An original short story about kissing frogs and being careful what you wish for written by Simon Ager in 2013 in the form of a dialogue.
- Hello.
- Hello, how are things?
- Things are fine, and I'm not bad either. How about you?
- I'm fine, and I've got a story for you today.
- Great! What kind of story? Will there be dragons in it?
- I don't know yet. I'm just going to make it up as I go along.
- Fair enough.
- So, once upon a Tuesday many moons ago in a land far away.
- Good openning.
- Thanks.
- How many moons ago, and how far away was this land exactly?
- That's not important. You can just use your imagination to fill in those kind of details.
- Well my imagination needs a bit of help. Are we talking about events that happened months, years or centuries ago, and was this distant land tens, hundreds or thousands of miles away?
- It all happened several centuries ago in a place that took several days to get to.
- Okay, that'll do. Carry on.
- Well, in this land there lived a young man.
- How young exactly?
- He was eighteen.
- Was he a prince? Was he handsome? Was he rich?
- He was quite handsome and wasn't very rich, but was very skilled with his hands and loved making and repairing things.
- What kind of things?
- All sorts of things: tools, furniture, toys, boats, houses and so on.
- He sounds like a useful kind of person.
- He was, and he was popular in his small town.
- Where was this town?
- It was on a bay on the edge of large sea. The houses were made of bits of ships and boats that had been wreaked on the treacherous coast nearby, and were painted in many different colours.
- Sounds like a pretty little place.
- It was, but this young man, whose name was Tom, was always wondering what was beyond the horizon.
- As you do.
- Indeed. And one day he decided to make a boat that could sail across the ocean. So he went to the nearby forest in search of a suitable tree for the keel. After finding one, he set to work making his boat.
- Did he do this on his own?
- No, his friends helped, and after a few months the boat was finished.
- Did they have a big party for the launch?
- Yes. The whole town turned up to join in the fun, and there was much eating, drinking, singing, dancing and rejoicing. Some people weren't quite so happy though, as they knew Tom would be sailing away soon and worried that they wouldn't be able to cope without him.
- That's understandable.
- Yes, but Tom had anticipated this and had trained some apprentices to do most of the things he could do.
- Very thoughtful and considerate of him.
- Indeed. So after the party Tom and a few of his friends set sail and headed towards the horizon.
- How many friends, and what were they called?
- Four friends called Peter, Kate, Helen and Henry.
- What were they like?
- They were all a similar age to Tom, and had been friends since they were little.
- What did they look like?
- That doesn't really matter for the purposes of this story. Use your imagination.
- Okay. I'll do my best.
- Anyway, after several days at sea, they came to an island.
- What kind of island?
- A small island surrounded mostly by high sea cliffs and covered in forest.
- Were there any people, dragons or other fantastic beasts there?
- There was nobody about when they landed, so Kate, Henry and Helen set up camp on the beach, while Tom and Peter went to explore the the island. Before long they came across a cave.
- A dragon's lair?
- Okay, if it makes you happy, the cave was indeed home to dragon: a small blue-green dragon called Freya, who welcomed Tom and Peter to her cave and offered them tea and cakes.
- That's not how dragon's behave. They're usually large, breath fire, sleep on piles of gold and occasionally eat people.
- In some stories maybe, but not in this story.
- Okay, well at least there is a dragon in it, even if she's a bit of a disappointing one.
- Anyway, Freya was very pleased to see Tom and Peter because she didn't get many visitors.
- Why ever not?
- Because dragons had a fearsome reputation for being large, fire-breathing monsters who ate people.
- Just like I said. At least some people know what dragons are like.
- Indeed. Anyway, Tom, Peter and Freya talked for hours and Freya told them that she was really a girl who had ended up living alone on the island as a dragon after an encounter with a talking frog.
- Now it's starting to get interesting: dragons and talking frogs. So how did she end up on the island as a dragon?
- One day while fetching water at the well she saw a frog in the bucket. She fished it out and kissed it, thinking it might be a handsome prince in disguise.
- Did she make a habit of kissing frogs?
- Yes, but none of them had turned into princes. After she put the frog down, he thanked her for the kiss and said that he could grant her two wishes - one for herself and one for someone else.
- Only two wishes? That's a bit stingy, isn't it?
- Well yes, I suppose so, but even wish granting frogs and other entities are effected by the economic situation.
- Okay. So what did she wish for?
- She thought carefully, and as she came from a large family with six brothers who she found incredibly annoying at times, she wished for some peace and quiet in a place of her own.
- That's a bit rubbish. I would have gone for great wealth and a perfect body.
- Yes, you would, wouldn't you. So she ended up as a dragon living alone on an island where her brothers would never trouble her, and everyone kept away because they thought dragons were terrible beasts, a myth possibly spread by the frog.
- I didn't see that coming.
- No, and neither did she.
- What about the second wish?
- Fortuantely she'd saved that until later, in case the first one went horribly wrong, and she said that she would give the second wish to Tom, Peter and their friends.
- Was that sensible?
- We'll see. So Tom and Peter said their goodbyes to Freya, and, promising to come back the next day, they headed back to the beach.
- And when they got there there was no sign of the others, and many hundreds of years had passed.
- Not quite. The others were cooking some fish that Helen had caught outside a shelter built by Kate and Henry. Tom and Peter all about Freya and they all sat up talking about their hopes and dreams until late that night. They realised that they could help each other make most of their dreams come true, or they could find others to help them.
- What about the second wish?
- The next day they all went to Freya's cave and said that they wished they she would be turned back into a girl, which was was straight away.
- Was she beautiful?
- Yes. She was very beautiful, with long dark hair, green eyes and an infectious smile.
- So Tom fell in love with her and they lived happily ever after?
- That's more or less what happened. It's a bit too early to say about the happily ever after though.
- I thought this all happened centuries ago.
- Well, that was a slight exageration. It actually happened a few years ago, and I was involved.
- You are one of the characters in this story? Which one? Freya, Kate or Helen?
- Freya.
- I see. Still kissing frogs then?
- Not any more, but I have found my prince, or at least I like to think of Tom as my prince - we got married last year and are expecting our first child in a few month's time.
- Congratulations! Hold on. Were you really turned into a dragon and stranded on an island?
- What do you think?
- I'd like to think that part of this story is true, but I'm beginning to doubt it.
- Sensible lad. I did change a few details to make it a better story, and I'm not going to tell you which ones.
I made this story into an animated video using the Xtranormal Movie Maker:
Fables About Animals | Alrond and the Magic Fox | The Second Wish
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