Once Upon a Toad by Heather Vogel Frederick Page A

conversation.
    â€œSuch a lovely little cottage,” my great-aunt said as we emerged onto our street again. “And such a lovely family.”
    â€œExcept for Olivia,” I muttered under my breath.
    Great-Aunt Abyssinia gave me a fleeting smile that told me she’d heard what I’d just said. She might be old, but she had ears like a hawk.
    â€œWould you like to come in for a minute?” she asked, gesturing at her RV. “Archibald would love to see you again.”
    I nodded. “Sure.”
    Archibald stretched and hopped down from his perch on the sofa when we came in. He’s the best thing about Great-Aunt Abyssinia’s RV. He’s huge, twenty pounds at least, which could be why Great-Aunt Aby picked him. “Big woman like me needs a big cat,” I remember her telling me back at Mount Rushmore.
    â€œHey, Archie,” I said, scratching him under his chin. “Remember me?”
    He twined himself around my legs and blinked up at me, his bright green eyes glowing like traffic lights against his coal black fur. When you talk to my great-aunt’s cat, he cocks his head to one side like a dog. You could swear he understands every word you say.
    â€œHave a seat,” said Great-Aunt Aby. “Help yourself to anything you’d like in the fridge.”
    Fat chance, I thought, but I checked anyway, more out of curiosity than anything else. Sure enough, there were half a dozen bottles of Great-Aunt Aby’s favorite breakfast beverage, the green stuff my mother and I had dubbed SuperGloop, along with a half-eaten burrito, two lemons, some prickly pear yogurt (I didn’t know it came in that flavor), the ever-present pickled eggs, and what looked like leftover fish sticks but which I was pretty sure had never been anywhere near the ocean. Surprisingly, there was also a can of root beer. I reached for it and sat down at the table.
    â€œNow, where the dickens did I put that rascal?” muttered Great-Aunt Aby, stooping down in front of the bookshelves that lined the short hallway leading to the back of the RV, and her bedroom.
    I looked around curiously. Everything seemed pretty much the same as the last time I was here. Same knickknacks; same clutter. The wall of souvenir plates had expanded—I spotted one with a picture of Old Ironsides and another of the Alamo—and I was pretty sure she’d added another shelf over the dining table for her growing collection of fairy-tale snow globes. I would have remembered the Little Red Riding Hood one for sure.
    And the books! Another of my great-aunt’s hobbies iscollecting secondhand books, and there were piles of them everywhere, including on the table in front of me. I picked up the one on top, a dusty old volume with PACIFIC NORTHWEST FLORA AND FAUNA printed on the cover.
    â€œGreat-Aunt Aby, can I use your phone for a sec?” I asked, suddenly remembering I’d promised to call Rani about our science homework. “I left my cell in the house.”
    â€œSorry, honey, I don’t have one,” she replied, distracted.
    â€œHow about your computer, then?” I could send Rani an e-mail or an IM that way.
    She shook her head regretfully. “No computer, either, I’m afraid. And no VCR, DVD, or GPS. No alphabet soup of any kind—well, except for TV. I love the Food Network. Other than that, though, I’m off the grid.”
    Great-Aunt Aby watched cooking shows? This was surprising news. You sure wouldn’t know it by the contents of her fridge. Then something else occurred to me. “But I thought you said you talked to my mom last night.”
    â€œDid I?” She straightened, blinking owlishly at me. “Oh—pay phone. Yep, that’s it. Pay phone.” She turned back to the bookshelf and ran her fingers across the spines. “Perrault, Grimm, Andersen—it’s got to be here somewhere.”
    I sipped my root beer, puzzled. A pay phone? Did they