Read The Last Emberwrym :: Frogs?

I head up to my room, grab a scroll with one of my scroll-marks in it, and flop onto my bed. I'm about to start reading from the place I marked when I feel something slimy on my side. Why is there something slimy on my bed? Sticks, hay, and rock is what my bed is made of, and none of those are supposed to be slimy. I also smell a weird smell. Waiiit... that smell is getting stronger. It's DISGUSTING! I lift up my arm, and there's a fat-looking frog. Maybe it crawled in? Some common frogs walk in through our back archway every once in a while, but I don't remember them ever getting as far as my room. But this isn't a common frog. I recognize the patterns from something, but where?

The realization suddenly takes over as the stink fills my nostrils. IT'S A BURPING FROG! THEY'RE GROSS! I shriek, grab my scroll, and tumble off my bed. Now that I plug my snout and look closer, there's about five or six crawling around my bedding. Why are there even burping frogs here? They only live in the deepest part of the nearby swamp, and that deep, watery middle section is almost fully in the Sludigins's territory. I dash out of my room's archway, and barrel into Blaze and Flicker's. Flicker nearly falls off of her bed in surprise.

"SCARLET! What are you doing in our room?!"

I don't bother to answer Flicker's question. Instead, I direct my voice at Blaze.

"Hey, Blaze, can I borrow your frog-catching net?"

Blaze looks very confused. "Uhh, sure?"

"Thanks!" I grab Blaze's net that he uses to find and catch frogs. Yep, my little brother has a frog collection, and of course, he needs a way to collect them. I remember when he got this net, he boasted that it worked on land, mud, and water. Well, time to test the land feature. As I rush back into my room, I hear Flicker yelling at Blaze about just letting me borrow his frog-catching net.

I get to my bed and try to gently scoop up the frogs. The net works! I'm still confused about how they got here, but that question can wait until later.

I think I've caught all the frogs now. I pick one out of the net with my talon. It struggles, so I try and get a tighter grip - then I'm gripping nothing at all! I open up my palm again, and there's a frog-shaped lump of ash. It slowly drifts down to the floor in flakes. What is happening with my fire? I'm pretty sure normal fire dragons don't randomly lava-up in the morning, or have smoking tails or horns, or turn things into ash! Maybe I should do some research. It's only the first week of school, so we shouldn't have too much homework. I could just study fire dragons.

Mom comes home, and we all sit down to dinner. She asks us about how our days went, as per usual, then I tell her about the frogs. I relased them back into the swamp before she came home. I leave out the part about the one that turned into ash, though.

Mom sighs. "BonBon, you'll have to call an exterminator. Maybe the Sludigins. They're our neighbors after all, and we can still pay them. They'll definitely come by faster, and they do this kind of work for a living."

My dad's actual name is Bonfire, but mom calls him BonBon. The kids (Me, Blaze, and Flicker) leave the table, and head up to our rooms. I mentally prepare myself for the next day, then hop into bed and conk out like a rock.