these worse.

Shortly after giving them the soup, HP's feet started turning red. This is actually very very bad; see, frogs have this disease called redleg, where the red slowly creeps up the body, and when it reaches the head, well… I am not ready to go to a funeral yet!

There is a mineral spring that can supposedly cure redleg, but of course it's far away atop a mountain, because nothing here can ever be convenient. Still, it's something, and unlike Hop Pop, who seems awfully resigned to his fate, I am not ready to say goodbye. Especially since this was all my fault in the first place.

Karma's been making me work for this one.

The terrain got too rough for Bessie, I had to push the cart myself while being attacked by every animal in a ten-mile radius, it seemed. By that time, the redleg had spread to Sprig and Polly (and how is that fair? Polly doesn't even have legs to get red!) Losing HP would be bad enough, but everyone? I don't think I'd be able to come back from something like that emotionally. I just got even more determined to get to the spring.

But the spring lay across a flat filled with geysers that were constantly going off. I managed to sprint across, but the cart didn't make it. I'd have to carry the Plantars from that point on.

Then fate threw one more obstacle at me.

I made it to the spring… but to get there, I had to get up the stairs. "Stairs" being a very loose definition, because they were more like a series of raised pillars dozens of feet apart. Perfect for frogs. Not so much for humans.

But I wasn't about to let that stop me. The Plantars were depending on me! So umped off the cliff and hijacked a fly to carry us up and over the spring, then dropped ourselves into it. The Plantars were saved!

Only… it didn't work. The red wasn't going away. HP's book had been wrong. I was going to lose my new family after all.

Well, if I was going to lose them, it was only fair that they knew the truth. So I confessed that I'd never been sick in the first place.

They took it surprisingly well. Maybe it was just because they were resigned to the inevitable, but they did make some pretty good points that they probably would've gotten sick even if I had been with them; the only difference would've been that I also would've gotten sick and been in no condition to take care of them.

Which, fair, but it hardly made me feel any better about how things had gone. At that point, all I could do was vow to honor their memory.

Except it turned out they didn't die.

You see, they never had redleg after all. They just had an extreme reaction to that weird mushroom I put in the soup.

Anyway, we managed to get a lift home from a travelling peddler, and the Plantars are on their way to a full recovery. And that's the last time I ever fake being sick. Because karma is cruel.

A.N.:

MarMarFaAnne: Is it a hint at Anne's exuality? Ehhhh, could be, could be… I have to admit I like the idea of Marcanne, and there really is no heterosexual explanation for that blush in "New Wartwood" :)

Jose: Well, she's had to get better at it out of sheer necessity…

Next: Family Shrub