Chapter 16:
CGGPWTQTY TJA
"Okay, everybody! You ready for some more stuff from this freak right here?!" Anne announced as she pointed at herself with both thumbs.
"Yeah!" cheered the townsfolk who have gathered in the middle of the main plaza to bear witness to the human girl's performance.
"Cool! Ask and you shall received!" Anne nodded, as she began to prepare for her next act. "Quick question! Do any of you know what techno music is?"
There was some confused chattering among the townsfolk, as they wondered what is the 'techno music' that the strange creature spoke of, or what the word 'techno' even means.
"Sounds like that's a no." Anne deduced based on their reactions, though she already knew that no one had any idea on what she was talking about. "That's okay! You're in for a treat, 'cause I'm about to show you the magic of techno music!"
"Yay! More magic!" exclaimed one of the villagers among the cheering crowd.
Anne turned her head towards her family who stood a few feet behind her.
"Mind helping me with the setup, fam?" she asked as she tossed her smartphone to her best friend.
Sprig tried to catch it, but he missed his shot and ended up getting hit in the face with it before it fell on his hands.
"Ow." he voiced his pain before he started to fiddle with the phone like nothing happened. "Um, I think I'm supposed to touch here… Then here… Okay, now to find the techno music, whatever that is…"
"Got the bucket right here, Anne!" shouted Polly who quickly hopped back to the fwagon stationed just outside of town, then returned with a metal bucket on her head, complete with a cushion.
By the time Polly put down the bucket on its side, Sprig managed to find what he believed to be one of the songs that Anne was talking about, and placed the phone inside of the bucket to turn it into a makeshift boombox. He then pressed the play button.
"Alright, it's starting, Anne!" he said while giving the brown-haired girl a thumbs-up.
As soon as the song started playing, beginning with the rhythmic techno beats, Anne bopped her head to the beat in order to psych herself up for what's to come.
The audience standing in front of her watched in anticipation for what kind of performance that she was about to do, listening to the beat despite not understanding what it was supposed to be.
Once the song reached the point where it truly began, Anne started to move her body to the music. The way that her body moved seemed robotic, but it had an expressive energy to it that, combined with how she was following the rhythm, made it mesmerizing to watch. It also helped that the human girl was in the zone, allowing for her dancing to be done the way she liked without worrying about what the audience thinks.
Her dance managed to easily sway the crowd, as they all cheered at her latest performance while throwing their copper coins in the wooden bucket placed between her and the townsfolk.
"Incredible!" Hop Pop expressed his amazement at what he had witnessed in front of him. "I was worried that the people would chase Anne off like she's a terrible beast, but she managed to turn their perception around and make a show out of her talents! Plus, she's raking up a lot of money!"
"Yeah! We won't need to worry about being short on cash, if she keeps up!" Polly shared the same feeling of surprise as their grandfather. She then patted her brother on the back of his leg, as if to urge him to do something himself. "Hey, how about you join in and make us double the money?"
"Yeah, I'll pass." Sprig declined while pulling the hood of his jacket down to further hide his human face. "Still self-conscious about my human form and all."
"Well, I guess it can't be helped." Polly shrugged. "In that case, let's go, Anne! Work it, girl!"
The rest of the family continued to watch Anne dancing to the music, while the audience kept on cheering and giving her lots of tips.
The orange-haired boy looked on as his best friend cheerfully danced with a huge grin on her face. He could not help but note the wonderful and energetic aura that she exuberated all the while. It made her look even more radiant than usual, and it seemed like he was the only person to see her that way.
A warm, admiring smile appeared on his face.
"So amazing…"
Some time had passed since the Plantars left the Dry Swamp, after Hop Pop thwarted Renee Frodger's crime to rob the towns blind while using the theatre play as a distraction, and narrowly avoided the authorities who questioned his involvement with said crime. The remaining trip to Newtopia from that point on had been relatively smooth, barring some bumps down the road.
The biggest obstacle that they came across so far was when Bessie's reins snapped in the middle of their travels, forcing the Plantars to stop by the nearest town to replace the reins. The town in question was Ribbitvale, the most expensive town in all of Amphibia, where the richest nobles and business men lived.
They encountered a man named Wigbert Ribbiton, creator of Ribbiton's Ribbons, the finest web crusty floss in all of Amphibia. He was accompanied by his son and heir to the Ribbiton family empire, Walliam Ribbiton.
Who the Plantars knew as One-Eyed Wally.
They were completely shocked to find out that Wally, the same Wally who up until now was a complete loon, was actually the son of a very rich business man, and when they confronted him about it, he confined to them that he was living as a bum in Wartwood because it was what he wanted.
When he was living with his family in Ribbitvale, it was suffocating because there were so many restrictions that he had to be mindful of, not to mention the expectations that his family placed on him as the heir. His life as a bum was his escape from all of that. He kept what he was really doing outside of Ribbitvale a secret from his family out of fear that they would disown him and reject his true self.
Anne, under the belief that his family would accept him no matter what, took matters into her own hands and revealed to them Wally's real self by showing them videos of him fooling around in Wartwood and being happy about it. She ended up causing more harm than good, when Wigbert proved his son's fears by rejecting the true him and forbidding him from leaving Ribbitvale.
That led to Wally challenging his father to a duel, where if he wins, he would leave Ribbitvale and live however he pleases, and if he loses, he would take over the family business and remain in Ribbitvale forever.
