The Hop (13 page)

WHAT HAD HAPPENED?

It was like he'd been sucked up in a whirlwind, pulled apart, jammed back together again, and spat out on the ground. The crumbs on the floor looked tiny and far away. Everything looked different. Way different. He felt so dizzy, the roach he had just eaten swirled around in his stomach and almost came back up.

“Hey,” he said to the girl, although he knew she couldn't understand him. “Are you okay?”

Her eyes fluttered opened, then closed again.

It was his girl. The Queen of the Hop. And she had kissed him; he remembered that now. She had picked him up with her soft hands that smelled like the garden and kissed him.

He'd been trying to kiss her. Something had gone terribly wrong.

The girl's eyes opened. Her eyes had always made him think of the clear water of the pond. He gazed into them, but he didn't see himself. He saw a human.

He leaped back.
Hack-a-manna!

He was as big as she was! Bigger.
Where were his
fine warts?
His rear diggers? What had happened to him??

“What happened?” his girl murmured. “Have you seen my toad?” She tried to sit up, and he helped her. Her palm felt so soft and familiar that he shivered.

His hand looked just like hers! He understood what she said.

He fought the panic that rose in him.

“My toad has got to be around here somewhere,” she said. “I must have slipped on the slick floor and bumped my head and dropped him.”

She stood up. He stood up too. Everything whirled like it was going to tilt him off the edge.

How could he be so enormous? How could he stand on two long, straight digger things?

He tried to flick his tongue. It didn't work.

A human came dashing up. He wore a sign around his neck that matched the girl's sign. “Come on, Taylor! People are freaking out. We're supposed to be taking bows and posing for pictures.”

The girl snatched up her crown and ran, calling over her shoulder, “If you see a little toad, take care of him until I get back, okay? Don't let him get away! He's really special.” Then she disappeared in the direction the music was coming from.

Tad was soon surrounded by humans who paid no attention to him, though he felt as freakish as a seven-legged cricket. He had on clothes, he realized. And on the front of his belly was a picture of a toad that made his heart hammer with homesickness.

He felt dried out and longed to squat down in the puddle of water, but it was so small. He watched the humans move water from one place to another, then put it in their mouths. When nobody was watching, he tried it.

It would have been a lot easier just to sit in the puddle, but he felt refreshed after he did it the human way. He did it over and over.

“Dude, save some for the rest of us!” a human said.

Tad was so hungry, he could have eaten a mulch pile of earthworms. A roach darted out, but was gone again before Tad could even move. He looked around. He didn't see any more, but it was hard to spot bugs from this high up. That's it, he thought; he was going to starve.

TAYLOR HELD NUMBER 11'S HAND and made one last bow. She'd done it.
They'd
done it.

She felt like punching the air and screaming
Yes!
But that would be a little bit rude. She really hoped the pond would still be there when she got home so she could talk about it on TV.

She squeezed Number 11's hand before she turned him loose. “You just won fifty dollars,” she whispered.

He grinned. “You look good in that crown. And you ended up being a really good partner. Nice recovery when you fell on your butt.”

She shrugged. “Sometimes things don't work out like you plan.” She felt very grown-up and wise. She must have breathed too much oxygen.

She and Diana's flashed each other a thumbs-up.

The second-place winner looked mopey backstage, so Taylor said, “I'll bet you take home the crown next year.”

And then it occurred to Taylor that she would
have
to come back next summer to crown the new queen.

Backstage, everybody was putting on their street shoes and grabbing the last of the cookies. Taylor had to find her toad. She could hardly believe he had somehow escaped the trash compacter.

“Hey, want to go get some ice cream with me and my parents?” Number 11 asked. “To celebrate?” He grinned. “I'll buy.”

“I can't,” Taylor said. “I've got to find a toad.”

“What do you need with a toad?” Then he slapped his legs. “Oh, right! I get it. You're the Queen of the
Hop
.”

Taylor gave him a look. “I've got to find
my
toad. I had him just a few minutes ago.”

Number 11 took a step back. “Okay,” he said. “Catch you later, then.”

Down the alley made by the stage curtains, Taylor could see Ryan and the Rompers packing up their instruments. Her parents would be coming to claim her soon.

Then she caught sight of the boy in the T-shirt with the toad on the front. “Hey,” she called. “Have you seen my toad?”

He looked at her strangely. What was wrong with boys? Didn't they know girls could like toads too?

“Seriously,” she said. “He's in the wrong habitat here. I've got to find him and take him home to my grandmother's garden.”

“Toads are small,” the boy said. “
Really
small.”

Well,
duh.
“This little guy was so small he hid in my salad the first night we were here. I've had an awful time hanging on to him.”

She glanced back at the stage. The band was almost packed. “Will you help me look?”

“Okay.”

She checked under the table. That would be a good place for him. Out of the way of feet and where there was water. But no, he wasn't there. She looked under the edge of the stage curtain.

The boy in the T-shirt seemed to be kind of copying her. Making the same moves she did. It was a little annoying.

“What's going on?” her dad said, coming backstage.

“Did you see my toad?” Taylor asked.

