Almost Killed Through Frog Cooking
"Oh, I never knew one could actually look cute a tooth." Sprig was amazed. He and Polly are looking at things on Anne's phone, hanging out together outside of the Planter home, they are looking at a picture of Crash dressed up in a tooth costume he wore in a few years ago.
"He looks more like a rock monster that could crush anything under his rocky weight!" Polly commented as Crash chuckles.
"And this bad boy is my kitty Domino." Anne moved from the picture to show a little video of the black cat named Domino.
"You guys would like her. She's got fire." Anne said, feeling proud of her pet cat and Sprig took the phone for them to get a closer look.
"Aw, she's so tiny! I feel huge!" Polly pointed out though doesn't fully understand that it's not really Domino that it's just a recording of the cat Anne took in the past.
"Hmm. I will... set her free!" Sprig pulled out a hammer from behind and tries to smash the phone only for Crash to snatch the hammer away and shook his head.
"Please stop doing that." Anne begged, this phone is the only thing that she just left of her world and really wants to keep it up as much as possible.
Crash felt something off and sniffs the air only to gasp in horror gibbering to the others about the awful smell.
"A dead smell populating the air?" Anne asked and sniff this herself, she groans.
"Oh, this is worse, Crash. Much worse." Sprig recognized that horrible smell.
"Hop Pop is cooking!" Sprig said.
The kids went back to the house though Sprig stops when he grabs the door handle.
"Brace yourselves." Sprig advised the two human couple.
"Brace ourselves for what?" Anne asked.
But she soon got her answer when Sprig opens the door and out came a big stream of one giant bad smell like a hurricane that happened indoors.
Inside the house is Hop Pop just chopped up three bugs into six pieces and put them in the pot, he stirs the liquid thing in the pot and took a taste test to see how it goes.
"What's the plan this year, Hop Pop? Poison the competition?" Sprig asked only to get bonk on the head by a spoon.
"The plan is to win." Hop Pop proclaimed.
"Win?" Anne wondered as she and Crash cover their noses.
"The annual Village Potluck. Every year we frogs gather for a great contest. The family who brings the best-tasting dish is showered with love and copper coins." Hop Pop explained and showed pictures of other frogs in the past winning the Village Potluck with their dish and a gold trophy.
"The family with the worst-tasting dish spends the night in... the Shame Cage!" Hop Pop gestured to the Shame Cage that is being hung for the contest.
Crash gibberish commenting on the cage being a little overkill.
"Yeah, overkill with the brutal." Anne said.
"And guess which family ends up there every year." Sprig asked sarcastically, all three Planters sigh.
Crash and Anne look at each other for a second as they can clearly see that this family has been the one getting into the Shame Cage for not winning the contest and probably having the worse food to make, this was something they have to do in order to help them.
"If you think I'm gonna let my favorite froggy family end up in a cage, you've got another thing coming. I know we're not technically a Plantar, but maybe I can help." Anne offered herself and Crash who nods which the frog family look acceptance.
"Anne, Crash, we'd sure appreciate it." Sprig smiled.
Crash took a quick taste of the gumbo to see what they're working with to think of a way to make it better, but his eyes widen with shock and horror and starts gasping that he spits up the gumbo from his mouth then pointing at it to not taste it.
"Shit, it's really that bad, huh?" Anne grossed out.
"That's nonsense. It's a traditional recipe from my family's cookbook. We been using this baby since I was a pollywog." Hop Pop showed the recipe book.
Anne and Crash look inside the book seeing the ingredients and how to make them, but Crash has sharper senses than Anne as he looks at the pages closely and notices something off is with this book and gibberish ask Hop Pop if he's been reading this right.
"Oh, are you saying that my family's recipes are the best!" Hop Pop smiled.
"Best of making us the worse family." Polly muttered.
"No, Crash said that there is something wrong with how the words are in this book like there are stain spots on pages." Anne translated for Crash.
"Stain spots? What are you talking about?" Hop Pop asked in surprise.
Crash put the book down and pointed at the stain spot on one page for Hop Pop to see.
"Young man, I've been seeing this book for most of my life and there has never been a stain spot on this… book?" Hop Pop started to see something a little off with one of the letters.
"Odd, that C looks like it's facing the wrong way." Hop Pop noticed, then saw another weird thing as Crash pointed at it.
"And I don't know what that tiny triangle is about. I just thought my family adds that because they want to add something pointy." Hop Pop said.
"Hop Pop, I think you need to put your glasses on." Sprig advised.
"Fine, but just because we found a couple of stain spots doesn't mean…" But when Hop Pop put on his glasses, he soon discovered that there are a lot more stain spots in the book than he realizes, and these stain spots are also on some of the words and sentences.