Feeling responsible for barging into Wally's mess, Anne offered to help him win the family challenge, and together, they barely managed to conquer over his father. Wally was allowed to live however he wanted, but he clarified to his father that he had no intention of leaving Ribbitvale for good, only wanting him to accept his son for who he is. Wigbert finally understood his desire and came to accept all of him.
All the while, Wally was wondering where Sprig was, as in Sprig the frog, since he only ever saw Anne, Hop Pop, Polly, and the new human 'Twig' around. The family managed to convince him that Sprig came down with an illness and that he was resting inside of the fwagon, and they warned him that Sprig must not be bothered.
After finding new replacement reins for Bessie, the Plantars left Ribbitvale to continue their journey to Newtopia. A few days had passed before they stopped by a small, traveller-friendly town called Stony Gulch, where they were facing a shortage of money. In hindsight, they probably should have asked Wally if he could spare them a bit of cash.
Anne accidentally revealed herself to the townsfolk, forgetting that no one outside of the Wartwood have ever seen a human before or knew what they are. In her attempt to calm them down, she ended up doing a series of acts that entertained the people, earning tips from them in the process. That solved the family's money problems, and at the rate that they were going, they would good for the rest of the trip.
The Sun was setting when Anne finished her show. The human girl was picking up the last remaining coppers from the ground and putting them in the bucket with the rest, while the townsfolk had already dispersed from the plaza, and the stores around them were closing.
"Woo! That went really well!" Anne shouted, as she turned to her founded family with the bucket of money in her arms. "You know, if I had known that making a show out of my talents will make people like me, then my first few months in the valley would have gone a lot smoother than what actually happened."
"Maybe, but you think you could handle being called a freak most of the time, in that case?" Sprig asked.
"Uh… Kinda?" she replied with uncertainty, twisting her hand in front of her in a 'so-so' motion.
"Well, either way," Hop Pop spoke. "Thanks to you, Anne, this much money that you have here will definitely keep us going for the remaining trip to Newtopia, as well as the trip back to Wartwood! I think it'll even last us a couple of months in terms of the rent for the vegetable stand!"
"Watch yourself, Hop Pop, because you're basically asking us to blow all of our hard-earned money on some random junk after what you said." Polly warned her grandfather. "No joke. We're probably gonna spend it all before you even know it."
"Speaking of spending on stuff," Anne said as she looked around the plaza. "Where do you guys think we should go first?"
The rest of the family joined in on the search around the area to see what would be a suitable place for them to spend their money on. At a single glance, it looked like all of the shops around them were closed, as evident of the light inside of the stores being shut off, and there was even a person who just flipped the sign on the front door of a shop from 'open' to 'closed.'
"Hmm… Not much options to pick from around here, unfortunately." Hop Pop said. "We'll have to wait until tomorrow if we want to shop here before we move on."
"You're right about that, Hop Pop." Sprig concurred.
"Oh! What about that restaurant that we passed by a bit ago?" Polly asked, pointing at the direction of the place that she was talking about. "It looked kinda neat, and some people were talking about it like it was the best place to hang out and have a good time!"
"Well, it sounds like a good place to have supper, then." Hop Pop nodded. "Let's go, everyone! Time's a wasting!"
Sprig, Polly and Hop Pop all turned around and were about to move towards their next destination, when they heard Anne gasped loudly.
"Oh hey! What about this one?" she said as she pointed at one place in particular.
The rest of the family followed where she was pointing and were presented with the sight of a large hut surrounded by pine trees. That hut in particular greatly stood out from the rest of the buildings around it, maybe even in the whole town.
For one, the hut was the only building to be made in wood, while all the other buildings were constructed with stones. It was also built in a peculiarly triangular shape. On top of the large, cardboard cutout of a caterpillar on the roof, there was one, stained-glass window located at the top of the front wall of the hut that was circular and resembled an eye. It gave people the impression that it was watching them as they passed by.
Needless to say, at first glance, everything about that wooden hut seemed mysterious. And Sprig, Polly and Hop Pop were rather unsettled by it.
"'The Curiosity Hut?'" Sprig read out loud the huge sign positioned on top of the front door. "You want us to go there, Anne?"
"I mean, why not?" Anne replied. "One of the guys mentioned that creepy oddities museum a while back. So I'm actually kinda curious about it. Not to mention that it looks like it's the only place around here that's still open. So how about it?"
"Well, you made the money in the first place, so you have the say on the matter." Hop Pop said, despite his reservations about the hut. "But keep your hood up, will you? We don't want you attracting any more unwanted attention to yourself."
"You got it!" Anne complied by putting the hood of her cloak back up, obscuring her head from plain view. "Let's do it!"
The Thai-American girl marched onwards to the triangular-shaped building, while the rest of the Plantars followed her from close behind, with varying amount of uncertainty in their movements.
Once they reached the front door of the hut, Anne opened the door without pause and stepped inside of the building with earnest. The three remaining family members could only peak their heads through the doorway to see what was waiting for them inside. A single look into the main lobby barely did anything to assuage their worries.
Aside from a few assortment of objects stationed here and there, like a wall-mounted clothes rail holding shirts with a large question mark on them, and a huge carpet that depicted a large triangle with an eye emitting a bright light like it was some kind of a god, the lobby also contained realistic-looking statues of creepy monsters that were lined up on both sides of the room.
"Uh, I think this place is closed. Let's leave and never come back." Polly hastily said, not wanting to take another hop forward inside the hut. Her brother and grandfather shared similar feelings.
