I was sitting in class when I first saw it.

Miss Weaver had been my teacher for a few months, and was known around Stagwood Elementary for the stack of black hair that rose a foot above her head. Before the school year started, I’d heard a few rumors about her, and within a week I realized that they were all true. For one thing, she did, in fact, wear the same outfit every day; the colors changed, but she always had on striped pants and a striped jacket. For another thing, she was mind-numbingly boring. It was the kind of boring that made your eyes shut without permission. The biggest problem, though, was the stories. She was obsessed with tales of former students who had become some kind of famous. The first couple of times weren’t bad, maybe even kind of interesting. But, by the second week of school she had started repeating herself, just like her outfits.

By then, I knew all the stories by heart. The professional football player who got excellent marks in Math. The State Senator who was a teacher’s pet. I knew every word. So, instead of trying my hardest to listen, I spent most of class drawing in my notebook.

Most days, I drew imaginary places and then spent the rest of the time whipped up creatures to live there. They’d have horns where horns don’t go, fur where scales should be, and all the wings. They were odd. And they each had a story that I wanted to tell. But, on that day, I never even got to the first pair of wings. I had barely gotten started when it appeared, and changed Stagwood, and me, forever.

If it had chosen to press its little green face against any other window, I might not have seen it. And if I hadn’t been trying to decide whether my dragon should have four legs or two, I might not have looked out window at that exact moment, dropping my pencil on the page.

It was a frog. And it was staring right at me.

I couldn’t stop looking at the frog and it...