It's Not About the Ball!
Text copyright © 2013 by Veronika Martenova Charles
Illustrations copyright © 2013 by David Parkins
Published in Canada by Tundra Books, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, One Toronto Street, Suite 300, Toronto, Ontario M5C 2V6
Published in the United States by Tundra Books of Northern New York,
P.O. Box 1030, Plattsburgh, New York 12901
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012945434
All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher – or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency – is an infringement of the copyright law.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Charles, Veronika Martenova
It’s not about the ball! / Veronika Martenova Charles; illustrated by David Parkins.
(Easy-to-read wonder tales)
Short stories based on The frog prince tales from around the world.
eISBN: 978-1-77049-335-3
1. Fairy tales. I. Parkins, David II. Title. III. Series: Charles, Veronika Martenova. Easy-to-read wonder tales.
PS8555.H42242I8324 2013 jC813′.54 C2012-905303-1
We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and that of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Ontario Book Initiative. We further acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program.
Edited by Stacey Roderick
www.tundrabooks.com
v3.1
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
The Pond Part 1
The Promise
(The Frog Prince from Scotland)
The Frog Boy
(The Frog Prince from Vietnam)
The Singing Frog
(The Frog Prince from Chile)
The Pond Part 2
About the Stories
THE POND
PART 1
“I want to show you something,”
Jake told Lily and Ben
when they came to his house.
He led them to a little pond
in the back of the garden.
“Look over there!” said Jake.
“A frog!” exclaimed Lily.
She took a ball out of her pocket
and dropped it into the water.
“What are you doing?” asked Jake.
“I want to see if the frog will talk,
like in The Frog Prince,”
Lily replied.
“There’s no ball in the story
I know,” said Jake.
“I’ll tell it to you.”
THE PROMISE
(The Frog Prince from Scotland)
Once there was a queen
who became very sick.
She told her daughter,
“In the courtyard, there is a well
with crystal clear water.
Bring me a drink from it,
and it will heal me.”
The princess went to the well,
filled a glass with water,
but saw that it was muddy.
A frog stuck his head out
of the well and said,
“Ribbit, ribbit!
If you promise to give me
some food and a bed,
I will give you clear water.”
The princess thought to herself,
My mother needs the water,
and this is only a frog.
What does he know of promises?
“Why not?” the princess replied.
“I promise.”
She filled the glass again,
and this time the water was clear.
The princess turned around,
leaving the frog by the well,
and returned to the palace.
She gave her mother the water
and thought no more about it.
That evening, the princess heard
croaking at the door.
“Open the door, ribbit, ribbit!
It’s your promise, keep it, keep it!”
It must be that ugly frog,
thought the princess.
She opened the door a crack,
let the frog in, and went to bed.
But she couldn’t sleep
because the frog croaked again,
“Bring me food, ribbit, ribbit!
It’s your promise, keep it, keep it!”
The princess crawled out of bed
and gave the frog some dinner.
That should keep him quiet,
she thought and went back to bed.
Just as she was falling asleep,
the frog began to croak again,
“Give me a bed, ribbit, ribbit!
It’s your promise, keep it, keep it!”
“What a pest you are!”
She picked up the slimy frog
and put it at the foot of her bed.
There, the frog croaked again.
“Help me, please, ribbit, ribbit!
Get a sword, bring it, bring it!”
Sword! What on earth could I do
with a sword? thought the princess.
“Ribbit, ribbit!”
The frog kept croaking.
I’ll never fall asleep with this noise.
I may as well go find a sword.
In the great hall of the castle,
there was an old sword
hanging on the wall.
The princess brought it to her room.
“Now, will you be quiet?”
She climbed back into bed.
After a few seconds,
the frog croaked again.
“Help me, please, ribbit, ribbit!
Slice my skin, cut it, cut it!”
“What?” the princess was horrified.
“Ribbit, ribbit!”
The frog kept croaking.
Finally, the princess had enough.
She picked up the old sword.
SWOOSH!
The moment the rusty metal
touched the frog’s skin,
he changed into
a handsome young man.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Keeping your promise freed me
from a wizard’s spell.
Please come to my kingdom.
You can be my queen.”
“Why not?” said the princess,
and they went to tell her mother.
“The princess cut the frog?”
asked Lily.
“I think so,” replied Jake.
“That’s how the spell was broken.”
“My cousin Jack told me,” said Ben,
“that once, at school,
they had to cut a frog.”
“That’s gross,” said Lily.
“I could never do that.”
“Do you want to hear another story
about a talking frog?” asked Ben.
“Okay,” said Jake and Lily.
THE FROG BOY
(The Frog Prince from Vietnam)
It happened once
that a woman gave birth
to a frog instead of a baby.
At first, the woman cried,
but then she decided
she would raise the frog
as she would a child.
; As the years passed,
the frog grew up
and behaved just like
an ordinary boy.
He followed his mother around
and helped her in the house.
When she was cooking soup,
he hopped up on the stove to stir it,
and if she wasn’t looking,
he tasted some with his tongue.
Because the frog was very smart,
his mother decided
he should go to school.
“No!” said the teacher.
“I can’t have a frog in the class.”
“Please,” said the mother,
“he won’t cause any trouble.”
As the weeks went by,
the frog became the best student.
He learned to write
with a brush in his mouth
and always knew the answers.
In time, the frog finished school.
“I think it is time you find work,”
suggested his mother.
“First, I would like to get married,”
the frog said.
“G-get married?” his mother asked.
“Have you anyone in mind?”
“Yes, Mother,” said the frog.
“One of the king’s daughters.”
The mother was alarmed.
“Son, are you sure?” she asked.
