Chapter Text
“Care to explain why my bathtub is full of frogs?”
The question, intriguing and ever so worrying as it was, sparked no reaction from Jackaby, who merely flipped to the next page of the leather-clad book on his desk.
It wasn’t the first time something like this had happened; Abigail had woken up to far stranger things, in fact. A box of glow-in-the-dark geckos at the foot of her bed, an albino bear cub with tusks clambering about on the kitchen counter-top. Jackaby always had some mysterious excuse for the creatures, and they’d disappeared within the hour -- she’d given up trying to pull some sort of explanation out of her employer.
However, being accustomed to such oddities appearing in the house didn’t make it any less weird to pull back her bathtub curtain to reveal the croaking amphibians, nearly twenty of them, all squashed up together.
“Sir?” Abigail pressed when she received no answer. Jackaby reluctantly lifted his head to meet her eyes, his brows furrowing together.
“Miss Rook?”
“I was wondering why my bathtub seems to currently be… inhabited.”
“Ah, yes. That.” Jackaby carefully closed his book and pushed it off to the side. He clasped his hands together on the top of the desk. “I believe one of them to be a man, I’m afraid. Not entirely sure which one -- it’s not as though you can exactly tell , and his aura, curiously, does not seem to differ from that of a regular frog.”
Abigail hesitated, pressing her lips into a thin line. “Okay. Why exactly are they in my bathtub?”
“Jenny said no, and mine, I’m afraid, is… being otherwise used. No room.”
Slowly, she shook her head. “What, exactly, makes you believe one of them is human?”
“That’s what the woman who dropped them off said in her note.” He leaned over to the hanger and pulled a thin envelope from the inside pocket of his coat. Abigail took it from him when he held it out to her and quickly scanned it over.
Mr. Jackaby,
My son, Jason, is currently analyzing the anatomy of frogs.
Whilst studying the specimens, he ran into a rather embarrassing mishap, which has landed him in his current predicament - that is, he himself is an amphibian.
All of the frogs look exactly the same, Jason included. Please return him to his regular form. I’m making apple pie, and I’m afraid that is the only payment I can offer - it is, however, a delicious pie.
Signed,
Adeline Smith
“That’s… unfortunate,” Abigail mumbled, handing the letter back to her employer, who in turn stuffed it back into his coat’s pocket.
Jackaby didn’t reply. Instead, he stood up, pushing his nest of black hair from his face and slipping into the dim hall, lit only by the sunlight streaming through the window at the far end. Abigail followed suit as her employer bounded enthusiastically up the winding staircase, skipping every other step.
They stopped at the bathroom door and Jackaby swung it open, revealing the mess inside. The frogs had escaped from their place inside the tub, no longer barricaded by the curtain. They were scattered across the floor, some huddling in the corner in a group, others frantically jumping around the room in a sorry attempt to escape.
Her towels and washcloths had been pulled down on the floor, and one of the larger, more slimy amphibians had taken a particular liking to her bar of soap. Abigail determinedly ignored the droppings the creatures had left across the floor.
Beside her, Jackaby cleared his throat and took in a deep breath, preparing himself. “The curtain was there for a reason,” he grumbled, glancing around the mess of the room.
“Maybe if you’d have told me for once,” she shot back, shaking her head miserably.
All she’d wanted was a bath.
Carefully, her employer knelt down and attempted to reach for one of the creatures, only for it to hop through the gap in his hands and across the room. It turned to look at him, and if Abigail didn’t know any better, she’d say it were taunting him.
“Damn,” he breathed, clumsily pulling himself to his feet. “This is troublesome… how quick are you, Miss Rook?”
Abigail sighed; this was going to take a while.