"Are you kidding? Come on!" Anne proceeded to walk further in, seemingly undisturbed by the contents of the lobby.
Feeling too scared to follow the human girl on her own, Polly opted to hop onto Sprig's hands, catching him off-guard.
"Uh, Polly?" Sprig looked down at his sister.
"Don't question me! You're the next person after Anne who can protect us from whatever is gonna jump at us soon!" Polly explained herself.
"Uh, I might be human right now, but that doesn't mean that I'm invincible!"
Hop Pop suddenly jumped onto his grandson's back.
"No, no, she's got the point." the elderly frog said. "If we happen to get separated from Anne, you're the next best person who can handle anything that comes in our way. So do your best to protect us, boy!"
"Is nobody being considerate of my psychological wellbeing?"
Seeing that Polly and Hop Pop were unwilling to get themselves off of him, Sprig did a nervous gulp before he slowly walked into the lobby, looking around the place with tensed eyes.
Simply looking at the monster statues was bad enough, but just walking through the hallway full of them and being at close proximity of them made the boy, his sister and his grandfather feel even more anxious than before. They could not help but take notice of some of the statues that caught their eyes.
That included a two-headed love dove, a mantis playing bugball, a strange fish whose tongue looked like a person, and a group of frog gnomes called 'fromes,' among other things.
And when they looked up, they nearly jumped at the sight of a statue of a huge, two-legged aquatic behemoth with two large fangs, with one that seemed to be broken, just standing on the beams on top of one of the doors with a red curtain, looking like it was watching them from above.
"I hate this place." Sprig voiced his overall feelings about the place. "And I especially don't like that thing up there."
As much as he would like to look away from the sight of that monster, something about it seemed familiar to him…
"Chill out, dude!" Anne reassured her friend, turning herself around to face him with a relaxed smile on her face. "They look scary, sure, but that's all they're here for! Remember, they're just statues, so they're not even real."
To show that they were truly what she said they were, she approached one of the statues and put her hand into its mouth. Sure enough, not a single sign of movement was made apparent from the statue.
"See?"
"Real or not, they're doing a really good job at giving me nightmares!" Polly exclaimed, shaking in her brother's hold. "Can we just keep moving so we don't have to look at them anymore?!"
"Alright, alright." Anne appealed to Polly's request, once it was made abundantly clear that the family were really scared out of their wits. "Let's keep walking through this place and before you know it, we'll be out of this hut in no time."
As the brown-haired girl turned around and was about to continue her trek through the hall, one statue located next to the fromes caught her eye.
"Whoa! Check out this hot mess!" Anne pointed at that particular statue, as she began to walk towards it.
The orange-haired boy followed his best friend with the purple tadpole and the elderly frog closely clinging onto him for safety.
The statue in question was of a large, grinning, orange frog with a wide chin and grey, bushy eyebrows. The frog statue was wearing a black suit with a red bowtie, a fez hat with the symbol of a frog's footprint, and a black eyepatch over his right eye. He was holding a cane with a black billiard ball with the number eight as a handle.
"Well, it's certainly the least frightening thing that we've seen so far." Hop Pop noted.
"I'm impressed. It looks pretty lifelike." Anne commented.
"And it smells real too." Polly said after taking a whiff of the statue from the comfort of Sprig's hands. "Kinda smells like Mayor Toadstool, but even more greedier and older."
"Ok, colour me curious, for once." Sprig said as he got himself closer to the statue, standing next to his best friend. "You think the owner of this place wouldn't mind if we touch it just this one time?"
"Well, normally, touching stuff in the museum is a big fat nope." Anne replied. "But then again, there doesn't seem to be any rails keeping us from getting too close. So knock yourself out, dude."
"Ok then…"
The orange-haired boy raised his hand up and slowly moved a finger in to touch the frog statue on the cheek to determine just how lifelike it turned out to be.
SMACK!
"Hands off the merchandise!" yelled the frog statue after slapping the boy's hand away.
"AAAAAAAHHHH!" The family all screamed as they jumped back from the statue who suddenly came to life.
"AAAHH!" The frog statue also let out a scream before it turned into laughter a second later. "Hahaha! The ol' 'mistaken for a grotesque, lifeless being!' Works every time!"
"Y-y-you're alive?!" Polly asked in shock.
"Yep! Alive and ready to do business with ya!" The eyepatch-wearing statue replied as he stepped off the display stand, flipping his eyepatch from his right eye to his left.
"Welcome to my Museum of Oddities! The name's Stan Ponds!" he introduced himself to the family. "But I go by many other names! Mr. Oddity, The Man with the All-seeing Eye, The Old Frog, which might sound lame, but there's a hidden meaning behind it if you think hard enough, and I'm not saying that because I ran out of ideas on the names and I'm trying to pass it off as a mystery to you folks. But my favourite happens to be…"
He tossed his cane high up in the air, making it twirl on itself before catching it as soon as it fell back down.
"… The Curator!"
"A little on the nose, but okay." The purple tadpole shrugged while she got off her brother's hold, once the initial shock of seeing the statue being brought to life wore off after they learned that he was an actual person.
"So you're really the owner of this place?" Sprig asked the Curator.
"Indeed I am, squeeky-sounding kiddo! And I'll gladly be your host and give you a tour around the museum and experience all the amazing oddities these parts have to offer! To start things off right, here's the next oddity that will puzzle the mind!"