“Tomorrow,” the frog told her,
“I will go see the king.”
The next morning,
the frog set off for the palace.
He entered the great hall,
hopped in front of the king,
and made his request.
The king burst out laughing.
“Bring my daughters here,”
The king’s two daughters entered.
“This frog wants to marry you.”
Then the king turned to the frog.
“Which daughter do you like?”
“The one who agrees to marry me,”
the frog replied.
The king became angry.
“Enough joking!”
He turned to his guards.
“Kill this creature!”
“RIBBIT!” the frog croaked loudly.
Suddenly, the doors flew open,
and wild beasts burst into the hall.
Elephants charged,
and leopards and tigers growled,
surrounding everybody.
“Have a good day, Your Majesty,”
said the frog as he turned to leave.
“Wait!” the king shouted.
“You can’t leave us here
with these beasts.”
But the frog kept hopping away.
“What shall we do?”
the king asked his daughters.
“I’d rather be torn by the beasts
than marry that frog,”
shouted the older one.
“I’ll marry him,” said Tuyen,
her younger sister.
“The frog must be very powerful
but doesn’t appear cruel.
Look, all these beasts around us,
yet no one has been harmed.”
When she finished speaking,
the animals left the hall.
A few days later,
there was a wedding.
No one dared laugh at the frog
as the tales of his great powers
had spread far.
In the days that followed,
the frog and Tuyen lived happily.
Tuyen found the frog pleasant
and a smart companion.
She grew very fond of him.
Then, one morning,
she found the frog dead
on the pillow beside her.
She lifted him up and cried.
As her tears fell on his body,
she heard someone calling her.
She turned around and
saw a handsome young man.
“How dare you come in here!”
she exclaimed.
“Can’t you see
I’m mourning my husband?”
“Tuyen,” said the young man,
“I am your husband.
That is only skin you’re holding.
A spell turned me into a frog.
Your love turned me
back into a human being.”
Tuyen was very happy.
But her sister became jealous.
She hurried to the pond
and chose a frog for herself.
At night, she put it on her pillow,
hoping the frog would change.
But it remained just a frog.
“I know why this frog won’t talk,”
said Ben.
“It’s a girl frog. That’s why!”
“That’s not it,” said Lily.
“I know a story about a girl frog,
and not only could she talk,
but she could sing, too.
I’ll tell you the story.”
THE SINGING FROG
(The Frog Prince from Chile)
There once was a king
who had three sons:
Pablo, Pedro, and Juan.
One day, the king told his sons,
“Go see the world,
find yourself a wife,
and come back in a year.”
First, Pablo, the eldest son, left.
After riding for a long time,
he came to a little cottage.
He heard a girl’s voice
singing a lovely song.
“Oh, if that girl is single,
I want to marry her,” he said.
Her father came to the door.
“Good morning,” said Pablo.
“I’d like to meet your daughter.”
“Come out, child,” called the man.
A frog jumped out of a clay jar.
“This is your daughter?”
asked Pablo in disbelief.
“Yes, she is,” the old man replied.
“Forget it,” said Pablo.
He pushed the frog with his foot
and rode away.
The next day,
the second brother, Pedro,
set off on the same road.
He, too, stopped at the cottage
when he heard the song.
“I want to marry the girl
who sings so beautifully,”
he said to her father.
“She is not to be married,”
the father told him.
“Let me meet her,” Pedro said.
The frog jumped out of the jar.
“You call this your daughter?
What an ugly thing!” cried Pedro,
and he rode away fast.
The following day,
the youngest son, Juan,
set off on the same road.
When he heard the singing,
he said to himself,
This is the girl I want to marry.
The old man came to the door.
“Good morning,” said Juan.
“Is that your daughter singing?
I’d like to meet her and
ask her to marry me,” said Juan.
“You won’t like her looks,”
the father said.
“Looks don’t matter to me,”
Juan said.
“I will marry her for her voice.
I give you my word.”
“All right,” said the father.
“Come out, my child.”
The frog jumped out of the jar.
“This is her?” asked Juan.
“Well, I gave you my word
that I’d marry your daughter.”
So the next day,
there was a wedding.
But, that night, Juan was sad
that his bride was only a frog.
&nbs
p; “Don’t be sad,” the frog told him.
“I will sing you a lullaby
so you can go to sleep.”
And so it went for a year.
When the year was over,
the two older brothers rode by,
returning home with their wives.
They looked inside the cottage
and saw Juan.
“That fool! He married the frog!”
They laughed and rode on.
Juan said to the little frog,
“Today, I was to return home
with my wife
and introduce her to my father.
If I bring you, everyone will laugh.”
“Don’t worry,” said the little frog.
“It will be all right.”
So Juan took the little frog,
and they rode to the palace.
At the gate,
the guards stopped them.
“Sorry, Prince,” they said.
“This creature can’t come inside.
This is not a place for frogs.”
Juan picked up the little frog
and held her tight to his heart.
“This is my wife,” he said.
“If she can’t come in,
then neither can I.”
At that moment, the frog trembled
and transformed into a girl
in a beautiful green dress.
“I was enchanted
and turned into a frog,” she said.
“Your love changed me back
into a human again.”
Juan was overjoyed.
When they entered the palace,
Pablo and Pedro stared at them.
“Where did he find that girl?”
they wondered.
“We thought he married a frog!”
Juan introduced his wife.
“What beauty,” said the king.
“Yes, but I have chosen her
for her lovely voice,”
Juan told him.
“Can she sing a song for us?”
asked the king.
The frog girl began to sing,
and everyone fell silent.
“Bravo!” called out the king.
He turned to Juan.