19. Toad Tax

Here we go.

Chapter 19: Toad Tax

I've been here over a month at this point. I was starting to feel like people were beginning to accept me, especially after they were all so eager to get into my restaurant last week.

But it seems like it's always one hop forward, two hops back with these people. Just a few days after I was the toast of the town, everyone's back to treating me like pondscum. Lately, they've taken to calling me "scarecrow". Which is so unfair! Just because I'm tall and gangly and wearing old clothes and have sticks stuck in me and crowflies are scared of me… okay, I guess I can see it, but it's still hurtful to hear it from everyone around me. Even people I've known since the beginning like Loggle and Mrs. Croaker.

Hop Pop assures me that the town will eventually start treating me better. That they're just slow to accept and even slower to respect… which is their town motto for some reason. Like they're actually proud of it.

The final straw came this morning at the Grub n' Go, which was just one insult after another. I couldn't even get a bag of beetle jerky so I could eat my feelings, 'cause One-Eyed Wally yoinked it away with his tongue seconds before I could get my hands on it.

So, yeah, I was kinda feeling done with this place.

That's when they showed up.

Apart from Mayor Toadstool, the three were the first toads I'd ever seen. And to my eyes, they looked downright badass. From the way the frogs gave them a wide berth, you could tell they commanded respect simply by their presence.

And right away I knew I had to get me some of that.

Now, they did look intimidating. They were way bigger and beefier than any frog, Mr. Flour and Stumpy included. But I'm not exactly small and weak myself, in comparison to everyone around me. In fact, a month and change of farm labor has done wonders for my core. So, I approached, one hand on Ol' Trusty, my racket, in case things went sour fast.

Which they almost did. One of the toads, a woman named Fens, decided to see what I was about... with a spiked club. I dodged and delivered a racket to the face, which seems to be just the sort of thing that earns respect around Toads.

The leader introduced himself as Bog (the third was a creepy dude in an iron mask named Mire), and that they were here to collect delinquent taxes. He offered to deputize me, since I know the town. I even got a badge, sword, and shoulder-guard-thingy (if there's a name for those, I don't know what it is) out of the deal. Awesome! If there's anything that people respect, it's the law… and that's me now!

Well, the fam was a bit less than impressed with me signing up with the tax collectors. But can you blame me? It's not like Wartwood's given me a ton of reasons to be loyal to it up until this point. If I couldn't earn their respect, I was going to force it.

That was my intention at first, anyway. That resolve began to fade when we reached our first destination, One-Eyed Wally.

Now, I've never gotten along with Wally. He was literally the first person to call me a monster, and he's never really stopped. And a mere hour ago he had yanked my jerky away and insulted me to my face. You'd think I'd be itching to get back at him of all people. But here's the thing. Wally may be a weird gross hobo, but I know he pays his taxes. I know because he wrote a song about how he always pays his taxes. He sings it every chance he gets. It goes "Ohhhhh I always pay me taxes, I'm never in arrears, me accounts are all up to date, of tax liens I don't fears." It's not a good song, but it does get stuck in your head, especially if you hear it a lot.

But no matter how much he insisted he'd paid, the toads ignored him and ransacked pretty much everything he owned, which wasn't a lot. Even the bag of beetle jerky he'd stolen from me earlier, which Bog tossed me as a bonus. You could look at it as sort of karmic justice.

Except it didn't feel like justice.

Ah, I probably didn't need the jerky anyway. It's probably really high in sodium. Wally could keep it.

It went on like that all afternoon. We'd hit up a place, they'd insist they paid their taxes and that there must have been some kind of mistake, and Bog's crew would clean the place out, doing plenty of damage in the process. And for all the insistence that they didn't enjoy it and were just doing their jobs, it became more and more obvious that they took a sadistic glee in carrying out their duties.

For all that I wanted to force Wartwood to finally respect me, all this felt… wrong.

And so, at each house, I made it my business to make sure to sneak at least one possession back to its owner. It wasn't much, but it was all I could get away with without arousing suspicion.