"Oh my…" Hop Pop was shocked to see this.
"You mean to tell me that we've been using incomplete versions of the recipes for years?!" Polly yelled in rage.
"Hop Pop, how could you not have notice this?" Sprig asked.
(Flashback)
One frog is cooking in the kitchen with the recipe book open and gumbo from the pot exploded a but causing few drops to splat on the book as the cook doesn't notice.
Decades later, another Planter frog is whipping up something that involves trying to pour some milk in the pot, but she almost trip causing several drops into the book.
Then here is younger Hop Pop trying out cooking for the first time with some sludgy-like substances on the floor, he accidentally drops the book and quickly picks it up from the floor, unaware that it has more stain spots now.
(Flashback End)
"Well, huh, it's been along time I brought out this old book and I remember all the recipes by heart though sometimes I look at it as a reminder." Hop Pop explained.
Crash theorizes that somewhere along the way the book got messy when near the frogs who did the cooking before Hop Pop.
"Yeah, you'll never know what things you make could end up making a mess." Anne nodded.
"Alright then, that means we will be doing something new!" Anne declared.
"I can't believe this… This book has been our family tradition for years. What would my great-gam-gam say?" Hop Pop asked of his ancestor.
Crash and Anne look over to see a portrait of an old frog woman knitting a big blanket with the words saying "Tradition means Everything" with a serious face.
"If she saw what happened to the book, she would probably get angry and say move on." Anne guessed with a shrug.
"She was a fierce woman." Hop Pop sighed.
"Okay, now that we got that out of the way. If we're gonna win this thing, we need something new, something revolutionary, something no one in the swamp has ever seen before. Something like... Pizza!" Anne showed them the pizza picture on her phone.
"Whoa!" Sprig became amazed of this delicious food.
"I don't know what it is, but I love it." Polly started to feel the urge to want that pizza.
"Well, if you really think it's good then we'll go for it." Hop Pop agreed but looks sad as he looks down at the recipe book.
"We'll win for sure with this, Hop Pop. Now all we gotta do is—" Sprig was about to take out the hammer, but Crash snatches it away and shook his head.
"All we gotta do is get four ingredients- dough, cheese, basil, and tomatoes. Are you guys ready to make our pizza dreams a pizza reality?" Anne asked as Crash is getting excited.
"Pizza dream!" Sprig and Polly cheered, then Sprig got an idea.
"Oh, oh! Maybe we should put pineapple on it. Seems like a natural fit." Sprig suggested, but suddenly Anne grabs him by the neck and slams him against the wall.
"Don't you dare talk about pineapple on my pizza. Ever." Anne whispered angrily and Crash quickly pulls her away with some gibbering.
"I know, I know, I'm sorry. It just I never see how pineapple can be use as a pizza topping, that is just unsettling to me." Anne stated as she calms down.
"But that doesn't mean I'm gonna force you to hate it." Anne said before she kisses Crash's cheek.
"Okay. Let's go get those ingredients. Pizza dream!" Anne cheered as Crash shouted in cheering too.
(Flour & Daughters Bakery)
The barker and owner known as Mr. Flour is a blue, short frog, with deep eyebrows and purple eyes. He has purple stripes and dots along his back and a light-sky-blue underbelly. He often wears an apron, with several stains, a baker's hat, a dusty rose short-sleeved shirt, and mauve shorts. He typically sports a stoic facial expression.
Mr. Flour has just finished stomping on the dough and backflip to throw it into the stove then facing the Planters.
"If you want the dough, the boy has to marry my daughter." Mr. Flour pointed at his daughter who is holding a voodoo doll of Sprig with a steak stick.
"Hiiiii, Spriiiiiiig..." The daughter Maddie greeted creepy and pierce the doll with her stick.
Maddie is close in age to Sprig and is roughly the same height as him. She is a light blue frog with a lighter shaded underbelly and has a red tongue. Just like the other frogs, she has four fingers per hand and two toes per foot. Her hair is light pink with dark pink spots and bulbous in appearance with a small knot on her head, making it look like a mushroom cap. It covers one of her eyes, but the one that is visible is big and yellow with black, slit pupils similar to that of a snake. She wears very little; just a black sack dress with a brown rope for a belt and she stays barefoot.
Sprig gulp in fear upon seeing the little doll him getting stabbed fearing it's him being the doll.
"Ain't she adorable?" Mr. Flour asked, smiling at his daughter.
Crash doesn't exactly see the adorable in that girl with showing that she has this dark aura around her, kinda reminds him of another girl he knows back on earth that is also dark.
"Done." Anne agreed to the deal.
"Now hold on, Anne. Don't you think we should think about this more?" Hop Pop asked, thinking this is moving too fast for Sprig.
