The Adventures of Red-Eyed Tree Frog Man

Well, more days came and went. And with that, so has the craziness. It's not enough that I'm considering myself an amateur witch, but with all the nonsense of pretty much everything Kuzco gets himself and I roped into, I just pray for at least one normal day in the Incas while I'm trying to get back home. But it's obvious that I'm not blessed with such hopes, because today was definitely crazier than crazy, and was a terrible way to resort to exposure therapy for me.

Here, let me set the scene…

So, it was a normal Wednesday morning in Pacha's house. I was sitting at the kitchen table eating my breakfast while my foster dad was reading the daily newsscroll and my foster mom was preparing more breakfast plates for her kids and Kuzco, who were still asleep. I was hoping the latter of the three would wake up soon otherwise he'd make us both late for school. But all-and-all, it felt seemingly normal.

Until Kuzco's high-pitched scream echoed throughout the house.

Pacha and I's heads snapped up to see Kuzco in his pajamas running downstairs and jumping onto one of the chairs at the table. Hyperventilating at something that obviously scared him awake. Chana and Tipo came down after him, although they were a lot less shaken up and scared compared to my friend. Oh, well, I may as well ask Kuzco why he was acting like a bug landed on his face while he was asleep.

"What's the matter with you?" I asked him.

"Tree frog got in through the window and got on his bed." Tipo explained the problem to me.

Oof. That's way worse than a bug. Way worse.

"Better him than me." I said as I kept eating my breakfast.

"Calm down, Kuzco," Chaca giggled at the prince. "It was just a tree frog."

Kuzco gagged. "It's a useless, slimy, smelly creature, okay?"

"That is true." I agreed.

"Kuzco, did you have a bad childhood experience with frogs?" Pacha asked him.

"No. It's just me, emperor. Frog, loser." Kuzco obviously denied before folding his arms. "It's beneath me to be touched by such a lowlife. No touchy."

"Kuzco, they're not lowlife. They're cool." Pacha said as he started talking about why he loves frogs. "The way they jump from tree to tree. They're like little superheroes."

"The only thing I congratulate them on is eating pesky mosquitoes." I chimed in.

"Exactly, they play a natural part of keeping the ecosystem in balance." Pacha agreed. "So, how do you know that frogs are beneath you if you don't know anything about them?"

"Pacha, don't preach." Kuzco told him. "As for me, don't know, don't care."

"But every creature's important, Kuzco. We're all connected." Pacha tried to explain. "You know, people, animals. It's the circle of-"

Kuzco immediately stopped him. "Uh-uh. Don't do it. Please. I'm serious."

"Critic." I scoffed as I went to wash my breakfast plate and put it on the drying rack.

"You two better get a move on." Chicha told Kuzco and I. "You don't wanna be late for school."

"Way ahead of you, Chicha." Kuzco said, now wearing a frog exterminator outfit complete with a hazmat mask.

"Good." I told him before pushing him out the door. "Cause you're leading the way."

Later

School went on as it normally did. Classes came and went, the lunch was terrible but still edible, teachers gave us decent amounts of homework. All fine and dandy. Well, until 7th period homeroom. That's the class where our teacher, Mr. Molawacco, was supposed to teach us language and literature -I'd say English/Language Arts, but this is the Incas. English hasn't been discovered as a language yet. But, instead of a language class with Mr. Molawacco, homeroom became a science class with some elderly woman in a light lilac uniform-dress who wore large, rounded glasses and had a crazy grin on her wrinkled face.

"Hello, class." the woman greeted. "I'm Principal Amzy, and I'll be substituting today."

Told ya. Crazy ex-royal advisor was disguised as our principal and was now our sub for today's homeroom. Was I surprised? Nope. But this little sub lesson of hers ought to be interesting. Especially since Yzma's pedagogy was probably more outdated than she was.

Malina gave a confused look before raising her hand. "What happened to Mr. Molawacco?"

"He's out." Yzma stated before introducing our replacement assignment. "Anyway, today's assignment is dissecting red-eyed tree frogs."

"I'm sorry," I blinked. "Frogs?"

The principal then handed each table a tray with a live frog strapped onto it. Belly side up to make it easier to cut into and kill. She then gave an assortment of tools and weapons to us to operate our frogs on. Now, this wouldn't be that big of a problem to me, I mean I've been in way worse situations. But frogs? No thank you! If there's one thing Kuzco and I have in common, other than a missing parent and love for quesadillas, it's that we also share a deep hatred and fear of frogs. The difference? I can even stomach the thought of touching one let alone cutting one up. Hey, I may hate them, but I don't want to be the one who kills them. Leave that to the herons, snakes, and rednecks.

"Everyone got your emper- I mean frogs?" Yzma gave a small cackle. "Then let's get chopping."