The fez-wearing frog pulled out from behind him a brown sack with a question mark on it and held it up in front of him.
"This here is the incredible Sack of Oddity!" he said. "When you chuck your money in it, it oddly disappears!"
"Wow! That sounds fascinating." Hop Pop expressed his intrigued at the Curator's claim, getting off of his grandson's back in the process.
"Uh, sounds more like a scam to me than anything else." Polly remarked incredulously.
"Ah, lighten up, dude. Let's just play along with the guy's schtick." said the amused Anne. She took out a bit of money from her possession and tossed it into the brown sack. "Here you go, sir! Think of it as thanks in advance!"
"Pleasure's all mine, honey!" said the smirked owner of the museum. "But if you really wanna thank me, you and your just-as-tall fella will show me what's under your hoods. What, are you hiding some ugly birthmarks on your faces or something?"
Sprig frowned as he pulled his hood down over his face once more.
"Hmm, I'll let you keep guessing." Anne teased as she pulled her own hood down, deciding to play up the mystery of their appearances.
"Oh ho! A mystery! I love it!" exclaimed the amused Curator while he put away the Sack of Oddity. "But enough chitchat. Walk with me." He then walked towards one of the statues, expecting the others to follow him.
"… So, are you not gonna show us if the money really disappeared from the bag, or…?" Polly asked him. She was ignored.
"I've traveled all over Amphibia, collecting rare and elusive artifacts that the world has to offer." The Curator explained himself, looking back to make sure that everyone was following him. "Frightening monsters being one of my favourite things to collect. And let me tell ya, there were a lot of those monsters running around before I came around and showed them all who's boss! Take this two-headed love dove right here!"
He stopped at the statue in question.
"This thing came to be because it wants to love itself. Like, REALLY love itself. It even set up a wedding ceremony before I crashed in and put an end to the whole thing. Was it trying to marry itself? Kinda? I mean, we're talking about a love dove, so anything's possible. If that's not narcissism taken to a weird extreme, I dunno what is! Then again, who doesn't love themselves, am I right? Just ask shaky right here!" He raised his left hand as he said it.
"Hop Pop, why are you covering my eyes?" asked the confused tadpole whose grandfather placed his hands over her eyes.
"I'm… not sure myself, Polly." Hop Pop replied with equal amount of confusion, as his body seemed to instinctively move on its own. "But something tells me that what he just did is not the kind of thing that children should see or hear."
"Oh! Now there's a big showoff if I've ever seen one!" The Curator then moved on to the next statue. "The bugball-playing praying mantis, Airbug! Definitely one of the kind, this one. If he had started his bugball career a bit earlier, then he would've been a big hit with the kids to have a big theatre play telling his story."
"So how come we never heard about him until now?" Sprig asked.
"He met me and challenged me to a match, so I destroyed him! Both figuratively and literally!" The Curator laughed. "Overall, I got the weirdest stuff right here! Feel free to look around! But keep in mind, breathing in the dust will be extra! Haha!"
He suddenly threw some kind of smoke bomb to the ground, creating a cloud of smoke that completely swallowed him up. When the smoke cleared a few seconds later, the eyepatch-wearing frog had disappeared from where he last stood.
An unassuming person would say that the Curator had used magic to teleport himself away… If it weren't for the fact that he could be plainly seen running out from behind a nearby statue a second later.
The Plantars were left on their own in the main lobby, still surrounded by the statues of the Curator's vanquished monsters, or so he claimed. Although the presence of the Curator was reassuring, it did little to ease the tense atmosphere that they felt since coming to the hut.
And just as before, only the brown-haired girl seemed to take it all in stride, as evident of her moving forward without hesitation.
"Come on, you guys!" Anne said while motioning her hands to get the rest of the family to follow her. "Let's check this place out and see what it has to offer!"
"Anne, how come you don't find this whole place creepy?" asked the orange-haired boy who remained still on the spot. "I mean, we're literally surrounded by stuffed corpses of those weird monsters! Some of them might even still be alive despite it all!"
"Dude, it's like I told you. They're not really real." she replied. "I mean, seriously, guys! You don't actually believe every single word that guy was saying, right? A mantis playing bugball? That weird creature with lots of eyes? A group of tiny frog gnomes? He just made them all up to make his museum look legit as heck! I'm just surprised that he even bothered making those statues in the first place."
"I know what you're trying to say, Anne." Hop Pop said. "But need I remind you that Amphibia is filled with unseen wonder and horror? You don't actually have proof that those creatures don't exist."
"Fair point, HP. Still, I know a bunch of malarkey when I see one. So don't sweat about it so much, guys!"
Despite finding some reasonable sense in the human girl's words, Sprig, Polly and Hop Pop remained fearful.
And just to toy with them some more, a draft of hot air suddenly came down on them, startling them on the spot.
"Hey, who cranked up the heat around here?" Polly asked as she looked around to find whoever was responsible for the change in temperature. She found nobody besides the family.
Another blow of warm wind went down on them. Once she realized that the source of the wind came from above, the purple tadpole gazed up towards the ceiling.
She became perplexed, as there was nothing that could indicated where it was coming from. The only thing that she saw was the statue of the huge behemoth standing over them from above.
When yet another blow of warm wind came down for a third time, she pinpointed the source. That led her to discover that the hot air seemed to be coming from the nose of the enormous creature.
A frightening realization came dawning on her.
"Wait… Did that thing just…?" Polly slowly said as she pointed at the statue above.
