The next day, the little girl-whose name was Elsie-was at the stream again. She had brought her little sister, who had the same orange hair and spatter of freckles. Jack and Jill were in a tree this time, inventing stories for each other.

"Can I come up?" Elsie asked. Jack gestured for her to join them.

"Can I?" echoed her little sister in a thin voice.

"Sure," said Jill. And she slid over on the branch to make room for the girls.

Over the course of the next week, a small group of children formed in the forest. Each day, in the warmth of the late afternoon, they would gather and play with Jack and Jill. And no one said anything about their skin or their clothes or where they lived. They just did not seem to care.

Soon, it was a regular ritual. Every day, after Jack and Jill had sold the last of their sticks, they would be greeted by a small group of boys and girls at their clearing in the wood. It felt good. It felt like home.

From time to time, Jack and Jill still took out the Gla.s.s. They peered into it, marveling at its perplexing uselessness.

"How did the goblins find it so valuable?" Jack wondered.

"Dunno," Jill shrugged. They studied it for a while longer. "Guess the whole quest was a waste," she concluded, tossing it aside.

"Yeah," Jack agreed.

But neither child felt that way. Not anymore. Not at all.

And then, one day, the frog poked his head out of the hollow log in the clearing. "Hey, guys! I figured something out!"

Jack lifted him out of the log.

"Get the Gla.s.s, too," the frog instructed Jill.

She looked at him oddly, and then reached down and withdrew the Gla.s.s from its hiding place in the log.

"Hold it up," the frog directed Jill. She held the Gla.s.s in front of him.

"Still looks like a fat old frog," said Jack.

The frog ignored him. "I think I know what it says."

Jack looked at the frog's reflection. "You know what what says?"

"The inscription, dummy!" cried the frog.

Suddenly, the children's expressions grew serious. Jill said, "It says, 'Fo timb hat da jeek, bok no father.'"

"Great wisdom," added Jack.

"Maybe it's in goblin . . ." Jill wondered.

"No, stop, listen for a second," the frog insisted. "It's not, 'Fo timb hat da jeek, bok no father.' That first letter isn't an f , it's a t."

"To?" Jill said slowly.

"And in the next word, it's not a t, it's an f."

Jack and Jill leaned more closely over the Gla.s.s.

"And an n, not an m, and, I guess, a weird looking d."

"How much time have you been spending on this?" Jack asked.

"A lot," said the frog. "And that's a w, not a decorative squiggle."

Jack leaned over, his finger on his lips, peering at the letters. "Oh . . ." he murmured.

"And that's a y, not a d. And an e, not an a."

"Where did you learn to read?" Jill asked suddenly.

But Jack said, "Frog, you're a genius . . ."

The frog grinned and went on. "Then there's an s, not a j, and that's two o's after an l, not a b and an o."

Jill nodded wonderingly.

"Finally," said the frog, "that's not an a. It's a u and an r."

Jack and Jill studied the mirror.

Their eyes traveled down the silvered pane.

They stared at their reflections.

And Jack and Jill, staring into the Gla.s.s, suddenly realized what their quest had actually been for, and what they had really been seeking all this time. And at that very moment, they found it.

Wait!

What?

What just happened?

What had they been looking for? What did they find?

Is the mirror magic? What did it show them?

Look, kid. I'm just telling this story. I don't have all the answers. You gotta figure it out yourself.

"Um," said a voice. "Excuse me, but did that frog just talk?"

Jack and Jill and the frog all spun around. Elsie and her little sister stood at the edge of their clearing, staring at them.

"Oh, boy . . ." muttered the frog.

"Well . . ." said Jack, "yes."

"How?" said Elsie.

"Can I see?" asked her sister.

Jack looked at Jill. Jill looked at the frog. The frog shrugged.

"Come over here," Jill said. She patted a spot on the log beside her. "Meet our friend Frog. He can talk."

"h.e.l.lo," said the frog.

"Hi," said both redheaded girls at once.

"You're amazing . . ." said Elsie's little sister.

The frog beamed.

"How do you talk?" Elsie asked.

"It's a long story," said the frog.

And both little girls, at the very same moment, said, "Okay."

The frog sighed.

The sun was setting, and the sky was red and yellow and pink and blue as the frog finished his story.

"That was wonderful . . ." Elsie said with a sigh.

"Can you tell it again?" asked Elsie's little sister.

Jack and Jill laughed.

"I mean, tomorrow," the little girl said. "I want to bring my friends."

The smiles slid off of Jack's and Jill's faces.

"Yeah," said Elsie. "All the kids will want to meet the frog now!"

"And hear the story!" her sister agreed.

Jack and Jill both looked at the frog. "What do you think?" said Jill.

The frog turned his head coyly to one side. "They'll all want to meet me?" he asked.

"Oh, yes!"

"And hear the story?"

"Definitely!"

"Well," the frog replied. "If you insist."

The next afternoon, all the children who had ever come to clearing to play with Jack and Jill were gathered before the hollow log. The frog sat between Jack and Jill. And once the children had gotten over their hysterical excitement about meeting a talking frog, he told them all his story.

He finished when the sky was dark, and the stars were twinkling overhead.

The children all instantly clamored for more: "What happened next? How did you meet Jack and Jill? Can we meet the salamanders?"

"No," the frog replied, "you cannot meet the salamanders. And as for how I met Jack and Jill? That's another very long story."

And all the children, all at once, said, "Okay."

Jack and Jill laughed. And then Jill said, "Why don't we tell you tomorrow?"

The next day, an even larger group of children had a.s.sembled. Even some boys from Jack's village were there. Not Marie, of course. But some of the quieter ones.

Jill told them all about her mother and the silk merchant and the terrible royal procession.

The children adored it. They ate up every word. A little boy in the back named Hans Christian laughed and gaped and clapped his hands straight the way through.

The day after, Jack told them about having to sell Milky and about the snake oil salesman. The boys from Jack's village laughed when Jack sang the Little Lamb song, and told the other children that it was all true-that there really was a rickety old cart, and Jack did trade his cow for a bean. And then Jack and Jill and the frog told them about the creepy old lady with the pale eyes and the beanstalk. The children were mesmerized. Especially a little boy sitting in the front named Joseph, but whom everyone called J.J.

After the story, as the stars were spinning in the dark sky, Elsie and her little sister pulled some of the boys from the village aside.

"Don't you think Jack's father misses him?" Elsie asked.

"He does," one of the boys replied. "He's in mourning."

"I bet Jill's mother misses her, too," said Elsie's little sister.