“Oh, honey.” Her mother was tidying up her ponytail. “I thought we'd decided he ended up in the trash compactor.”

“But he
didn't
! He somehow turned up backstage during the dance. I swear. I saw him.”

Her parents glanced at each other.

“He's still here,” the boy said.

He said it like he had X-ray vision or something.

“Well,
where
?”

“Let's look,” her dad said. “If all four of us look, it shouldn't take long. And I hope not, because, I've gotta tell you, I'm hungry.”

The boy's stomach growled so loud Taylor almost laughed.

After they'd lifted up everything and looked in all the shadows backstage, and hunted among the seats, they still hadn't found him. As they searched, the boy kept banging into things. He was very clumsy.

“Honey, I'm starting to think that toad can take care of himself,” her mother said. “Maybe he got another ride back to Iowa.”

“No, he didn't,” the boy said. “He's still here.”

Why
did he keep saying that? It was almost like he knew more about her toad than she did.

“Well, he seems to have at least nine lives,” Taylor's dad said. “Let's go get pizza. Maybe he'll turn up.”

“But—”

The boy's stomach rumbled and gurgled. He put his hand over it and looked embarrassed. “Don't worry about the toad. He'll be okay.”

Well, fine. She hoped he knew what he was talking about.

The boy rode down in the elevator with them. He stared at the colored lights on the panel like he had never seen such a thing. When they got out in the atrium, Taylor's dad said, “Is your family here?”

“Yes!” the boy said so loudly that a couple of people turned.

He was dorky, but kind of cute.

“What's your name?” Taylor asked him. “I'm—” She didn't want to say
Taylor,
for a change. “Peggy Sue.”

“My name's Tad. You're a great dancer.”

Taylor touched her tiara. Yes, she was. “Thanks. I just learned this week. Do you dance?”

The boy seemed thoughtful. Not like some boys who just shoved you in the lunchroom line and said smarty things.

Tad nodded. “I love that music.”

Taylor was surprised. Most kids thought old rock and roll was kind of silly. Just like she used to.

“You want to eat with us?” she asked.

“Yes!” he said, startling a lady in front of them who turned around to sneak a peek.

She stopped her parents. “Dad, can Tad eat with us?”

“If his family says it's okay.”

“Why don't you ask your family?” Taylor said.

He walked over to where some people were gathered outside the amphibian room. He stumbled over his own feet a couple of times before he disappeared inside. When he came out, he said, “It's okay.”

As they walked to the pizza place, they passed the fountain where Taylor had taken the little toad that first night. She was so hot, and the water looked so sparkly and cool. “I'd like to just sit down and let the water splash on me,” she said.

“Me too!”

Taylor laughed. Why did he seem so familiar? And why did he walk in the grass like he was allergic to concrete?

“SO ARE YOU AND YOUR FAMILY really into saving the toads?” the queen's mom asked Tad as someone set down their food.

“That's why I'm here.”

The delicious-smelling stuff put in front of him made him think of big ladybugs. But he couldn't zot because he no longer had a fine toadly tongue.

He watched how the queen ate. She picked up the leaf-shaped thing that the ladybug-like things sat on. And she used her teeth to crunch them into pieces. He practiced clicking his own teeth together.

When she saw him watching her, she turned a pretty pink. And magically it made him feel like he was turning pink too.

“What?” she said.

“Nothing.”

He picked up the water. He'd like to just dump it over his head, but he held it up to his mouth like the humans did. And he used the hard things in his mouth to take a piece of the food and eat it. It tasted strange…but okay.

“Isn't this the best?” the queen asked him.

“Oh yeah!” he said. “It makes me think of ladybugs.”

Her crown was a little crooked. He fixed it.

“My grandmother has a garden with ladybugs in it,” she said.

“She does? Gardens are great. Dirt, mulch, ponds, bugs, worms. Gardens are…awesome!”

The girl sat beside him smiling, her face all sunshiny.

He remembered sitting on a rock with Buuurk, waiting for the first queen. And he remembered sitting on a rock with Seer, owning up to his dreams. He'd give anything to talk to Seer or Buuurk again, to be a toad again, to sit by Father Pond.

“So where are you from, Tad?” the queen's mom asked.

“Toadville-by-Tumbledown.” His heart was squeezed with longing.

“What a quaint name. It sounds absolutely charming.”

“What does your dad do?” the queen's dad asked.

How could he answer that question? If he said he was really a toad, and toads didn't exactly have moms and dads, they'd think he was crazy. Seer was kind of like a dad, though, so he said, “My dad has dreams.”

“Ah, a visionary,” the queen's mom said. “I expect the ecology movement needs a few of those.”

Tad hoped
he
might have a vision. And soon. He desperately needed to know how to get out of this mess he was in. He rubbed the place between his eyes. His skin was warm. And so much thicker. He rubbed the top of his head. He was furry, like the humans.

The girl's hand was on the bench beside his. He used to be smaller than her hand. How could he be so positively, enormously
huge
?
He had to get out of this clumsy human body. He would terrify all the toads at home. They'd never recognize him. And more than anything else, he wanted to go home.