For a brief moment, the eyes of the large beast moved down towards her.
"AAAAHH!" Polly screamed as she hopped right back into her brother's hands.
"Polly?!"
"Get me out, get me out, get me out, get me out!" she cried while burying her face against Sprig's chest. "This thing's watching me!"
"Welp, sounds like we've reached our limit." Hop Pop concluded, as he and Sprig wasted no time to turn around and walk towards the door where they came from. "Anne, we'll be waiting outside, if you don't mind. This place freaks us out too much, especially for Polly here."
"Sure, no problem, guys." Anne nodded in understanding.
Sprig let out a sigh of relief. "At least we don't have to deal with this place for another second. Good thing nobody's here to stop us from ditching this museum."
As if to dash on the boy's hopes, a puff of smoke suddenly formed between them and the front door, startling them to a halt. The suit-wearing frog made his reappearance in front of them as soon as the smoke cleared. Or rather, he jumped in the moment the smoke started to dissipate.
"Whoa there! Where do you think you're going?" asked the Curator.
"Uh, we're going back outside?" Sprig replied.
"What, already? You've only spent, I dunno, a few minutes in my museum and already, you're calling it quits?"
"Sorry, sir, but it's my granddaughter here." Hop Pop said, as he motioned his hands over to the scared tadpole clinging onto the fabric of her brother's shirt. "We mean no disrespect, but your Curiosity Hut is scaring the living daylights out of her, and it nearly did the same to the rest of us as well. So we only want to leave this place for the sake of our wellbeing."
"Ah, I get it. Trying to avoid the worst possible scenario, huh?" The Curator nodded in understanding, surprisingly enough. "Fine by me. At least it saves me the trouble of having to deal with the cops who had complaints about kids almost dying while they were sightseeing here."
"I beg your pardon?"
"But if you really wanna leave, then you're going the wrong way. This way is off-limits." The Curator closed the front door behind him using his cane.
"So where are we supposed to go instead?" Sprig asked.
"You've never been on a tourist attraction before, kid? The gift shop's your only ticket outta here! To get to the gift shop, you'll have to skim your way through the museum, and it's right there at the end!"
"So you're telling us to go through this whole place anyway?!" The boy exasperatedly exclaimed.
"Why not? You folks already paid for it, so you might as well ride the oddity train right until the last stop! Unless you're perfectly fine hiding in a corner and make yourselves part of the attraction for all eyes to see. That'll cost you a pretty copper, though."
Polly let out a dismayed whimper, attracting the attention of everyone around her who looked at her with concern.
Surprisingly, even the Curator seemed to have realized that he went too far with his act.
"… Alright, alright. No need to go through the whole place." The Curator relented. "There's a shortcut that'll lead you straight to the gift shop. I know just the guy that'll take you there."
He lifted his head up and positioned his hand around his mouth right before he shouted out.
"Hey, Frog Soos! Get over here!"
A large, turquoise frog with a brown cap on his head, a dirty pair of brown shorts and a green shirt with a huge question mark on it came running into the main lobby through one of the doorways, carrying a broom in his hand.
"You called, Mr. Ponds?" asked Frog Soos.
"These three need a short trip to the gift shop. Think you can take them there yourself, Frog Soos?"
"Sure thing, boss!" Frog Soos raised his free hand up in a salute.
"And make sure that Gwendy isn't slacking off or anything! We have visitors here, and she needs to be on top of her game if we want to squeeze them dry out of all they have!"
"Consider it done, Mr. Ponds!" Frog Soos nodded. He then turned his attention towards Sprig, Polly and Hop Pop. "You heard the man, dudes. Gift shop's just around the corner."
"Thanks, mister. We really appreciate it." Sprig expressed his gratitude towards the large frog. "But, uh, what does he mean by 'squeezing us dry?'"
"Ah, don't worry about it, dude. That just his way of saying that he appreciates you coming here." Frog Soos said. "Follow the Soos, dudes!"
The cap-wearing frog walked towards the direction of where the gift shop should be. The orange-haired boy followed him from close behind, hugging his frightened little sister closer to him to calm her down.
"Well, time for us to go." Hop Pop said, as he turned to Anne. "Are you sure that you're going to stick around in this place for a little while longer?"
"I'm sure, Hop Pop." Anne replied with a smile. "Don't you worry about me. I'll catch up to you guys before you even know what hit you. In the meantime, take care of Polly for me, will you?"
"Alright. We'll see you back outside!" The elderly frog said before he quickly joined up with his grandchildren and the large turquoise frog to go to the gift shop.
Anne waved her found family goodbye until they disappeared into the next room over, leaving her alone in the main lobby. She looked around the room to see where she was supposed to go next.
"Okay! About time that I see for myself what this place has in store for…"
The Thai-American girl trailed off when her eyes came across a small room at one corner of the lobby with the sign 'Artifacts' above the doorway. At the back of the small room, there was an object being displayed on a pedestal with a single source of light shining over it.
When she walked into the small room and examined the object closely, Anne let out a small gasp, as she recognized what it turned out to be.
It was an old, portable CD music player. An object from her world.
"Oh my gosh! Is that an old Skipman?" Anne asked herself as she picked up the music player from the pedestal. "My parents had one of these! How did it get here?"
"Aha!" The Curator suddenly popped in right next to her, startling her and causing her to drop the Skipman from her hand. Thankfully, he quickly caught the music player before it could fall to the ground.
"I see that you're interested in this… 'Skipman,' am I right?" he asked while waving the object in his hand.