Chopping… frogs…

I felt an insane rush of lightheadedness overcame me as images of the frog on my tray started to make it look like it was going to break free from its tiny restraints and hop right onto me. I could practically feel the color drain from my face as I fought back a wave of nausea. I really don't know what sort of scene I would've caused had Yzma -shocker, I know- not noticed that I was obviously not loving this assignment.

"Miss Rosades, is everything alright?" Yzma asked me. "You seem to be a little flushed."

"She's right." Malina said when she looked at me, sporting a concerned look. "You don't look so good."

"I don't feel so good." I gagged before raising my hand. "May I go to the nurse, please?"

"You're excused." Yzma told me. "But I expect a written report on tree frogs by the end of the week."

"Yes, ma'am." I nodded as I immediately grabbed my stuff and left.

I rushed out of the classroom and into the empty school hallways, but just before I even reached the nurse's office, I made a beeline for the nearest trashcan and just barfed all into it. Not the most graceful exit in the world, but better to barf where no one can see you instead of barfing where everyone can see you. When I felt like the nausea had passed, I drank some water from the nearest fountain to get the taste out of my mouth and exited the school for fresh air. I never wanted to be that close to frogs ever again.

Then the croaking came.

While I sat on a bench outside of school, I saw an army of frogs jump out of Mr. Molawacco's classroom. I immediately scrambled up the nearest flagpole I could find just to get away from them. Hoping those gross, beady-eyed little creeps would be dumb enough to not climb up the pole and get near me, otherwise I'd be barfing all over again. This was absolutely my worst nightmare come to life.

"Oh, yeah! Who saved the frogs? I saved the frogs!" a familiar voice below gloated. "And I smell pretty darn good, too."

I dreaded the fact that I knew who that voice belonged to.

"Kuzco," I took a sharp, frustrated breath. "Why?"

"Oh, hi, Zoe." Kuzco called up to me. "I think Kronk slipped me a frog potion that was in a pie."

I peered down at the only frog with black hair amongst the army of grossness. "Yeah, I can see that."

"Wait." he paused, noticing my odd behavior. "Are you scared of frogs?"

Dang it. I didn't think he'd catch on so quickly.

"Yes." I gave a regretful nod as I slid down the pole as the other frogs hopped far away from the school.

"But I thought you liked frogs?" Kuzco asked me. "You told me you liked the one that plays the bangeridoo."

"It's called a banjo, and he's an exception!" I shot back, defending Kermit's honor. "I'm just so glad you turned into a frog and not me. Apart from marrying you, that's my worst nightmare."

"Look, I didn't like this whole thing either, but I got some pretty sweet moves now." Kuzco bragged.

"The heck do you mean?" I asked him.

"Check it out." he grinned.

Kuzco then showed me all the stuff he could do now that he was a frog. Which was basically him climbing up walls and surfaces thanks to his sticky feet, his ability to jump higher than he could've before, and using his tongue to grab things further away. All this was not impressive in the slightest. Not because Kuzco's a frog, but because none of these were sweet moves at all. Kuzco thought that these abilities made him some kind of superhero, and I knew he was thinking this because I could tell just by looking at his growing smirk, he was fantasizing himself as a red-eyed tree frog superhero. Kind of like the superhero tv shows that used to play every Saturday morning back home. Heck, I betted that he even came up with his own theme song.

"That's just frog instinct, you idiot." I said. "It's not like you're some superhero."

Kuzco scratched his chest after finishing his fantasy. "You're just jealous because I got these cool skills, and you don't."

"At least I'm not the one covered in mucus." I told him.

"Ew!" Kuzco gave a disgusted look as he tried shaking off the mucus from his hand. "That's what this stuff is?"

"You get that stuff on me, and I will squish you!" I threatened as I raised my booted sandal.

"Okay, okay." Kuzco raised his tiny froggy hands in defense. "Got it. No touchy. Now, please put the boot down."

I did just what he said as we started walking back home for the day. "I'm guessing this is the part where you ask me for an antidote to make the detransformation process quicker?"

"Actually, I kinda like being a frog." he said as he hopped next to me. "Besides, this superhero stuff could make it better."

Again, he's not a superhero.

"Kuzco, you hate frogs." I restated an obvious fact.

Kuzco gave a proud smile. "Not after today, I don't!"

I rolled my eyes and just kept walking back to the village. Let me tell y'all this, if I knew just how much weirdness and craziness I was going to find myself getting dragged into the longer I stayed in Kuzco's world, I would've found a way home months ago. But no. I'm stuck here as a witch-in-training making transfiguration potions from a secret lab hidden in a high school and have an emperor for a best friend, who, after being just as scared of frogs as I am for so long, is happy with the fact he's been temporarily turned into a frog. Clearly, I have lost my mind.

