1 The Color Frog

"But, but," Emily objected softly, wincing as her brother splashed dirty water everywhere. "Ellliii," she whined at him pitifully, holding her Pip close to her chest.

The little boy snickered and shook his head like his doggy Alice would. She stepped back to avoid the spray with a frown, "C'mon! It's fun!" He picked up their formly black toy poodle,"Look, Alice's having fun!" He tried to argue while the poodle stared at her innocently. She sighed and shook her head before starting up the hill in search of something to walk across on. He tried to splash at her then huffed, crossing his arms stubbornly, "It's just a lil mud!" He defended his method of getting to the other hill.

"Los of mud," she grumbled under her breath, unhappily putting Pip under her arm so that she could use her other hand to climb better. Her bubba was so mean sometimes. How did he really think she'd like getting so dirty? She had a bath yesterday, she didn't want another. She huffed at the top of the hill, raising her arm over her head to block the sun while she looked around.

"Find anything?!" Elliot hollared. Her brother was still stubbornly in the muddy creek and her puppy was...

"Allii, nooo," trying to jump up her leg,"You're gettin me muddy too." She reasoned with the animal, gently pushing her down, "Stawp, pease." She frowned at the small dog's whining and shook her head. "I wuvs you," she said in an attempt to try and curb her guilt, giving Alice's head a small pat.

"EMI!" Her head jerked to the voice of her tiny looking brother.

"What?"

"Found a bidge!"

She covered her head again with her hand and leaned forward to look closer, squinting at where his voice came from, "Where?!" It hurt to raise her voice.

Elliot huffed again from the bottom of the hill and shook his head. Why on Earth did she have to climb so high? "HERE! GET DOWN HERE!!" He frowned in her direction, waiting impatiently for her. Minutes passed slowly. Ugh. He could feel the mud drying. How was he gonna get her all wet *now*? "See?" He jabbed his arm towards the hundred year old stone structure, "Bridge." She rolled her eyes but nodded, "Now c'monnn," he whined at her while pushing her forward,"I wanna fiiisshh."

"I do too, but--" she stopped with a sigh. There was no arguing with him.. And he needed help making a good pole. "You gettin da worms." She insisted as strongly as she could.

He shook his head and continued pushing her,"Yeah, yeah. I wills. But we gotta go! Mama said we gotta be back by dark."

"I-i know.." Emily started up again with her puppy trailing behind. She didn't like being out past dark anyways. Too scary and owls were mean.

When her bubba rushed ahead, Alice ran off too, barking up a storm. Emily couldn't wait for them to settle down, but she knew that wouldn't happen until they reached the raft. She planned ahead while they walked. They'd get loaded, Elliot would push them off, and they'd probably play eye-spy. She liked that game. Maybe she could start it now?

"Emily!" Her brother broke her thoughts with a shout, as usual. She jogged to catch up to him. "Loook what I found!" He shouted excitedly, grinning at the weird thing he'd found.

"That's puppy tracks. Bug puppy," she classified with a nod though she knew that's not what he was excited about.

He shook his head and yanked her closer to his treasure,"No! Loookk."

"Tire?" She asked innocently. His brows furrowed and he forced her head to turn in its direction. "Das not a tire.."

"No! Car car said is a speckled froggy." He shushed her unnecessarily with his finger over his lips,"Doonn toucch."

She looked back at him with a giggle,"They poisonous." She agreed with him. He grinned at his trapped animal. Together they knelt down to watch it hop around in the tire ring he'd found. "What if..." She wondered, glancing around the forested ground before finding her desired object,"Stick." She used it to poke the bright orange frog.

"Smart," Elliot said before breaking into a series of giggles with his sister.

Alice tried to jump in the box and Emily screeched, snatching the muddy dog up. "No, no," she cooed at her pup,"No eatin the color frogs," she teared up at a thought and shook her head,"Elli."

"Emily?" He asked worriedly, rising slowly. What had her so upset all of a sudden?

"Let's, let's go.." She sniffled and buried her small face into the poodle's curly fur,"Dark. Mama," she mumbled as she walked away to the direction of the river.

He kicked over the tire ring to free his speckled frog then ran after her,"Okay, okay, I'm coming." He ran to her side and put his arm around her, "Is okay. I'm sorry Emi, she's okay."Just to prove it, Alice began vigorously licking her flushed face. She leaned back to avoid the puppy's small tongue and sighed.

