A fairy tale needed to be told, and so it was told, for the first time ever live and recorded on video. This is the transcript as the story of Boy & Frog unfolded in real time.
Boy & Frog
Once upon a time in a faraway kingdom, there lived a little boy.
The little boy had red hair and he was a happy boy who liked to go out in nature.
On this day, he was walking down the road towards a little river where he liked to play.
He liked to catch tadpoles there and look at the little fish swimming around and the little lizards, and the sun was shining, the water was sparkling, and he was full of happiness and joy.
So as he climbed down the bank, slipping down a little bit, holding on to tufts of grass, sliding down towards the river, making sure his shoes are not getting wet and he's just paying attention to all of that when he heard a little voice.
“Hey, help, help, help me. Oh, you need to help me!“ and he's looking around and he's seeing nobody.
But then the little voice comes again.
“Help me, help me, help me, please!“
The little boy looks down and here is a little frog, little green frog sitting on a little rock and is looking straight at him and is saying, “Help me, help me, please!“
The little boy is astonished, for he has heard about such things in fairy tales and stories, but he's never seen a real talking frog before.
“Wow,“ he says. “Hey, you're my very first talking frog! I thought you guys were just fantasy, just things that people make up to tell to children.“
“Oh, I wish,“ said the frog. “I wish,“ and drew its webbed hand across its forehead and looked very sad. “But I am so glad that finally, finally, somebody has found me who can hear me. I have been squawking and croaking, and nobody has taken any notice.
“You clearly are a very magical child.“
“What, me?“ said the boy, looking around, a little worried there, scuffling his feet, “I'm not magical I'm just a boy.“
“No you're not!” said the frog, “No you're not because you can hear me and you're talking right back at me. Everybody else just hears me croak they don't see me for what I really am,“ and the frog looked very sad and hung its froggy head.
The boy said, “Hey, don't get upset. So, okay, I can hear you. I guess that makes me magical in some way, although I don't feel very magical.“
“Ah,” said the frog, “Most magical people in the world don't feel very magical. The world wasn't made for them. They were made for a magical world rather than for the world of people who can't hear me when I croak.”
“Okay, said the boy. “Well, this is cool, talking frog. What a tale I have to tell at school tomorrow.“
“Oh,“ said the frog. “I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't do that. They'll probably just laugh at you.
“They'll probably think you're crazy.“
“Ah, you're right,“ said the boy. “This is true.“
They both sighed together exactly at the same time, and then the frog said, “Look, I have a favor to ask. I've been magically transformed into being a frog by a. Well, yeah, let's call her an evil witch.
“She shouldn't have done that, all right.
“So I trampled on her flowers with my horse. I did, and I didn't apologize, and I just laughed at her when she told me that she'd spent ages trying to plant her flower garden, and I shouldn't have done that.
“But come on, turning me into a frog, and it's been ages. I don't even know how many years it's been or how much time has passed.
“I want to be a prince again.“
“Huh,“ said the boy. “Now, now you're right out of luck. That's girl magic, and I don't have any girl magic. I'm a boy.“
The frog said, “What do you mean, girl magic?“
“Well, everybody knows that only girls can turn princes into frogs and vice versa. I mean, you were turned into a frog by a female witch, weren't you?“
“Yeah. Yeah, that's true, but magic's magic, surely. There's only one magic, and either you have it or you don't.“ said the frog. “You need to try. You need to break this spell.“
“Well,“ said the boy, “I'm not going to kiss you. This I can tell you for nothing. That's girl stuff and girls are icky and I'm not kissing a frog not now or ever!“ and he folded his arms across his chest and pouted his lips and stomped his foot and that made the water splash and that made his shoe wet but never mind he did it anyway, so that the frog would understand that there was no way he was going to kiss him or do any kind of girly magic.
The frog sighed and sat up a little bit straighter.
If you really paid attention, you could tell that once upon a time he'd been a prince, because there was something in his stature and his bearing, and the frog said, “OK, no girly magic, I understand, but, you know, magic is magic.
“If you want to,“ and here the frog stopped and cleared its throat, “show somebody that you really appreciate them, that you love them, how do you do that as a boy?“
The boy thought about this. This was not a question he had ever thought about or ever been asked.
How would you do that?
“Well,“ said the boy, “I once saw a puppy and I really liked the puppy. It was so fun. It was so cute looking and it was wagging its tail and it was happy to see me, and I guess I stroked it. I stroked it on the head.
“Huh,“ said the frog. “Yeah, I think that'll be fine. Perhaps that'll work. But can you look at me and see me like you saw the happy puppy?“
“I don't know,“ said the little boy, “I guess we can try. I'm gonna try!“ and so the boy wrinkled his brow and tried really hard and looked at the green slightly slimy frog sitting there and the frog had its eyes closed as well in furious concentration and he could feel that this would never work.
“No no no,“ the little boy said, “That's not working.”
The frog opened his eyes and looked at him and there was such sadness in the frog's eyes, such sadness that the little boy felt something happening in his chest, like something was moving like a wave. He went along with what that felt like and he put his hand to his chest and then he reached out and very, very gently bent down towards the frog and touched the frog on its little green head just between the eyes very carefully, and there, a strange kind of shiver went through him, as though something had unlocked, something had unblocked, and there were stars, little tiny sparkling stars flying from his hand, and those little stars, they fell right upon the frog.
The frog started to move and shimmy and then shimmer again, and turn into light.
The little boy stepped away he stepped back and actually sat down on the on this on the side of the river and there in front of his eyes, the frog was shimmering, becoming much bigger, turning, shaping in all sorts of ways and then there stood another little boy!
He was about the same age but he had black hair and he had brown eyes and a big smile on his face as he stretched his hands out and looked around himself, looked at his hands and then he looked down at himself and then he looked at the little boy and his eyes were so full of joy and delight that it jumped right across to the little boy and he could feel that other boy's joy as well.
The prince had been reborn.
The two boys just laughed and cheered and clapped their hands together and they very nearly hugged but then they didn't and the little boy took the prince home to his house because the boy was ever so hungry after having eaten nothing but flies for god knows how long, he was just dying for some proper food.
So the little boy took him to his house and his mother was amazed And he said, well, I found him by the side of the river.
He didn't say anything about frogs or transformation, and the mother was a kindly lady and she really enjoyed making sandwiches for both the boys and then watching how the little prince was eating like he hadn't eaten in years, which in fact he hadn't.
Then what happened next was that, of course, the little boy went back with the prince to the castle where the prince was living and where his mother and father and his sisters too had been crying for years and years and years because they missed him so much and loved him so much, and the joy and happiness in the kingdom was completely off any scale.
There was this huge party with fireworks, and the little boy was celebrated as the one who found the little prince, and he got lots and lots and lots of rewards heaped upon him, titles and favors and lots and lots of money, and so the little boy and his family and the prince and his family lived happily ever after.
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A fairy tale needed to be told, and so it was told, for the first time ever live and recorded on video. This is the transcript as the story of Boy & Frog unfolded in real time.