Anyway, after about an hour or so of walking and hearing Kuzco not shutting up about how "great" it is that he's a frog now, we finally reached the village. But when we started heading towards Pacha's house, I saw something speeding down the hill towards something. Towards someone.

"What is that?" I pointed at the object.

Kuzco squinted at the oncoming threat. "It looks like a runaway cart full of sharpy things rolling down towards that helpless peasant baby."

I did a double take and looked back over at the particular infant the cart was rolling towards.

"Kuzco, that's Yupi!" I yelled in horror as I dropped my backpack and ran towards my foster parents' baby.

When I got there, I grabbed Yupi, held him in my arms, and had my back turned towards the cart. I didn't care what happened to me so long as the baby was safe. I braced myself for the worst, but then I heard the sound of something dragging into the ground. I barely glanced behind me to see the cart had come to a complete stop. Apparently, while I was busy protecting Yupi, Kuzco had hopped behind the cart by using his frog tongue to stop one of the wheels from rolling and stopping the cart from crashing into us. I breathed heavily as I stood up with Yupi in my arms in complete surprise. Kuzco really saved our lives. He really was a superhero right there.

"Are you guys okay?" Malina asked as she rushed towards us, no doubt seeing all that happened after coming back to the village from school.

"Ok?" Kuzco asked as he retracted his tongue. "I'm Red-Eyed Tree Frog Man. Yay for me!"

I glared at him. "She meant the baby."

"Oh, Kuzco. I didn't see you there." Malina said dryly. "You're a frog?"

"Well, Malina, my superhero schedule is pretty busy," Kuzco said as he tried to make himself look cool. "But if you'd like to come back to my lilypad for a while…"

Malina scoffed. "You are so unbelievable."

"Try living with him." I told her before looking at Yupi. "C'mon, let's get you home."

And with that, Malina and I left Kuzco to do his froggy thing and we took Yupi back up to the house. Normally, I would've questioned why a baby had been unsupervised outside of his home, but Yupi is on a whole other level. The kid's an escape artist, and believe it or not, this wasn't the first time he escaped his crib. Chicha had the whole village look for him the first time this happened, only for me to find him in the barn playing with the family llama. This kid was going to give his parents a heart attack, especially his frantic mother who stopped frantically tearing her house apart to find him when she saw Malina and I approach the house.

"There you are!" Chicha exclaimed in relief as she ran towards me to get her baby back. "He got out of his crib again! Is he alright?"

"He's fine, Chicha." I assured her as I handed Yupi to her.

"Yeah, Kuzco made sure of it." Malina added.

"Where is he?" Chicha asked as she tried holding onto a squirming Yupi.

"Long story." I gave her a short explanation.

"Hey, Malina! Zoe!"

My friend and I turned around to see Kronk coming up to talk to us. I didn't really know what he wanted, but this had better be good. This day was already taking a toll on me, and it was only 2:30. Too early for any nonsense or shenanigans, if you ask me.

"Hey, Kronk," I greeted him. "What's up?"

"I was wondering if you two wanna help me over at my place?" he asked us. "I got some pottery homework, and I could use some extra hands making fresco vases."

Malina gave a shrug. "I'm up for it."

I looked at my foster mom for approval. "Can I go, Chicha?"

"Sure," Chicha said. "But just be back before dinner and travel safely."

I nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

"Let's go, ladies." Kronk told Malina and I.

And with that, Malina and I left the house to help Kronk with his homework. Now, I'm not one to get overly suspicious, I've lived in this world for months now, you never know what's gonna happen here, but something felt off about this whole thing. Kronk usually never asks for help on his homework, especially if it's homework that requires a creative outlook such as art or cooking, his house wasn't too far away from where the outer rim of the village was, and he had led Malina and I right in the middle of the jungle? Yeah, I didn't like this whole thing.

"Kronk, you sure this is the right way?" I asked him as we walked onto a bridge that laid over a canyon in the jungle. "I could've sworn your place was much closer to the village."

"Positive." Kronk nodded before realizing something. "Oh!"

"What's wrong?" Malina asked him.

"I just remembered I left some spinach puffs in the oven." Kronk told us what sounded like an obvious lie. "Wait here."

Kronk then left Malina and I on the bridge, but the moment he got off, he took an ax and started chopping off the ropes holding the whole thing together. Again, while Malina and I were still on it! What was Kronk thinking? This was worse than what happened when Pacha, Kuzco, and I were on that one bridge a few months ago during the Llama Incident. A lot worse. Especially since the canyon below was just an empty gorge. No water, just rocks. Very sharp rocks.