"Imma get the worms," he said once they arrived at the lake, setting her down on the side. "Don worry. We'll catch the good froggies and fishes."

She nodded and looked down to her dirty puppy (and dress) sadly,"Mmk," she hummed while petting her slowly. "Alli needs a bath." She mumbled to herself while Elliot picked a good digging stick.

He smiled before sitting himself down by the bank and stabbing the moist dirt. "Imma get all da wormiess," he sang to himself as he flung some mud away. After about a minute, he got frustrated with the stick and threw it away. Snickering wildly, he bore into the ground with his bare hands,"I'm coming wormies!!"

Emily looked up and giggled,"Get emmm," she encouraged from the sidelines. He was definitely taking a bath tonight. "Elliot," she called after a while.

"Yeah?" he looked up from his growing pile of worms.

"I wuvs youuu," she coed at him, now laying on her side with Alice.

She let out a yawn and he smiled,"Love ya too." Elliot glanced up at the sky and moaned,"Nnoo," he stood up and shook his head,"Noo."

"Whut?" she asked groggily. She followed his gaze and frowned.

"We gotta go hhooommee," he stole her words. How were they gonna fish now? The sun was already going down!

Emily sighed, brushing herself off before the realization of something hit her,"Pip!" she shouted in anguish. She ran up to her brother in tears,"Pip, Pip, we gotta find Pip!"

His eyes widened at her unusually high volume and nodded,"O-okay, okay, I'll hide the wormies and we'll find him."

"Pip, pip!" she called ahead as if it were a live creature. Alice barked to help, which only really added to Emily's racing heartbeat. Where was it? Where was it?

"Wait up!" Her brother yelled, struggling to catch up then nearly slamming into her when she stopped suddenly, "You find him?" he felt the need to whisper.

Emily gulped as well as nodded, "Y-yeah..." She mumbled shakily.

"Really?! Where?!" Elliot jumped forwards to search some more but she held him back by his muddy sleeve,"Heeyyy," he moaned at her with furrowed brows.

Her lip trembled some more and she simply pointed at her favorite pink stuffed animal. "He, he," she hiccuped, grieving at the sight before her: on top of Pip sat the color frog. "He's deaaaddd," she cried with a shake of her head, falling to her knees.

Elliot frowned and bent down to hug her, "No, no no, he's not dead.."

"But, but," she stuttered while ignoring a barking Alice, "But color fogg," she blubbered in argument, her face buried in his chest.

He shushed her gently, "He's super, members?" She was too broken to answer so he continued,"Mama said he's a-mune. It don't hurts him."

Emily sniffled as she unfurled her face to look at him, "But, but he's not movinnn," she argued some more, snot and tears streaming down her flushed face.

Her brother giggled and shook his head,"He's pretending," he explained in a rather loud whisper. She just blinked at that, wiped her eyes then looked back at Pip. If he was, then how come he was so good at it? "He's trickin the meanie color froggy in ta showing him his bad guy hide out," he gasped for air, his eyes shining in accordance to the magical vision he saw. Emily's brows knit together in confusion. "But he's in too deep!" He yelled a whisper. Whole gangs of bad guy color frogs were surrounding Pip, just waiting for him to slip up.

It was Emily's turn to gasp now. "We, we, we gotta saves him!" To her brother's surprise, she jumped up and grabbed a stick.

"Emi no! It's too dangerous!"

Alice looked back at them in confusion. Emily didn't listen but dashed at the bad guy color frog with her spear, her battle attire flowing in the wind. "Pip!!" She screamed her battle cry. The dog jumped out of the way then doubled back to bark some more.

Elliot couldn't help snickering as she waved her feeble stick around with her eyes closed. "Gotta get closer!" One of her thrashes managed to snag the poisonous frog and it shot into the brush, thus out of sight.

She scooped up her Pip with another cry, "Got chu, got chu," she hugged him as tightly as possible and shook her head into his dirty pink fur,"He's gone, he's gone." She leaned back and scolded him while her real puppy gave her leg a vigorous licking, "Don't eva do anythin wif out me eva again, supa Pips." She booped his nose and huffed before starting home once more.

"Yeah!" Elliot bounced after her, "No more secret missions without us!" He roared with giggles as they walked, nearly doubling over. What a fun day. He couldn't think of anything to ruin it...except..a... Bath.