Ever After High: Secret Storybooks

Chapter Eighteen: Hopper Croakington

You asked and you got it.... -Zoey ;)

We sent Julian in hours ago. I couldn't wrap my head around why Briar (and Faybelle and Julian) had not yet returned. Something had to be wrong.

Raven Queen must have agreed, because a few moments later she said "I think we should send someone in there to check on them."

I know at this point we were all really worried. We discovered that Apple bites her fingernails when she gets nervous, so she must rarely get nervous. Cerise seemed to have an endless supply of chips to stress eat that she kept munching on and only sharing with a few people. Cedar was twiddling her wooden thumbs. Daring was holding his mirror, and I thought maybe he was checking himself out as he sometimes casually did but it turns out he actually repeatedly fixes his hair when he's anxious. Dexter adjusted his glasses way too often for them to have actually needed to be adjusted. Hunter tapped his foot quickly on the ground for a while until his girlfriend Ashlynn leaned her head into his shoulder and he was still.

"I'll go," I heard myself say before I'd even considered saying so or considered the possibilities of what could happen if I was to go.

Raven arched her eyebrow at me questioningly. "Hopper, are you sure you want to do that?" She asked, as if she didn't believe there was anything I could do.

She probably was right to believe that. I wasn't sure there was anything I could do either. At least, not for sure. I had to know, though, if Briar was okay. Surely, something was wrong for them to have not returned yet.

"But.... What if you turn into a frog...?" Duchess Swan chimed in. Duchess's voice is so obnoxious, very much like a swan honking, and everything she says sounds rude. I didn't know whether to be offended because she was being rude or to ignore it because she wasn't trying to be.

"He can handle it," Ashlynn Ella, suddenly alert and sitting up straight, vouched for me.

You see the thing is that I have the frog thing under control a lot more than people think. Actually, I enlisted Ashlynn, who happened to be an expert in all things animal, girl, and Briar. She was a lot of help. I had been talking to her for a while without getting nervous and changing, and she had Briar help out and told her it was just so that I could get used to talking in front of other girls, not just Ashlynn, but obviously that wasn't the reason. Ashlynn said only yesterday she thought I was ready to ask out Briar without a problem.

Only, there is a problem. Because yesterday we all read from that book, and overnight Briar and Faybelle, along with the rest of us, were locked into stories until their completion. Briar's story was not completed.

"He actually can," Ashlynn repeated. She motioned for Apple, who was holding onto the book now, to pass it to me so I could begin reading.

Apple did.

By now we were all sick of and sick to our stomachs hearing the story of Sleeping Beauty. I closed the book hard as I finished and the world went white around me again as I was transported into the story. My feet met hard gray stone and a matching castle tower materialized around me. In the middle of the floor next to a spinning wheel, was Briar, unconscious. Faybelle sat beneath the window sill. She looked particularly green right now, and I feared she was close to throwing up. Prince Julian the brat stared at his shoes, me, Faybelle, Briar, then back at his shoes when he noticed me appear. He sat way on the opposite side of the tower from Faybelle. The scene didn't confuse me. All there was to get from this picture was that Julian's true love kiss didn't work.

"What's up with you?" Julian said to me, which is when I realized I was glaring at him.

Faybelle didn't want to hear what Julian said to me and didn't wait around for my answer. "Hopper, why are you here?" She asked. I must say, I've never heard a teenage girl been so done with life at this point than she was, though, in my experience, teenage girls claim they are done with life more often than they probably should.

"They sent me in to check on you guys...." I responded, but trailed off since there was really nothing to check on. There wasn't any progress.

Faybelle was giving me that "I know" look as she said "what are you really here for?"

I smiled sheepishly.

"Oh you're kidding, right?" Julian whined, jumping up and instantly getting into the conversation.

"Why the hex does it matter to you anyway?" Faybelle shot back.

Well, they're a little tense, aren't they?

"Well, Hopper, do your thing," Faybelle said, waving in Briar's direction.

"What makes you think he can wake her up?" I overheard Julian whisper to Faybelle, both now behind me.

"Come on, Julian. We all know Briar can't even consider you a true friend. Not after what you did," Faybelle snapped.

"What we did," Julian corrected her instantly.

Well I guess I'll do my thing. To say I was extremely nervous was an understatement. I was shaking and generally just thankful I was still in human form.

I was never able to ask Briar on a date before this. I never thought I'd be kissing Briar Beauty before I'd even asked her out. I leaned down to sleeping Briar and gave it the best shot I could (it's hard to admit that you've never kissed a girl before and that the first time you do it might be the only thing that can wake the girl from a sleeping curse).

You'd never believed what happened next.

There was that flash again, and then we were back at Ever After High.

Briar was still on the floor. Her long eyelashes fluttered, and her eyes opened. She took a big breath, and then I suppose she realized she was home.

The first thing I saw after that was Ashlynn. She rushed to me, took my hands and jumped up and down with them before hugging me. "Hopper! You never changed into a frog!"