Kim found her frog in the swamp, while wading through ankle-deep mud with her brother and sister.

"It's ugly," Kevin said.

"It is not," Kim insisted, though she knew he was right. It was more brown than green, with patches of skin peeling off, lumps all over, and one eye higher than the other. She'd picked it because of the eyes, though. When she looked at them, the frog looked back, and its eyes weren't blank and empty like most frog eyes. She didn't tell Kevin, though. Or Alicia.

"It's gross ," her sister said. But she said that about every frog she saw.

"Of course it's not handsome," Kim's mother said when they returned home. "Frogs with princes in them never are."

Kim hadn't thought of that, but it made sense, so she smiled at Kevin and Alicia as if she'd known all along.

"Oh, yuck." Alicia frowned as she washed the mud off her shoes. Mud coated Kim's shoes, too, but she didn't care so much. "That means you've got to kiss it, you know."

"Big deal," Kevin said. "I'd rather kiss a frog than a girl." Puckering his lips, he leaned toward the shoebox in Kim's hands.

Kim yanked the box away. "You leave my frog alone!"

"You really think there's a prince in there, don't you?" Kevin teased.

"I do not," Kim said. But pulling the shoebox close to her chest, she turned and ran to her room.

Kim set the shoebox down on the floor. Lifting the cover, she looked at the frog. It stared back with big round eyes. Somehow, unlike Kim, the frog wasn't muddy at all.

Kim reached in and touched it. It felt strange--smooth and velvety, nothing like the slimy swamp she'd pulled it from. The frog kept staring as she ran her hand along its lumpy back.

She liked the frog, lumps and patches and all. But she'd never met a prince, outside of books and cartoons.

Kim picked up the frog with one hand. It didn't try to jump away, not even when she set it down on her desk.

Making sure her door was closed, she leaned forward. She shut her eyes, scrunched up her face, and kissed the frog, very quickly, right on the lips.

A crash sent her sprawling backwards. When she opened her eyes, her desk was in pieces on the floor. In the middle of the pieces lay a man, rubbing his head.

He didn't look like anything from a book or cartoon. He looked more like the pictures of TV stars Alicia had on her walls--tall and blond, with cold blue eyes. Only he was dressed funnier than in Alicia's pictures, with a blue velvet cloak, pants that barely reached his knees, and pointy shoes. A shiny gold band circled his head. He brushed the dust from his clothes and looked around the room.

"Where is she?" he demanded. His voice was rich and deep, much more so than any of the TV stars.

"Where is who?" Kim stared at the prince. She'd like him more if he smiled. Frogs never smiled either, but that was because they were frogs.

"The beautiful lady who set me free."

"Oh." Kim shoved her hands into her pockets. "That's me."

The man slowly stood. He looked down at her, and something about his hard gaze made Kim suddenly aware of the mud splatters that still clung to her face and bare arms, of the way she smelled faintly of swamp water.

"You're hardly a proper princess," he said.

"I'm not a princess at all. We don't have princesses here." Kim's class had talked about that in school just last week. "It's because of the Revolutionary War," she explained.

The man stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Well, there is some precedent for a prince marrying a peasant. Perhaps you have secret royal blood, or a magical talent no one knows about yet."

"I'm not a peasant." Kim wondered if she ought to be offended. "We don't have those here, either."

The prince ignored her and kept talking, as if to himself. "We could clean you up, get you into a decent dress, uncover your hidden beauty. Yes, I think that would work quite well."

"I hate dresses," Kim said. It was too easy to catch them in doorways, or trip and tear them. But the prince ignored that, too. He held out his hand.

"Would you do me the honor," he asked, "of taking my hand in marriage?"

"No way," Kim told him.

"What?" The prince's face crinkled into a rather un-princely expression.

"I said I'm not a peasant, I'm not going to wear a dress, and I'm definitely not going to marry you!"

"B-but--" the prince stammered. "This is unprecedented! What--what would your father say?"

"Dad and Mom would both say to come back after I graduate college." They'd said just that last week, to a boy who'd come by to see Alicia. Alicia had been furious. " I'd say--"

But the prince never let Kim tell him what she thought. His face turned angry and red; he whirled around and stormed from the room. Kim listened as his footsteps retreated down the stairs. Then she turned back to her splintered desk, searching for the shoebox.

The torn cardboard still smelled of swamp water, but the frog was gone.

Kim found another shoebox in Alicia's closet--Alicia had lots of shoes--and she went back to the swamp. This time, Kim didn't let Kevin or Alicia go with her.

As soon as Kim returned home, Alicia peeked into the box. "Oh, gross. This one's uglier than the first."

"I'll bet you're gonna tell us there's a prince in it, too," Kevin taunted.

"Am not," Kim said. She brushed past them up the stairs, ignoring the muddy water that dripped from her jeans and T-shirt. She set the shoebox down on her dresser and lifted the cover. The frog stared out at her, with bulging eyes that weren't blank and empty like most frog eyes. Kim smiled and set the cover down again.

Of course there was a prince inside. No way was she kissing him, though.

This time she was keeping the frog.

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"Frog Princes " © 1993, 1998 by Janni Lee Simner; story first appeared in Children's Playmate magazine; expanded version first appeared in Bruce Coville's Shapeshifters. Feel free to make a copy for personal use, with this note intact, but please do not otherwise reprint except with permission of the author. Thanks!