Clotilde and the Frog Prince

Welcome to The Spot Writers. This month’s prompt: Write a story where someone gets an unexpected phone call.

This week’s contribution comes from Chiara De Giorgi. Chiara is currently in Berlin, Germany, doing her best to catch up with semi-abandoned writing projects. Her YA novel “Mi chiamo Elisa” (My name is Elisa) was published in Italy by “Le Mezzelane Casa Editrice” in September 2020 and recently in Turkey with the title “Benim adım Elisa”. Her children’s book “Şebnem ve Schrödinger’in Kedisi” (Chiara and Schrödinger’s cat) was published this year in Turkey by Sia Kitap and in Italy with the title: “Chiara e il Gatto di Schrödinger”.

 

Clotilde and the Frog Prince

by Chiara De Giorgi

 

Photo generated with Fotor AI

I thought the greatest adventure of my life was behind me, but I was wrong. And the best thing about being wrong was that I used to be a secondary character, although still one of the main protagonists, but in what turned out to truly be the greatest adventure of my life, I am the leading lady! If all this sounds confusing, it’s because it is. Also, I’m so excited that I’m getting ahead of myself and not telling the story right. Please, allow me to start over.

My name is Clotilde, and I am sixteen years old. My birthday was yesterday, actually, so you can still wish me a happy birthday if you wish. Loretta is my best friend since kindergarten. When we were thirteen, we lived an amazing adventure. She was the protagonist there. She travelled to the Dream World and was almost trapped there forever by an evil Prince Wizard… Well, at least we thought he was the villain at first. Anyway, that’s not the story I want to tell now.

There was someone who helped us make sense of all the weird things that were going on and explained to us about our world’s entanglement with other worlds. The world of dreams, for example, and the world of fairy tales. That someone was named Usbert, and he was a frog prince who spoke French. At first, he disgusted me, especially after I kissed him under the assumption that he would turn into a dashing human boy. As it turns out, actual frogs can be princes too, so a frog prince isn’t necessarily a human who was turned into a frog by a vengeful witch.

As we tried to help Loretta defeat the evil wizard, Usbert and I happened to spend a lot of time together. Reading fairy tales to look for clues, discussing the events in the attempt to figure out what the wizard’s plan was, making plans of our own to protect Loretta… Soon, however, we started to just hang out and do other stuff. He went with me to my karate classes, helped me with my homework, suffered through my favourite CDs, and spent a lot of time in my schoolbag, because he often came to school with me. One day, I realized he had become a really good friend, no matter that he was a frog and came from a different world. So, I was really really sad when Loretta’s adventure ended… Well, obviously I was glad that she was safe and the real villain had been caught. But I did not feel like saying goodbye to Usbert. I felt that in time we might become more than friends. But he was going back to Fairy Land, and we would never see each other again.

He surprised me, though. He told me he had made arrangements with a witch on his world: he would serve her for three years and, in exchange for that, she would turn him into a human. He would then come back to me and we could be together. I tried to hold on to that promise, but, as the months and years went by, everything that had happened started to feel like a dream. Had it really happened? Had I really shared my daily life with a frog? Had he really become my best friend and potential boyfriend? I was full of doubts and he was unreachable. Besides, time was passing for him, too. Would he remember? Would he change his mind? Would the witch keep her promise?

Then one day (yesterday) came my sixteenth birthday. If I told you I wasn’t anxious and fearful that my expectations would be disappointed, I would lie. I woke up with the thought of Usbert searing my mind. I wished I could be detached enough not to keep wondering what would happen, if he would come to me, if he would bring me a present, if he would send me a card, if he would give me a kiss, if, if... but he was all I could think of. In any case, I did not expect his call. Hearing his voice on the phone thrilled me so much! So he had not lied, he had not forgotten… And he must have been in my world already, because how else could he call me?

We arranged to meet and finally, after three years of uncertainty, we could hug, both of us human. Our own adventure has only just begun.

 

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The Spot Writers—Our Members:

Val Muller: http://www.valmuller.com/blog/

Catherine A. MacKenzie: https://writingwicket.wordpress.com/wicker-chitter/

Phil Yeats: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com

Chiara De Giorgi: https://chiaradegiorgi.blogspot.com/