CHAPTER 6

Monday morning I was the first one up, which was unusual. Most days I’m awakened by the sound of my father rattling around in the kitchen or by the smell of his coffee. The two of us are early birds, but he’s a really early bird. He’s always first in the shower, then me, then Olivia. Except when Olivia decides to sneak in ahead of me and hog it.

Today, though, the house was completely silent. Well, except for what sounded like a flock of geese coming in for a landing behind Geoffrey’s door but which was only his snoring, of course.

I figured my father must have been wiped out from the field expedition and all that driving yesterday, to sleep in past six. The two of us had had a long talk last night after dinner, and he’d managed to convince me to go back to school.

“I’m not saying it was okay for Olivia to call you that name, because it wasn’t, but you don’t need to do a belly flop into the puddle of self-pity because of it,” he’d said, using one of his favorite expressions. “Suck it up, Kit-Cat. ‘Sticks and stones,’ remember? We Starrs are made of strong stuff. Your ancestors came across the Oregon Trail in a covered wagon!”

I gave him a crooked smile. That’s another of my dad’s favorites, one he loves to trot out whenever he feels I need encouragement.

“Plus,” he continued, “the Hawkwinds need you. You can’t bail on them the day before the talent show.”

He had a point.

I squinted at the clock by my bed, yawning. I had enough time to eat breakfast first, before it was my turn in the bathroom. Putting on my robe and slippers, I started to tiptoe out of the room, pausing by Olivia’s bed. She was sound asleep on her back with her mouth wide open. I fought the temptation to do something, like maybe drop a dirty sock in it. Dad had read us both the riot act last night, though, and made us promise to shape up. So I left her where she was and crept quietly out of the room.

On my way downstairs I glanced through the stained-glass window on the landing. Great-Aunt Aby’s RV was gone, just as she had said it would be. For a fleeting second I found myself wishing I could have gone with her. But maybe now that Dad was home things would be different. Besides, I was starting to look forward to the talent show. Great-Aunt Aby had asked me to play my bassoon for her, and she’d praised my Bach piece to the skies.

She hadn’t asked Olivia to tap-dance, I’d noticed.

I was just sitting down at the kitchen counter with a bowl of cereal when my little brother appeared, clutching his smelly blanket.

“Hey, G-Man, how about some breakfast?” I asked.

Something plopped into my bowl, sloshing milk onto the counter. Geoffrey’s eyes widened. He pulled his index finger from his mouth, which was shaped in an O of surprise, and pointed at my breakfast. “Cat?” he whispered.

I glanced down and nearly fell off my stool. An equally surprised-looking toad was crouched in my cereal, staring back at me.

“Whoa!” I cried in astonishment.

Plop. Another toad joined the first one. The two of them splashed frantically in the bowl, trying to escape. Geoffrey stared at them, then at me. His face got that worried look it always does when he’s about to cry. Or barf.

No way, I thought. Absolutely no way had I just made that happen! It would be completely crazy to think that those toads had anything to do with me. And just to prove it, I said my brother’s name aloud.

“With a G,” he added automatically as toad number three tumbled into the bowl.

I shrieked, only the sound came out as a croak, along with another toad, which missed my cereal and skittered across the counter, then fell to the floor at Geoffrey’s feet. My little brother backed away and started to cry. With panic rising in me, I jumped down from my seat, grabbed him by the hand, and dragged him into the living room. I didn’t want him to wake anyone—especially not Olivia. I had to figure out what was going on first.

“Shhh, G-Man, it’s okay!” I said, setting him on the sofa.

Geoffrey’s sobs escalated to wails as another toad plunked down beside him. I scooped it up and stuffed it into my bathrobe pocket, looking around for something to distract him with. I grabbed the remote and turned on the TV. Fortunately, Robo Rooster was on. The wails subsided as he eyed the screen, toads temporarily forgotten. After waiting until his finger had crept back into its usual place, I ran upstairs, my heart racing and my hand clamped firmly over my mouth, just in case.

I went directly to the attic. It was the only place I could think of to hide. I needed to be alone while I figured out what was going on. There had to be a logical explanation. This was a trick or a coincidence or something. Spring was probably toad season here in Oregon and everybody had just forgotten to tell me. Maybe they’d crawled into the house through the dryer vent.

The attic was just as dim and dusty and cold as it had been the other day when I was up here. Wrapping my bathrobe tightly around me, I moved closer to the trunk by the front window and took a deep breath.

“Hello,” I said softly to the empty room. A toad sprang to the floor.

I sank down on the trunk, fighting the urge to cry. This was no illusion, then, no trick. It was me. I nudged the creature with the toe of my slipper and watched it hop off into the shadows. It was definitely an amphibian of the order Anura, from the Greek an (“without”) plus oura (“tail”). I wasn’t a wildlife biologist’s daughter for nothing. I knew a real live toad when I saw one.