Still, as we went on, I started to find it really odd that in the entire town, seemingly no one, not a single frog, had paid their taxes. Surely someone must have. And yet, it seemed like every single citizen of Wartwood had wound up on the list.

Which was impossible.

Especially when we got to the next name on the list: Hopediah Plantar.

Now, I know for a fact that Hop Pop paid his taxes. How do I know? Because he made me sit there as he went through the process, and explained it in excruciating detail. Do you know what itemized business expenses are? To my eternal horror, I do.

But even after I explained to Bog that something must me wrong here, he wouldn't listen to me. He and his goons were going to take their pound of flesh. In this case, hundreds of pounds of snail flesh.

They were going to take Bessie.

And that was it. I didn't care about acceptance anymore. I didn't care about respect. I just knew this wasn't right. The strong shouldn't prey on the weak like this. The strong should stand up for the weak.

At that moment, I flashed back to that morning in the playground. It was back when Marcy and I were in kindergarten. We were playing on the swings when these two older kids kicked us off, and well, there was nothing we could do about it.

Until a new girl showed up. She was only a little older than us, but she stared down those two bullies as if she was their size. She flung herself into battle without hesitation.

And she missed. And missed again. The two bullies left more out of embarrassment for her than out of fear, but the effect was the same.

The girl's name was Sasha, and the rest, as they say, is history. Over the years, she would continue to stand up for us whenever we were threatened.

But she wasn't here now. Now… it was my turn. I had to stand up for the people I cared for. I was going to make these toads regret giving me a sword.

Well, that was the plan, at least. It didn't go so well. Within seconds, Fens had me on the ground and Bog was about ready to hammer me into the dirt. I managed to squirm free for a moment, but there were still three of them and only one of me, and in less than a minute, all I had to show for my defiance was a broken arm. I probably would have a lot worse if Sprig hadn't arrived in the nick of time.

And then, something wonderful happened.

All through the confrontation, the people of Wartwood had gathered to watch. Now, encouraged by Sprig, they stood as one in my defense.

Wartwood had finally accepted me. And all it took was a smashed radius (I looked it up).

It looked like it was going to be an all-out brawl, but it turned out while I was playing goon, Sprig had been off solving the mystery of the missing taxes. Surprise surprise, Mayor Toadstool had embezzled it all for his reelection fund, and hidden it in that ugly new statue of himself that I mentioned in the last entry. I'm honestly shocked that Bog didn't drag his butt back to the tower, but I guess they figured it wasn't worth the hassle. They had their tax money back, and that was all that mattered.

And yet, it feels like this is just the beginning of something bigger…

They got my arm set pretty quickly after that, and pretty much everyone in town signed my cast (except Wally, who just drew a surprisingly realistic self-portrait.

Surprisingly, the cast was off in mere days. Maddie put some kind of magic swamp gunk on it that was supposed to make it heal faster, but it shouldn't have worked that fast. Maybe it wasn't even really broken in the first place. Sure felt like it, though…

I've been thinking a lot about Sasha since the toad incident. About how it was her example that gave me the strength to stand up for everyone. Would I have been able to do it if I'd never known her? I'm not sure I would. I'm just glad I've been able to draw on her for inspiration in these tough times. I'm really lucky to have known her, and I'm sure she's doing well out there without me to drag her down. I just hope I can keep living up to what she taught me on that playground, so many years ago.

A.N.: And so, we finally hit the halfway point of season 1, where s*** starts getting real.

Schweenieboy: He's devoted, what can you do?

MarMarFaAnne: Well, we'll definitely be seeing Sasha next chapter, don't worry about that, though I won't be doing a straight adaptation of "Prison Break". As for "Toadcatcher", well, I will be adapting something for the corresponding chapter, but it won't be what you expect. But it will be cool.

As for where this series ends, well more about that next chapter.

Jose: At least she can say it's all locally sourced.

Team Gophers: Thanks!

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