"What are you doing?!" Malina yelled as she held onto the bridge for dear life. "Help! Help!"

"Oh, no! Malina and Zoe are in terrible danger!" Kronk called out in a fake shocked tone. "Who could possibly save them?"

"Kronk, this isn't funny!" I yelled at him as I tried holding onto the breaking bridge.

"Red-Eyed Tree Frog Man, help us!" Malina screamed.

I tried keeping the bridge stable before the ropes gave out when a vine suddenly started swinging towards me. I watched it fall back towards the edge of the gorge and saw a tiny, red-eyed tree frog with black hair using a stick to bat the vine back towards Malina and I. Kuzco must've heard Malina's cries for help and was using the vines for us to catch so we could get back to the other side of the gorge without using the bridge.

"Zoe, grab on!" he shouted.

I did as Kuzco said, and the next time the vine swung towards me, I grabbed it and swung myself off the bridge and back safely on the other side. But there was no time to catch my breath and thank Kuzco just yet. The moment I landed, the vine fell out of my hands and Kuzco then proceeded to push the vine off the edge of the gorge. Leaving no possible way of escape for Malina, who was still on the breaking bridge.

"What about Malina?" I frantically asked him. "We gotta help her too!"

Kuzco then eyed up at me and shook his head. He'd gone insane. He had legitimately gone insane if he was not even considering reducing Malina from the very soon-to-be-broken bridge. I didn't know what was going on or what he was thinking, but if this was how Kuzco was treating the girl he had a major and obvious crush on, then he had some major explaining to do before I was about to run back to Malina and save her myself.

That is, until I heard something that surprised the heck out of me.

"Wait!" Yzma's voice came out of Malina's mouth when she realized Kuzco wasn't going to save her. "Kronk, you fool!"

I did a double take and watched as "Malina" fell down into the gorge below screaming hysterically the moment the bridge broke away. Yzma used a potion to disguise herself as Malina in an attempt to capture Kuzco while using me as bait? Okay. Definitely did not see that one coming. No wonder Kuzco didn't want to save her.

"You didn't, uh, wanna rescue her or anything?" Kronk then asked Kuzco.

"Mmm. No." Kuzco shook his head. "Y'see, we frogs are really quite amazing. We can stick to walls and hear people's secret plans to impersonate Malina."

"Oh. Gotcha." Kronk nodded before realizing his boss had now crash-landed in the canyon below. "I, uh, gotta go."

And with that, Kronk left Kuzco and I to save Yzma.

"Okay, I admit it. She definitely fooled me." I sat on the ground in a defeated huff before turning towards my friend. "Thanks for the save, bud."

"And points for me using the vine because I know you don't like frogs." Kuzco proudly stated.

I rolled my eyes at him. "Yeah, twenty points for your Slytherin House, bud."

Kuzco gave a confused look. "What's-"

"Nevermind." I dropped his question.

"Hey!" Kronk's voice then rang out from the canyon about Yzma's condition. "She's okay!"

Kuzco rolled his eyes and looked at me. "Ready to go home?"

"Yep." I nodded before standing back up.

And with that, the two of us made our way back to the village. Leaving all that mess behind and taking a bit of a breather. It's been a very weird day for us both: Kuzco turning into a frog and getting over his fear while I'm still terrified of frogs and making sure Kuzco was not hopping anywhere close to me as we went on our way. Yeah, like I've stated before in this chapter: I've clearly lost my mind at this point in my life.

Two Hours Later

"So, y'see, kids, it's like this…" Kuzco, now human again, told Chaca and Tipo when we got back to the house. "Me, emperor. Frog, cool."

"But this morning you said they were useless, slimy, and smelly." Chaca stated.

"First off, it's not slime. It's mucus." Kuzco corrected her. "Secondly, I don't wanna hear anyone demeaning my little friends. Tree frogs are useful, warm, and smell darn good to boot."

"So, Dad was right." Tipo thought out loud.

"Kuzco lived through his enemy's flippers for a few hours, kids." I explained to the boy as I tousled his hair. "When that happens, people can gain a whole new perspective on things."

Kuzco: Ok. So, the potion wore off, and I'm not a tree frog anymore. But I know what you're probably thinking, Kuzco learned his lesson. Now he's much more sensitive to other creature's strengths and weaknesses. Yeah, well, just so you know, it wasn't all fun and games. For example, there was this bug-eating scene-

Zoe: How many times have I told you? Stop taking over my story!

Kuzco: I just wanted to clarify it so you could work on your essay Principal Amzy assigned you! Don't be such a diva.

Zoe: *scoffs* You're one to talk. Now, get out!

Kuzco: Okay! Fine. But just so you know, those flies were crunchy and tasted like dirty feet.

Zoe: Nobody needs to know!