In a Glass Grimmly Read Free

talk?” she asked.
    “Apparently,” he replied, bemused. “I . . . I was offering to help you.”
    “Oh, would you?!” she cried, and the frog nearly fell to pieces. “Oh, I would do anything! Really I would! Just get my ball and I’ll give you anything! You can have my jewels, or my fanciest clothes, or my crown . . . ”
    Your crown? the frog thought, but he didn’t say it. He hadn’t known that she was a princess. But of course, upon examining her again, what else could she have been?
    With all the gallantry he could muster, the frog replied, “Of course I’ll get it! You don’t have to give me anything . . .” He stopped. Her mouth—looking like an unbloomed rose—had moved just slightly as he spoke, and his emotions began to betray him. He stammered, and turned a brighter shade of green. “Umm . . . ” he muttered. “Unless . . . ” he stammered. “You could always . . . ” he stuttered.
    “Anything!” the princess said. “I’ll give you anything!”
    “I was just thinking . . . that we might be friends . . .”
    “Oh, of course we’ll be friends!” the princess said. “I think we’ll be ever so close, if you would just fetch my ball!”
    Well, the princess didn’t mean it, of course. It was just something nice you were supposed to say to lowly people (and, apparently, to frogs) so as not to hurt their feelings. She had learned all about not hurting people’s feelings ages ago.
    But the frog, not having met many (any) humans, didn’t understand that. And he, poor frog, believed her. So, with a brimming heart, he dove into the depths of the well and brought up the princess’s ball. She instantly grabbed it, shouted with joy, said, “Oh thank you, frog!” and immediately ran toward the castle. The frog, who had expected to spend a bit more time with her, now that they were ever so close, hopped down from the well and tried to follow her.
    “Wait!” he shouted, “wait for me! I can’t keep up!” But of course, the princess did not wait for him. She pretended she could not hear him.
    ----
    Later that night, the king sat at dinner with his daughter. As they ate their salad course, the quiet was broken by a faint splish-splash splish-splash, coming from just under the windows. Then it seemed to start up the stairs. The princess went deathly white.
    There was a pause, and then there came a knocking on the door.
    “What’s that?” the king asked.
    “What? I don’t hear anything,” said the princess.
    The knocking continued.
    “That!” said the king.
    But the princess had already leaped from her chair and rushed to the front door.
    She opened it a crack. There, waiting wet and expectant on the doorstep, was the frog. She slammed the door and returned to the dinner table.
    The king examined her pale features. “Who was it, my dear?” he asked.
    “Oh, nobody,” she said, and shoveled far too much salad into her mouth so as not to be able to say any more. The knocking came again.
    “It is someone,” the king insisted. “Who is it?”
    The princess burst into tears. “He’s an awful, ugly old frog!” she cried. “He fetched my ball for me when it was lost in the well, and I told him he could be my friend! Oh, it’s terrible!” The princess’s wails echoed off the ceiling. “Waaaaaaaaaaaoooooooooooooh!”
    The king, who had learned long ago that the princess could turn her tears on and off whenever she wanted to, insisted that she open the door and bring the creature in.
    Meanwhile, the frog nervously knocked at the door again. Perhaps, he thought, the princess hadn’t seen him when she opened the door. He was rather small, of course. Easy to overlook. He repeated this to himself, attempting to cover up a deeper fear that she had, in fact, seen him, and slammed the door because of it.
    But his fears were allayed when the door opened again and the princess appeared. He broke into his broadest frog-grin and said, “Good evening, Princess. I