Skonk frowned and shook his head. “How in the world does he get the ladies with a personality like that?”
I cocked my head and glanced at the toad. “How can you see his personality?”
Skonk straightened and rubbed his chin.
“Well, by the type of toad he is. Not everyone who gets turned into a toad looks like…that.” Skonk looked at me as if the answer should be obvious.
Stella appeared behind us, took one look, and sighed deeply. “Yikes.”
Keegan leaned closer, studying the creature with narrowed eyes. “Come to think of it, he does look… familiar.”
And I knew Keegan was loving every second of this, considering what he’d witnessed over the years from afar.
“Not helping,” I told him, hiding my grin.
Celeste shifted awkwardly. “For the record, he was fine when he got to campus.”
I stared at her. “Define fine.”
“He was grumbling,” she said. “Which is his baseline, as you know. He insisted on walking me to the bus stop because he suddenly decided he couldn’t drive me to Stonewick. Some hot date swiped right since his last twenty-year-old girlfriend dumped him, and then he just gets all…weird.”
I kept my expression emotionless.
“Anyway, he complained about the town I was in, the cost of my tuition… and you.’”
The toad puffed up.
“He never learns,” I muttered.
Celeste continued, “But I told him I didn’t want to take the bus, and his flavor of the week could wait until he drove me to see my mom. And then he looked at me like I was the weird one, which made me so mad.”
That’s my girl.
Stella and the goblins chuckled, while the toad didn’t look amused.
“He started to put up a fuss, but some sort of decency must have seeped into his thick head, and we started back to the car so he could drive me here, but then things got weird.”
“And then he said something about you and living so far away, and the next thing I know, we were sitting in the car and…” She looked at her dad.
The toad croaked loudly.
“And then?” I asked carefully.
“And then,” she said, “there was a flash, a weird hum, and suddenly he was… shorter.”
Keegan frowned just so he wouldn’t laugh. I could see it in his eyes.
“I’m sorry, honey,” I said miserably. “I don’t know how I managed to turn your father into a toad.”
The toad hopped forward, clearly intending to enter the Academy.
The charms flared instantly.
The toad bounced back with a softplop.
Stella nodded approvingly. “The Academy has excellent taste.”
The toad croaked, deeply offended.
