Anne's Journal

Chapter 1: Anne or Beast?

Maybe this isn't exactly the best time to start a journal, but I feel like if I want to keep what remains of my sanity, I should start organizing my thoughts. Marcy always says "An organized mind is a happy mind", and I guess she would know.

(I hope she's okay. I haven't seen her or Sasha since I got zapped to… wherever this place is. Is it…the Bad Place? Is this all karma for stealing that stupid box?)

Oh, right. The box. I can't believe I let Sasha talk me into stealing it!

…well, actually, I can. Sasha's always been able to talk me into pretty much anything. Always has, for as long as I remember. Playing lookout while she tags something, taking the blame when she pulls one of her little stunts, breaking up with her SOs for her when she gets tired of them… but she's done so much for us over the years that it's been impossible to say no to her.

I should have put my foot down this time, though. Cutting school was one thing. It's not exactly my favorite place to be on the best days, but today was frog dissection day. Frogs are already gross enough without having to see what's inside them! *shudder* But shoplifting? Everything about it just felt wrong.

And what do I even have to show for it? An ugly old music box and a free trip to a gross miserable swamp full of gigantic bugs and no actual food.

I can't believe I blew off my birthday party for this. Sure, my parents' idea of a 13th birthday party would've probably been lame, but at least my friends would have been there and I wouldn't be starving in the middle of nowhere.

At least I finally managed to find a cave. There's still no food but there's some clean water in here and I even made a friend! Literally. I literally made a friend out of sticks, kelp, and a rock. Oh, Rocky, what would I do without you?

…there is the distinct possibility I may be crazy.

There are actually people here!

I think. I didn't get too good a look at him but he was wearing clothes and could talk and even play the accordion. He was also pretty short, kinda like those Groblings in those really long "King of the Bracelets" movies that Marcy made me watch. There's fifteen hours of my life I'll never get back.

Anyway, where there's people with clothing and musical instruments, there's civilization. And where there's civilization, there's food, shelter, and non-rock people to talk to. So, I tried to get his attention, but he just ran off screaming. In retrospect, maybe I shouldn't have been waving a spear around. Or maybe its because compared to him, I'm huge.

Either way, I need to rethink my approach. Now what's a sane, rational way to keep someone around long enough to talk to them?

Of course. Build a trap!

I'm so glad I'm still thinking straight.

Well, dear journal, quite a lot has happened since the last time I wrote.

So, I did rig a bunch of traps and it turns out one of them worked! Turns out the people here aren't humans or groblings, though. No, what I had in my trap was this little pink frog boy. Yes, a frog.

See, it turns out that guy I saw earlier, who it turs out is named Wally, ran all the way back to town convinced I was some kind of monster, and this kid came back to capture me. Well, he didn't reckon with me getting the best of him! I would've tried to pry some information out of him, but then this giant bug attacked and I had to split.

Well, that was the plan, and probably would have been the smart thing to do, but I couldn't just leave the little frog kid, could I? So, I went back for him, and what would've been an easy escape turned out to be a very narrow one.

We did manage to get back to my cave, and the kid (his name is Sprig, BTW) kept going on about I was a hero (and ugly; c'mon, I'm not supermodel material but I clean up nice); he even found me some non-crawling food. Roots and mushrooms aren't exactly pizza or tom yum but when you haven't had anything for a couple of days they might as well be. The two of us were actually hitting it off pretty well. So, naturally, that was about the time the angry villagers with torches and pitchforks showed up to drag me off. It was straight out of Frankenstein, only I was Frankenstein. For a second, I thought Sprig had just been the advance guy sent to flush me out, And he'd seemed so innocent…

The monster-killing party got interrupted pretty quickly when that giant bug from earlier showed up. At least I think it was that bug. I can't really tell them apart. The frogs all did this human pyramid thing to scare them off, which surprisingly, seemed to work… except no, it was actually an even bigger bug.

The frogs all scattered in the chaos, leaving me alone and tied up. I figured that was pretty much it for me; as soon as that thing was done eating frogs, I was gonna be its dessert. But then Sprig came back to untie me. The little dude was actually going to sacrifice himself so I could get away. And I'd thought he'd set me up! I have got to start being a better judge of character.

The next thing I know, I'm wresting with a giant red bug. And either the giant bugs here are crazy weak or I'm stronger than I thought, because I was actually holding my own there. At least long enough so Sprig could tie the thing up.

All this, and the townspeople were still looking at me like I was some kind of horrible monster that was gonna eat them. Jeez. No way. I don't even like touching frogs, you think I'm gonna eat one?

To my surprise, though, not only was Sprig standing up for me, but his grandpa did too. I guess he trusts Sprig enough to listen to him when it counts. That's… kinda admirable. I wish more old people were like that.

So… here I am now, living in a frog family's basement. I wanted to just get moving, look for Sash and Mar-Mar, but apparently this valley is pretty much completely cut off from the world this time of year. It's dank and kinda smelly, but it's a roof over my head and presumably there'll be regular meals.

The old guy expects me to help out on the farm in exchange for staying here. I really, really don't want to, but I guess I owe him. The guy did take in a "monster" from another world. Not a lot of people, frog- or otherwise, would do that. Sprig's been doing his best to make me feel at home, which is really nice of him considering we barely know each other. His little sister, on the other hand… she's scary. She keeps looking at me like she's gonna shank me. Did I mention she's a baby? This world, dude.

So… that's where I am right now. Sasha, Marcy… wherever you are, hang tight. I may be stuck here for now, but I will come for you when I can.

A.N.: Well, I guess you can pretty much figure out what this is gonna be about. It's the Amphibia saga, episode by episode, as told from Anne's POV. So, what am I gonna do when I get to episodes where Anne barely appears, or doesn't at all, like "Prison Break?" You'll just have to see.

Next: "Best Fronds", naturally.