"No! Sprig's eternal happiness is a small price to pay for pizza." Anne stated.
"Agreed." Polly said. But a little surprised by this, it's like Sprig just instantly got himself a girlfriend or something.
"Aw, it's not so bad. Maybe we'll learn to love each other." Sprig tried to see the bright side in this but jumped in shock when Maddie suddenly appeared behind him.
"I've seen your death in my mind." Maddie said.
"I was kinda hoping it'd be a surprise." Sprig chuckled nervously.
"It will be." Maddie whispered that sounds scary.
Sprig became scared that he can hear a sinister chuckle in his head and Crash becomes worry for Sprig's future.
"Congratulations on your new son. Now cough up the dough." Anne said.
"Yay!" Mr. Flour cheered in a low tone and gave Anne a ball of dough.
"Pleasure doing business with ya." Anne smiled as she walks out with the dough.
"Well, looks like we gotta go. See ya." Sprig chuckled, freaked out of Maddie, and ran away.
"I wanna be the maid of honor!" Polly shouted.
"See you soon, hubby..." Maddie waved goodbye with the Sprig Voodoo doll.
(Mrs. Croaker's Home)
Crash is shouting of joy as he is having fun riding on a cow-a-pillar for Mrs. Croaker to help wrangle them into their stable, the beast was hard to work with at first but then Crash starts smoothing things out with the cow-bug beast and have it into the stable.
"My, I never seen anyone wrangle a cow-a-pillar that smoothly before." Mrs. Croaker was impressed with that.
"Yeah, Crash has a natural gift when it comes to the animals." Anne smiled.
"And he didn't even have to use his powers this time." Sprig pointed out.
"I'm just glad no one got hurt." Hop Pop relieved.
"Well, thank you for wrangling in Brutus. Here you go, deary. A hunk of cheese made fresh from the milk of those ca—"
"Please don't tell me where it comes from." Anne cut off the old frog woman, not wanting to know where they get the milk from the bug cows.
Crash gibberish to Anne that milk in their world comes from cows.
"I know milk comes from cows, but that's in our world! These guys might be different and…" Anne shivered of the thought.
(Later)
The Planters have just survived through a fight with some aphids to get the basil from them, good thing Crash is strong to fight them off and knock them back as they left their territory.
Crash picks one basil to sniff it and sigh in happiness.
"Smells good, huh, Crash?" Anne asked as he nods.
"Those aphids were giants, but glad none of us were hurt." Sprig smiled.
"Glad that we're safe, but I almost lost my behind to those things." Hop Pop looked over this butt seeing a big in the back of his pants.
"This is the price of progress, Hop Pop." Sprig yelled a little.
"Exactly. And we've only got one ingredient left. Tomatoes. According to this, they should be up ahead." Anne showed the map they acquired to find some tomatoes to complete the recipe for pizza.
"Still can't believe I traded my favorite dentures for that map." Hop Pop saddened with his mouth feeling empty with his dentures.
Crash then gibberish about how he didn't see any tomatoes at the farm nor anywhere else whenever they go out.
"Yeah, I've never seen the town selling them. I never taste them either." Sprig mentioned.
"There's a reason for that. They're in the "dangerous vegetables" section. It suggests we go for prunes instead. Can't go wrong with prunes!" Hop Pop showed in the family cookbook.
Crash gibberish asking how much difference the tomatoes in this world are than the tomatoes on earth.
"Please, I'm sure they're not even that different at all." Anne rolled her eyes.
"I'm still not sure about it. But if you really want to see what these tomatoes are like here, then might as well go there." Hop Pop said.
"Don't worry, I promise making this pizza is going to be worth it!" Anne believed and Crash shouted cheerfully.
"Now come on, let's get those tomatoes and win that Potluck!" Anne pumped her fist in the air and lead to group to the path of victory for the Planter family.
But known to the family, they are being watched from afar by a telescope seeing the frog family and the two humans in front of them as Anne hugs onto Crash kissing his cheek making him blush and giggle.
"Looks like we got ourselves two unnatural creatures, as if these things are not of this world." A young woman commented.
"Hold on, could be from the stories… The legends of other worlds?" The young woman asked herself, but she doesn't know for sure if that's true.
"Well, guess I'll have to see this for myself up close." The young woman said before she jumps off from a tree and goes down causing the whole scene to go black.
KO a new chapter is done and hope you all enjoy it!
Anne and the Planters are off to get the final ingredient for their pizza plan for the Village Potluck though they're about to see how different these tomatoes are than earth's tomatoes, and it looks like they might meet someone along the way who is curious about the two humans.
KO comment, favorite, and follow through of how this story will go!