"Well, yeah!" Anne exclaimed. "Hey, do you think I can buy this off of you, Curator?"
"Of course you can! It can be yours… for a million coppers!" he laughed.
"Oh come on, man! I can't afford that!"
"Okay, tell you what." he said as he put away the Skipman on his person. "Since you're one of the very few customers who's stuck around longer than anyone else and I like ya for it, I'm willing to trade this thing for something that you got. Got anything rare or vomit-inducing I could display in exchange?"
Anne smirked, as she already had an idea on what she could trade for the music player. Or to be exact, who she could trade for it. Ever since she came to Amphibia, she had experienced firsthand how the people of the land treated an alien creature such as her the first time. Her run-in with the townsfolk of Stony Gulch was no different. So everything that the Curator had asked for, she definitely got it and then some.
She might be in way over her head, but if that was the price to pay in order to get the Skipman, the first major lead towards finding a way back home, then she was willing to take the plunge.
"As a matter of fact, I do."
"Here we are, dudes! The Curiosity Hut Gift Shop!"
The turquoise frog spread the red curtains of the shop's entrance apart and allowed the Plantar family to pass through undisturbed.
By the time that they got there, Polly was just starting to feel less frightful to finally pull herself off of Sprig just in time to see the shop in its entirety.
The gift shop was pretty much what they had expected it to be. A wide room filled to the brim with souvenirs related to the tourist attraction that visitors had experienced a moment ago. The most common item that was being sold and that seemed to be everywhere, for some reason, were shirts with a question mark.
Besides that, there were other selection of goods to choose from, such as snow globes that contained a miniature version of the hut, heads of assorted creatures mounted on walls, bobbleheads of the Curator, jars full of fake eyeballs, and so on.
The Plantar family could not help but notice that the price on most of the items seemed… ridiculously excessive. Just a box of tissues in a shape of a pyramid costed around a couple of hundred coppers. Where did they get those prices anyway?
At corner of the room, next to the exit, there was a tall, skinny, pale-green frog with long red hair that went past her hips, sitting behind the cash register with her feet on the counter, reading some kind of newspaper in her hands with a bored expression on her face. Her clothes consisted of a green flannel shirt with a white tank top underneath, a pair of dark blue pants and a pair of boots.
"Sup, Gwendy!" Frog Soos waved at the tall frog.
Hearing a familiar voice caused her to lower the newspaper down and looked over to the entrance where the large frog was standing. Her lips formed a chill smile.
"Yo, Frog Soos! How's it hanging?" said Gwendy. "You having another slow and boring day today too? Is that why you're hanging around here?"
"Nah, dude. Nothing like that." he replied. "I was just sweeping the place as usual, 'til these nice little family showed up. Took them to the gift shop so that they can shop to their hearts' content, just the way Mr. Ponds wants it. Speaking of the boss, he wants me to tell you to be at your best for them."
"That so?" Gwendy finally noticed the three people who were accompanying the large frog. She stretched her arms out and nonchalantly removed her feet from the counter, as she simply put on a cool smile to welcome the family.
"Well, you guys are free to look around and take anything that catches your eye. And don't worry about me being that annoying salesperson pressuring you to buy everything we have here. That's not my style. So go ahead and knock yourselves out."
"We appreciate the offer, miss." Hop Pop said politely. "But I'm afraid we prefer to leave this place right this instance, just so that we all have some peace of mind, especially for my granddaughter here. No offence, really."
"Oh yeah? That's cool too, I guess." Gwendy shrugged. "The exit's right next to the counter. Feel free to leave anytime you want."
Hop Pop nodded, smiling at the cashier. "Thank you for your kindness, miss."
"Don't mention it." she replied while lifting the newspaper back up, as she got back to reading it.
Frog Soos scratched the back of his head. "You know, if Mr. Ponds sees this, he's gonna flip that you're just letting them go without making them buy something." he remarked. "Then again, what do I know? It wouldn't be you if you didn't have your usual chill and don't care attitude."
"Well, you heard the nice lady. We're getting out of here already." Hop Pop said as he made his way towards the exit.
"Oh thank frog it's almost over!" Polly let out a relieved sigh, as she hopped off of her brother's hands and proceeded to follow their grandfather. "Let's never step foot in this weird-as-all-heck place ever again!"
Sprig was also following the rest of the group to the exist. He took the time to look around the shop one more time as they were leaving, admittedly curious about the stocks that they have.
His eyes were especially glued to the stacks of small, wooden statues located in one corner of the room. The statues depicted one of the strange creatures from the lobby, specifically the huge, two-legged aquatic monster with two large, uneven fangs.
The boy had a strange sense of familiarity towards that creature, but he was unsure as to why that is. He felt that he should know something about it, yet he could not fathom the possibility of having encounter what is supposed to be a very rare creature found in the dark edges of the land.
THUD!
He snapped back to reality when he accidentally kicked a stack of boxes next to the counter, causing the boxes to tumble over and spill their contents all over the floor beneath the boy's feet.
"Dang it, boy!" Hop Pop scolded his grandson just as he and Polly were inches away from the exit. "Now's not the time to be lost in your own bubble!"
"Uh, sorry! Really sorry!" Sprig quickly apologized. "I'll clean this up right away!" He hastily went down on his knees as he tried his best to clean up the mess that he made, picking up the scattered items and putting them back in their boxes.
