Ch1 Today can go lick a slug.

Mibbet was having a very bad day; it had started off just the same as any other day, maybe even slightly better than usual. She’d started off with a lovely, juicy dragonfly getting exactly within range to become a mid-morning snack; the sun was shining, the birds were singing.

Then just as she was relaxing on her favourite lily pad, sun on her back (but not too much) right on that sweet spot in the middle of the pond, preparing herself for a nice swim, then maybe a long, well-earned nap. As if the froggy gods were laughing at her, it all went sour with what can only be described as a sqwoomph.

Then all of a sudden, quick as a blink, she was too big for her lily pad, and up to her elbows (where did those come from?) In water. Usually, this would not be a problem for her; she’d just hop to the next pad over, but apparently, her body did not seem to agree with that idea as she belly-flopped in the most pathetic jump in the history of jumps into the cold, muddy, water. For some reason, she didn’t like it. She coughed and spluttered, splashed, and grumbled, somehow dragging her wet, miserable, bedraggled self to shore, spitting up perfectly good water in tremendous amounts.

Just at that moment, a fly buzzed past, exactly in range. She snapped her tongue out but, wait a second, where was her tongue? Everything else she could dismiss as just strange, but her TONGUE? She loved her tongue; she could grab a snack from inches away. Freaky non-webby limbs she could just about deal with, sort of, maybe. But a long tongue and the eyes to use it were a girl's pride and joy. Without them, she’d be reduced to eating slugs. That brought a shudder; then again, she was shuddering a lot anyway, and for some reason that eluded her, she just couldn’t stop.

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The only word for it was cold, but it wasn’t time to hibernate yet, and something in her (if it was still hers) head told her it would be a very, very, VERY bad idea to try it. The word hypothermia floated to the front of her brain (as if it didn’t already have enough to worry about with a completely new body to deal with and shiny brand-new functions it had no idea what to do with. But that word kept screaming, so the brain decided it had better listen, especially when it added the word coma.) And with it came the idea that she should seek shelter.

Looking around, her options were limited though, her log with all those juicy bugs in the hollow wouldn’t fit her any more, and that hurt almost as much as the tongue thing. That log had been good to her, but now, even with her best efforts, she didn’t seem to fit. But looking around her again, she noticed something. In the distance, there was smoke; apparently, the word hypothermia was now accompanied by the words town, and fire, and the new, very welcome sounding word, warm. All those new words seemed to think it was a good idea to go there.

Well, at least it was a direction, so Mibbit got unsteadily back on all fours, pointed herself towards town, and jumped, barely left the ground, stumbled over her long gangly and apparently now much less hoppy legs, and landed flat on her face in the mud. It would seem that another new feature of the day was the ability to give off the loudest sighs ever. (Hardly a fair swap, but it was welcome nonetheless in the circumstances.) Oh, today, could just go lick a slug. She struggled to get up, then slipped in the mud and face-planted again.

In fact, she thought with another slightly muddy and very grumpy sounding sigh, today could go lick all of the slugs.