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Lilah's heart was racing. This was exciting! She had followed quickly behind Vance, and now they were only a few steps away from the bookstore. She'd miss the end of the tale with the Seven Brothers, but that was ok. They had more important things to find! She giggled when Vance said he had saved the princess.

"Yeah!" She agreed. "That's why there's a princess crown on my shirt!" The blond pointed at it briefly.

She bounced happily into the bookstore, getting a happy wave from the woman at the counter (she had been in so many times before that the woman not only knew here, but didn't seem to question that she'd come in her alone). Lilah walked up to the counter. "We need a book about fwogs," she said. "And princesses. And...and a golden ball!" The saleswoman, Sally, nodded. "Oh of course. The Frog Prince!" She looked down at the pair and laughed. "How appropriate."

Sally took each of their hands, leading them back to the children's picture book section.


Meanwhile, back at the reading, Maggie had made her way back to the event. It was a rare day that she wasn't wearing one of her elaborate costumes, today was also laundry day, as well as shopping day, but unlike most people, who wore their scrubby clothes on laundry day, what Maggie had for her "scrubby" clothes, though might make the most committed fashionista proud. She wore a tweed skirt, which didn't come much past her butt, with tall, tall boots (high enough to reach the skirt, in fact) with a fitted jacked over top a white silky shirt and lots of dangly necklaces. Her red hair, normally in a princess-ly updo was flowing around her shoulders. The amount of composed she looked truly hid how amazingly lost she was inside.

There was something she needed here....something important...huh. She had her keys...and her shopping bags and her head (she checked, to make sure!). Weird.

As Maggie stood there staring, Lilah was already halfway to her book.

The woman let go of Lilah and Vance's hands, and reached up, standing on her tippy toes to reach the top shelf. It was rather silly, she thought, putting kids books up so high. Maybe she should make the suggestion to corporate.

"Here we are!" she said, pulling down two copies and handing one to each child. Lilah shook her head and handed hers back.

"We can share!" she said happily. The sales woman nodded and put one back. "You can read over there," she said, pointing to a small alcove with sitting pillows and circular rugs. Lilah grinned and pulled Vance with her to the alcove.


"Huh?" Maggie turned towards the person who was speaking to her. "Oh...well," she paused. Had he said 'babe'? She wasn't an infant, as far as she knew...did she look that young? Hm. Maybe he was crazy.
"Well...I think I might be missing something. But I've forgotten..."

Lilah frowned a little. She had always had stories read to her! Or she read them herself. It seemed strange to read TO someone. But that was ok! Lilah liked new things. She nodded.

"Yeah! I'll read!"

She opened the book and set it halfway between them, so that they could both see the pictures.

"In olden times when wishing still helped one, there lived a king whose daughters were all beautiful, but the youngest was so beautiful that the sun itself, which has seen so much, was astonished whenever it shone in her face." She read slowly and deliberately, making sure to get everything right. She wasn't sure what exactly astonished meant, but it didn't take away from the story.

Lilah continued reading, flipping the pages. The silly little princess was then playing with her golden ball, her favorite toy, and it rolled away. She pointed at the picture. "Do you think a golden ball would be heavy?" she asked Vance. She had always wanted to ask Maggie, but when Maggie was reading to her, she was tucked in her bed, fighting to stay awake.


"Oh, I'm Maggie," the redhead replied. She started to twirl one of her curls absentmindedly around her finger. "Can you help?" she asked curiously. If he could, that would be wonderful! Since she wasn't exactly sure she could help herself (but she'd never admit that!) "I left ...something. I thought it was here...but now I don't see it..."

Trust Maggie to only remember things when she saw them. Since Lilah was nowhere to be seen...

Lilah giggled at Vance, not meaning to be mean at all. It was funny to her!

"It's that too!" she said, nodding. "But it's for like...pretty things..." she wasn't sure how to explain it. "Like...like crowns that pwincesses wear are gold. But...not just the color gold. It's a...a..." Maggie had called it something funny. "A 'preshus me-dal'. She said. It's nicer than the me-dal that things like spoons and stuff are made from."

She turned the page again, with the frog curled up on the Princess's pillow.


Maggie followed closely behind Donovan, since that was the last thing she remembered anyway.

"Kid....OH!" It had almost come to her. "Something....about a kid. But not a goat kid....a child?"

A young man walked up to the pair, eyeing Maggie curiously. "You're looking for a little blond girl, right?" he asked. He had checked them in. "She's right over...." he pointed to the corner, where she and Vance had moved to before 'busting out'. "Oh. Ummmm....She-she was right there! With a little green haired boy. Lemme...go get help!" He rushed off, his face sheet white. If he lost this crappy job because of two little brat kids...

"Maybe the princess is just scared. Maggie says that when people are scared or don't understand things, they act meaner than they might normally."

She flipped the page again, now on the part where the Frog had transformed and was explaining how a witch had changed him.

"Oh, no!" she said, shaking her head. "I have a pet frog, his name is Sohan. He's not icky at all! He's just sort of...coldish. And smooth." Of course, her other pets were Rats, so Lilah might not exactly know what constituted 'icky'. "He's lots of fun, though! But not icky."


Maggie had one of her infrequent brain flashes. "OH. Lilah!" she said, blinking and looking around. "Err..." she blushed, and rubbed the back of her head. "Why would she break out from story time? There's nothing she likes MORE than books!" For once, Maggie was completely lost, and it had nothing to do with her memory.

"I don't think she was used to frogs," Lilah said, after giving it some thought. "Cuz she's a princess and maybe didn't go outside much?"

As they kept reading, she came to the part where the princess flings the frog against the wall. When she had first read it, she had cringed. She couldn't imagine throwing Sohan against the wall. That's just mean! Seeing the look on Vance's face made her sad and she paused long enough to wrap her arms around him in a quick hug, then went back to reading.

"Turn frogs to princes?" Lilah asked. "Only if the frog was a prince to begin with." She paused. "And princes can wake up sleeping princesses, if it's a..a en-chant-ment."


"She isn't lost!" Maggie said, starting to panic just a little. "She's...playing hide and seek? And didn't...tell me?" When Donovan pointed to the store, she stared at it. "Hm...That's where I always take her." She pulled out a membership card from the store. "It's where we get all her books."

The little blond haired girl covered her mouth to keep from laughing really loudly (it'd be rude to disturb the other customers!). Vance was sort of right, she guessed. It was, after all, the kisses that did it...sort of. All of her books talked about true love and things like that, but she didn't know how to explain what 'love' was to Vance. She didn't really even know what it meant herself!

The book ended with the Frog Prince and the Princess living 'happily ever after' which Lilah always assumed meant they had lots of candy everyday (that would make HER happy, after all). She shut the book.

"What do you think?" she asked curiously.


Story time being boring to Lilah would be a stretch, but she didn't mention that to the nice man helping her. Maybe he was right, she didn't know everything about Lilah, after all. Maggie shrugged.

"I dunno. She always comes here with me, or her other sisters." They entered the shop, and the woman who had helped Lilah and Vance had left for the day, so instead of being told where they were at, the young girl at the counter said she hadn't seen them.

"I guess...we could still check back there..." she said. If Lilah wasn't in the story time, or the book store, Maggie didn't know where else to go. There wasn't a candy store in the mall. That was down the road, and Lilah would never leave the STORE without her.

She hoped...