"Relax, dude. It's no big deal." Frog Soos reassured the boy, as he walked over to his side and started sweeping the floor. "It's kinda why I'm here. The broom here should tell you everything you need to know about my job. Well, one of my jobs, at least."
"Still, I feel bad for spacing out like that! At least let me fix my mistake!" Sprig insisted.
The elderly frog sighed, as he walked over to join the other two. "Well, it can't be helped. Let me give you a hand, boy."
"Thanks, Hop Pop!" The orange-haired boy smiled at his grandfather.
"Oh come on! We're not seriously staying another while longer just because Sprig was being a klutz, are we?! Are you guys forgetting where we are right now?!" Polly asked in exasperation.
The others were too preoccupied with cleaning the scattered goods to respond to the purple tadpole. Polly let out a groan, as she hopped over to where the rest of them were. "Move over! The sooner we clean this stuff up, the sooner we can finally leave this deathtrap for good!"
Gwendy leaned over the counter to look at the the mess on the floor. "Hey, Frog Soos? Remind me. Aren't these the boxes that Stan took from one of the supply groups from the big city or something? The ones that he wanted us to sort out later?"
"Now that you mention it, that does ring a bell." Frog Soos replied. "Mr. Ponds called them junk made to be sold to suckers. But I think some of them can also be considered treasures to be cherished for a lifetime. Depends on who you ask."
The large frog continued to sweep the dispersed items and turn them into a big pile that is easy to pick up and transport back to the box. In the process of doing so, he accidentally knocked away a relatively large object and sent it sliding in front of the green-clad boy.
"Whoops. Sorry, dude." Frog Soos apologized.
"Don't worry about it." Sprig said while raising his hand up. "I'll just pick this one up and…"
The boy then looked at the large object the moment that he took hold of it. He stopped his task of cleaning up his mess as he became curious about the strange device, picking it up and pulling it close to him while he stood up from the floor.
"What's the matter, Sprig?" Hop Pop asked when he noticed that his grandson was acting strange.
"What's that in your hands?" Polly asked after noticing the tool in her brother's hands.
"I don't know." Sprig replied. "It looks pretty weird. But it kinda reminds me of those weapons the guys from Anne's cop show carried around with them. What do they call them again? Guns?"
"Let me have a look." Hop Pop told him. The boy complied and lowered the object down to Hop Pop's height so that he could get a clear look at it. "Hmm… This looks like a very small cannon to me."
The device did resembled some kind of cannon, but shaped differently, looking like the letter L sideways, with the top part seemingly having most, if not all of the aspects of a cannon. Some sort of trigger was located between the top and bottom parts of the device and was surrounded by a ring.
What was strange about the small cannon tool was what was inserted into the tube: A hook. It was positioned in a way that allowed it to point straight forward.
"Oooh! This looks really neat!" Polly expressed her fascination towards the small weapon, being a sucker for anything that causes destruction in its wake. "You guys sell stuff like this too? Where are the others? Take me to them!"
"Whoa, dude. If this is seriously a weapon, then we probably shouldn't sell this." Frog Soos said. "Not because it's too dangerous, but because Mr. Ponds would want to keep it for himself in case he has to deal with the apocalypse or the like. So he says, anyway."
"Give it a rest, Frog Soos." Gwendy said. "This is in those boxes that Stan want us to sort out, right? That means that he's probably expecting us to sell this thing along with the others."
"Hm. You got a point." The large frog nodded in understanding.
"So we can buy this off of you?" Sprig asked, raising the small cannon up.
"I'm down for it!" shouted the excited Polly. "Finally! Something that isn't scary, for once! How much is it?"
The long-haired frog shrugged. "Beats me. We just started looking into this stuff. But if I have to guess, then it's probably gonna cost you a few thousands of coppers."
"What?! What a ripoff!" Polly frowned. "You can't seriously think that this thing here is worth this much, right?!"
"Of course not. But that's the way Stan rolls, knowing him. Take it any way you like."
"Well, even if it's in a reasonable price, we have no intention of spending anything non-essential at the moment." Hop Pop explained. "Remember, kids. We're on a long trip away from home, and we need to be smart with our money if we hope to survive the entire journey, especially since Anne worked her butt off getting that much money for us in the first place."
"Yeah, yeah, I know…" Polly sighed. "In that case, are we done with the whole cleaning thing? In case you guys forget, I've been wanting out of this museum since that huge monster statue was looking at me back there!"
Gwendy raised a confused eyebrow at the tadpole's comment. "Huge monster statue?"
"Don't worry, Polly. We're just about done with everything here." Hop Pop said to his granddaughter. "Isn't that right, Sprig?"
"Yeah, I think the mess is almost gone." Sprig said as he looked down to see that the floor is nearly clean, and that most of the stuff that were spilled over were back in the boxes.
"Alright, then we're done here. Let's go, everyone!"
"Hold up, Hop Pop!" The boy raised a hand up, as he prevented his family from walking towards the exit. "I kinda wanna try something first."
"Sprig, we have no time to be dilly dallying around here anymore than we should. Whatever it is that you want to do, save it for later."
"Come on! It's only gonna be for a tiny bit! Please, Hop Pop?" The boy implored the elderly frog.
Hop Pop sighed. "Fine, fine. Just for a moment, okay? What is that you're going to do anyway?"
"Just a neat little trick that those guys from Anne's cop show did to look cool. Watch this!"
With the small cannon device in hand, the smiling boy started spinning it around vertically, moving his finger around inside of the ring that surrounded the trigger.
