In a Glass Grimmly Read Free Page A

was just passing by, and I thought I might stop in to call upon you. Is this a convenient time?” He had rehearsed this speech during the three hours it took him to hop from his well to the castle’s door.
    “Well, it isn’t really . . .” said the princess, and she began to close the door again, when, from the dining room, the king bellowed, “Invite him to dinner!”
    The princess scowled.
    The frog’s heart swelled as he saw the stunning hall, the servants lined up against the walls, the glorious dining table, and the king—the king!—seated at its head. The king was very polite to him and offered him a chair. But the frog was too short to get up into it. “Pick him up,” the king commanded his daughter.
    The frog’s heart began to flutter. She was going to touch him! He pictured her delicate fingers, lifting him into the air. He sighed in anticipation.
    Abruptly, he was dangling from one foot, and, just as abruptly, dropped onto the hard wood of a chair. He looked up. The princess was grimacing. “I need to wash my hands now, Daddy,” she said.
    Humiliation swept over the frog.
    “Really,” said the frog, “I am quite clean. It’s those dreadful salamanders who give us well-dwellers a bad name.”
    But the princess was already washing her hands in a bowl brought over by a servant. The frog sat awkwardly on his chair for a while. He certainly couldn’t reach the table—he couldn’t even see if there was food on it to eat. Presently, the king noticed this. “Honey, lift your friend up onto the table so he can have his soup.” (The salad course had been finished, you see, and the soup had been brought out.)
    The frog found himself suddenly lifted and plopped down on the table, and he flushed to see the princess anxiously calling for the washing bowl again. He brought his face over the steaming saucer of soup and smelled it. “Luxuriant,” he said to the king. “What is it?”
    The princess let out a guffaw. The king began to turn red.
    Terror took hold of the frog. What had he said? The princess was laughing loudly and cruelly now. He couldn’t think of what he had done wrong. He looked imploringly at the beautiful girl.
    “It’s frog’s leg soup!” she cried, laughing and pointing. Servants stifled their laughter behind their hands. The king, though, was deeply embarrassed.
    “Take this away!” he cried. Presently, other food was brought, though the frog had entirely lost his appetite. A few times he tried to engage the table in conversation, but each time the princess snickered or insulted him. By the end of dinner, he was on the verge of tears. His dreams of a new life with the sky-eyed princess were dead.
    “I am tired,” he said. “Perhaps I should go.”
    “Perhaps you should,” the princess agreed.
    But the king said, “Take him with you upstairs. He can sleep on a pillow in your room; certainly you won’t make him walk—hop—all the way home in the dark. A weasel might get him.”
    “I wouldn’t care!” the princess announced. “And I’m not touching him again!” A few of the servants chortled, and the frog wished that he had never made his stupid wish. But wishes cannot be unwished, no matter how one wishes it. A wish is a powerful thing. It had the frog in its grip. And it was not about to let him go.
    Finally, the king convinced his daughter (through threats and imprecations) to take the poor frog upstairs. She did this as quickly as she could, holding him by a single leg and bouncing him as she climbed the long, winding staircases. He was afraid he might come to pieces. (Though then they could use me in the soup, he thought bitterly.) As he watched the little girl, he marveled at her lack of feeling, and also at her beautiful, deep blue eyes. If only she would like me, he thought. If only . . .
    They reached her room, and she dropped him to the floor and went into her washroom to prepare for bed. When she emerged, she found him huddled in a damp corner, trying