The Youngest One by Nancy Springer Page B

and serene, the toad gazed back at her with pale blue-white eyes.
    Jessie sighed with relief, smiling. “Hi, toad!” Gently, grasping it around its bulgy middle with both hands, Jessie lifted it out of the box. Its flabbiness no longer felt yucky to her. Cupping it in both palms, she lifted it to her eye level and asked, “Are you okay? Did you eat anything?”
    The toad just sat there as if in an armchair, its crooked little hands resting on her thumbs.
    “What do you want me to bring you, pepperoni pizza? What do toads eat?”
    Not that she expected any answer. But she felt better having something, anything, to talk to.
    “Maybe Mom went for food. Whatever she brings home, I’ll give you some. If she brings any.”
    Steadily the toad met her gaze with its freaky cloud-and-sky eyes.
    “Are you a Shakespeare toad? I know you’re not, like, venomous, but do you have a precious stone—”
    With a squeak Jessie stopped talking, for in that moment the toad’s eyes focused on her in a way they hadn’t before: intense, vehement, bright, so bright Jessie couldn’t see anything else; it was like being caught in front of a pair of halogen headlights. Just like—
    But even as she thought where she had seen such eyes before, she felt the toad’s dumpy weight leave her hands. Not hop away. Just leave. As she gawked, blinking in disbelief, she saw the ghost of a toad, then, blink, the dried-out mummy of a dead toad older than Shakespeare, then the feather-light skeleton of a toad, and finally, all in a moment, a shining, weightless blue-white jewel.
    The jewel stayed.
    But Jessie’s right hand closed around it, without recognition, as she bolted to her feet with a cry. A terrible thought had taken hold of her like a clenched fist. Downstairs she ran so fast she almost fell, and out the door, and up the street toward number 321. “Mrs. Warty!” she yelled, panting, trying not to cry. “Mrs., um…” She didn’t know her elderly neighbor’s proper name. “Are you still there?”
    Yes. Now she could see the old woman. On her porch. Hunchbacked, she seemed to sag in her chair…was she alive?
    Rushing up to the porch, Jessie cried, “Please, are you…are you…” She couldn’t get the words out.
    The old woman’s bright, pale eyes lifted to look at her. “What’s the matter?”
    “Are you all right ?”
    “Of course I’m all right.” The old woman leaned forward, peering. “Are you?”
    “I, um, I don’t know!”
    “You have a good heart, Jessica. Always concerned for others before yourself.” With a quirk of her rumpled face that might have been a smile, Warty added, “I’m fine. Toads are simple.”
    What…toad…old Warty really did know all about it? Jessie had to hang onto the weathered gray porch railing for support, trying to get past a dizzy feeling.
    “Good thing you weren’t reading King Lear ,” the old woman remarked. “Or Hamlet , or anything with crazy people or apparitions. Then it would have been harder. You know, Shakespeare was a friend of mine, and I helped him with the three witches in Macbeth .”
    Jessie understood only a little of this, which was still enough to start her trembling.
    “Jessica, you have nothing to be afraid of,” said the old woman softly. “You know, when the wicked stepmother drives the children away, it’s always the youngest one, the humble one, kind to old people and animals, who returns with the treasure.”
    Still dazed, Jessie struggled for an answer. “I, um, I don’t have a wicked stepmother…”
    “That’s just code for what these days they call dysfunctional. Now, let me see what you have in your hand.”
    Eyes widening as she remembered, Jessie lifted her right hand and opened it.
    On her palm shone what appeared to be a very large pearl, blue-tinged, but not round. Smooth and lustrous yet irregular, its shape resembled that of her recent squatting, brown friend.
    “A perfect toadstone. Beautiful.” The old woman’s eyes glowed like