"Careful where you're pointing that thing, boy!" Hop Pop shouted as he quickly shielded Polly from harm's way. "You're going to end up setting it off with your careless, little stunt!"
"Don't be silly! In the show, when the cops do stuff like this, it never goes off!" Sprig said with confidence. "'Cause otherwise, they'd be really stupid and reckless authority enforcers if they knew that they can fire their weapons at any time each time they spin their weapons around like thi-."
BANG!
Sprig stopped his movements and blinked his eyes when a loud sound was heard from the small device, and the device suddenly shook in his hand for a very brief moment.
Slowly turning his head towards the tool, he discovered that a rope was found where the hook used to be, extending up towards the ceiling. Looking up and following where the rope leads, he found that it went all the way up to wooden beam, wrapping and firmly hooking itself around it.
"Uh… Whoops?"
"Good job, big brother." Polly sarcastically congratulated him.
"Boy, what did I tell you!" Hop Pop shouted after seeing that he was right about the potential danger of the boy's little stunt.
"Uh, I can fix it! No problem!" Sprig tried to reassure everyone as he pulled down on the rope, trying to get it off of the wooden beam above. After several pulls, it was clear that he was not getting anywhere with it.
He wondered what else he could do to get the hook and rope down, until he remembered the trigger on the device.
"Hmm… What if I just do…" Holding the handle of the device in his hand and putting his finger through the ring hole, he pulled the trigger to see if it would help with his attempt at getting them back down…
… Only to find himself zipping up towards the ceiling at high speed, being pulled by the small device itself. He screamed his lungs out until he fully collided with the wooden beam, causing him to let go of the object as he fell back down flat on his back.
"Sprig!" Both Hop Pop and Polly shouted his name, as they quickly came to his side.
"Are you alright, boy?!" Hop Pop asked, concerned for the boy's wellbeing.
"Oww…!" Sprig groaned as he slowly sat up from the floor, closing his eyes shut and rubbing his head to sooth out the pain that he just received. "Okay…! That really smarts…!"
When he opened his eyes and looked up, he was met with strange looks from Gwendy and Frog Soos. They stared down at him as if they saw something that was out of this world.
"Uh… What's going on, you guys?" Sprig asked, wondering why they were giving him weird looks.
"Sprig! Your hood!" Hop Pop whispered loudly in his ear.
The boy gasped when realization hit him. Moving his hands up on his head, he noticed that the hood of his jacket fell off from his head, exposing his human form for all eyes to see.
He quickly put his hood back up and stood up from the floor in a panic. "Uh…! Um…! Gotta go! Byeee!" he rapidly said before he bolted straight for the exit, never looking back and not wanting to stay a second longer.
"Welp, that's our cue to leave! Thank you both for your hospitality!" Hop Pop expressed his thanks before he too ran for the exit after his grandson.
"Those statues are alive! Burn them all down!" Polly exclaimed as she followed the other two family members' lead and hopped out of the gift shop.
Gwendy and Frog Soos were left alone in the room, staring at the door where the Plantars disappeared from and wondering just what they had witnessed seconds ago.
"… Well, back to work." Frog Soos casually said as he went back to sweeping the floor, humming to himself as if he had not seen anything strange about the people who just left.
The long-haired frog still had her sights fixated at the exit door, still thinking about the boy's true form. It felt really strange. But it felt rather familiar as well.
"… Hey, Frog Soos?" she spoke to the large frog. "Does it feel like Stony Gulch is starting to get weird again?"
"Like, normal weird or weird weird, dude?" Frog Soos asked. "'Cause if you ask me, I think it's normal weird. Especially since we're working in the Curiosity Hut where weird reigns supreme. It's pretty normal, in a way."
"Hm. I guess that's it."
Gwendy turned around to one of the shelves positioned behind the counter. From there, she picked up a small picture frame in her hand and pulled it close to her.
She looked fondly at the group picture from last Summer with a smile on her face, as she remembered the fun and awesome memories that she had with the people that she was happy to call her close friends.
"Or maybe… It's starting to get as weird as back when those two showed up." she whispered to herself. "I wonder how they're doing nowadays…"
"Say, Gwendy," Frog Soos spoke, gaining the attention of the tall frog. "Do you get the feeling that we exist simultaneously in multiple parallel universes, completely unaware of the other's very existence?"
"What is your skin made of, Frog Soos?" Gwendy asked amusingly. "It's like every time you licked yourself, you get all philosophical and stuff. It's kinda jarring, in a way."
"The intricacies of each individual amphibian is an oddity that is best left a mystery." Frog Soos said.
He then licked his forearm a few times.
"Oh! And that's the end of the first act!"
End of Chapter
Hey, everybody. HiddenKurogawa here. Nothing too important to announce here, except to give you guys something that tickles the mind.
We are currently in the Gravity Falls crossover part of the story, probably one of the parts that I want to write the most. And to take advantage of this occasion, I used a cipher for the title of this chapter, as you can plainly see. If you want to decode what the title of the chapter is, then feel free to do so. For this one, I used the Vigenère cipher using the keyword 'Amphibia.' The rest is up to you to decode the title until the release of the next chapter, where I'll reveal the answer.
I'll probably do the same thing for the next few chapters involving the Gravity Falls crossover, using different ciphers. It's gonna be fun. Well, to me, at least.
That's all from me. Feel free to comment, follow and/or fave this fanfic, though I would appreciate these very much. Until next time.