..frog!" The narrator finished her sentence after a dramatic pause that felt like it had lasted far longer than it actually did.
James only had time to gulp in horror before the witch waved her hand in his direction and he disappeared into a cloud of thick, green smoke from which the Princess instinctively recoiled in fear. After a few moments it dispersed to reveal a rather ordinary, plump little frog squatting in the grass where James had been standing. There was nothing to suggest this lowly amphibian creature had ever been human.
The gorgeous young witch cackled triumphantly at her wicked deed while the Princess looked down pitifully at her transformed companion.
"Oh, James! Are you ok?" She spoke sympathetically.
"Ribbit! Hey, what happened?" a voice answered from the ground below "Why is everything so big? Ribbit!"
"Because you are a pathetic little frog now, you fool!" the witch cackled "And you will remain one until you receive a kiss from your true love!"
"Ok, you've had your fun. Now I order you to turn my friend back!" Penelope narrowed her eyes at the sorceress.
"I already told you, only a kiss from his true love can do that. But be warned, any girl who kisses your friend who he does not truly love will spend the rest of her life as a frog as well and we wouldn't want that!" the witch responded in a mock innocent voice while making an exaggerated display of examining her fingernails "Don't worry, I'll be back to have more fun with you both later though. Goodbye for now!"
As their tormentor vanished, Penelope squatted down next to James and looked him squarely in the eyes with a steely resolve "Don't worry, we'll fix this. My castle is home to one of the finest wizards in the land. We just need to get there first"
"Ribbit! What about the kiss? Ribbit!" James croaked back.
"You heard what she said. You would be putting any girl you kiss at risk of the same fate as you. Come on, the best wizards in the land reside at our castle."
"Ribbit, okay I guess" James agreed. But he knew that there was no wizard powerful enough to save him from the readers of this cursed book he was trapped in.
"And so..." a voice from above chimed in right on cue