I drew a shaky breath. It still made absolutely no sense. Middle schoolers didn’t just spontaneously start spewing toads. How could this be happening? How could that creature have come from me? My mouth still tasted of breakfast cereal, not toad. Not that I knew what toad tasted like.

I must be dreaming, I thought. Yes, of course, that had to be it! This was just a nightmare. A weird, vivid nightmare involving my little brother, breakfast cereal, and toads. It was that chili I had yesterday for lunch, or maybe Great-Aunt Abyssinia’s root beer. All I needed to do was wake up.

I hopped down off the trunk and jogged to the other window and back, then did some jumping jacks as I tried to jolt myself out of the nightmare.

“Hey! Keep it down up there!” my father shouted, his muffled voice rising through the floorboards.

“Sorry!” I called back, releasing yet another toad.

As impossible as it seemed, this wasn’t a dream, it was really happening. I moved across the attic, as far from Dad and Iz’s bedroom below as possible. I wanted to try an experiment.

“Good morning,” I whispered: one toad. “Good morning,” I sang: two toads. Ditto for humming. I made a mental note to myself to avoid music. Except for whistling. Whistling didn’t produce toads, for some reason.

Pretty much everything else did, however, and three minutes later the attic was carpeted with them. It didn’t matter how loud or soft I said anything, whether I sang or spoke, or what language I chose to speak in—French (“Bonjour!”), German (“Guten Morgen!”), Spanish (“Buenos días!”), or Swahili (“Jambo!”)— every time I opened my mouth and made a noise, a toad appeared.

I watched unhappily as they hopped, scrabbled, and skittered off across the floor. There were twenty-seven by my count, most of them looking as dazed as I felt.

What the heck was I going to do? I knew I should probably go downstairs and talk to my father and Iz, but what exactly was I supposed to tell them? That I’d suddenly turned into a freak show?

Should I call my mother again? A toad infestation of this magnitude absolutely, positively qualified as an emergency. She might even leave the space station and come back to Earth for something like this. This was a hopeful thought. I decided it was worth a try, and began picking my way across the toad minefield toward the attic door. Then I stopped in my tracks.

Olivia.

What if my stepsister found out? “Catbox” would seem like a compliment compared to what she’d come up with if she caught me spouting toads. I couldn’t risk it.

There was only one solution.

I couldn’t tell anyone.

Not yet.

I had to keep this whole thing a secret until I figured out what was happening and until things got back to normal again.

What if they don’t go back to normal? whispered a little voice in my head. What if you’re stuck like this forever?

Tears welled up again at this appalling thought, and this time I couldn’t hold them back. Fortunately, it turned out that crying didn’t cause toads, nor did snuffling. What it did cause, unfortunately, was sympathetic croaking. The toads I had already produced, including the one still stuffed into my bathrobe pocket, interpreted my sounds as some sort of amphibian song or distress signal, and they began to chorus back to me from all corners of the attic.

A toad’s croak is not like the ribbit sound a frog makes. It’s more like a creaky hinge. A single toad isn’t all that loud, but twenty-seven of them croaking in unison is enough to wake the dead.

“WHAT IS GOING ON UP THERE?” my father yelled, and this time I heard his footsteps pounding up the attic stairs.

I picked up the hem of my bathrobe and flapped it frantically at the toads in an attempt to scatter them under the eaves. My father couldn’t know about this. Not yet.

“Nothing!” I called back, adding yet another to the amphibian population. Twenty-eight, I thought, counting automatically. “I’m just—uh—practicing my bassoon. For the talent show.” Twenty-nine and thirty.

“For crying out loud, Cat, it’s six thirty in the morning! Put that thing away!” The door started to open, then halted as a bloodcurdling scream echoed down the second-floor hallway.

“Mom!” screeched Olivia. “Help me!”

I heard my father’s footsteps pounding back down the attic stairs. I crossed swiftly to the door, opened it, and listened.

“What’s happening to me?” I heard my stepsister wail.

Was Olivia afflicted with toads too? It would certainly level the playing field if she was. I could tell Dad and Iz, for one thing. I tiptoed downstairs to see.

My father was standing in the doorway to the room I shared with my stepsister. Geoffrey was beside him, clutching his blanket. It takes a lot to pry my little brother away from his favorite cartoon, but I guess hearing his sister holler like she was being skinned alive did the trick. I drew closer, craning for a better view.

Iz was sitting on the edge of Olivia’s bed, surrounded by flowers. Piles of flowers. I spotted bachelor’s buttons and buttercups, marigolds and daisies and rosebuds. My stepsister saw me peeking over Geoffrey’s shoulder and frowned.

“What are you staring at?” she snapped. As she spoke, a cluster of thistles fell from her lips, along with something else, something that winked and flashed in the early-morning light. My stepmother plucked it from the bedspread and held it up.

“Tim,” she said, her face full of wonder. “This looks like a diamond!”

My mouth dropped open. “No way!” I whispered.

Geoffrey whipped around just in time to see my latest toad make its escape. “Cat!” he shrieked, then leaned over and barfed.

I turned and fled back upstairs to the attic.