Chapter 10: Part 1: Chapter 10: Family Shrub

One day while hanging out inside the house, Frank and Anne were asked to help the Plantars with a little family project they had going on. Making the family shrub, which was this world's version of a family tree.

"Thanks for helping us with this, guys," Sprig said as Frank placed glue on the shrub and Anne set the next Plantar family member on it. "Making this a real drag."

"Oh, come on, Sprig, it's interesting to learn about your family," Frank said as he placed down the bug-shaped glue bottle. "If it weren't for my family tree, I wouldn't have learned about my great grandfather being a fighter pilot."

"He was?" Anne asked.

"Oh yeah. Back in World War 2, great-grandpa Rico flew the F6F Hellcat, one of the greatest fighter planes of all time," Frank said with a smile. He placed glue on another part of the shrub.

Anne placed the next family member on the glue before turning to Hop Pop. "You know, Hop Pop, back home we call this a family tree," she said.

"That's 'cause everyone in your world is crazy," Hop Pop said before read opening his book. "Now, where was I? Hmm. Oh, yes, Great Aunt Gertrude. She was a masterful dirt tiller. I mean, how cool is that?"

"Eh," said everyone else, not finding that to be all that interesting.

"Oh, and you can't forget second cousin Alfred. He was the king!" Hop Pop exclaimed.

This got everyone's attention. "A king?" They asked.

"As in a royal king," asked Frank.

"Nope! But he was the king of single-tiered irrigation systems," Hop Pop explained, showing them a picture of his cousin.

The excitement that was present in the kids disappeared as they groaned. "Yep, you lost me," Anne said.

"Our ancestors were boring!" Polly complained.

"Were they really all just farm frogs?" Sprig asked. "Where are the artists? The poets? The dreamers?"

"They never left the farm," Frank said.

"'Just farm frogs?'" Hop Pop spoke with an offended frown. "Kids, the point of the shrub is to give you an appreciation for your past. The Plantar family has layers. You just have to know where to look."

"Layers, huh? Okay, then. Well, what's so special about her?" Anne asked, pointing to a rather young-looking female frog.

"Polliana? Oh, brace yourselves," Hop Pop said, with Polly becoming very interested. "She wasn't just any farmer. She was a turnip farmer!"

All the kids groaned. "And that turned off my excitement," Frank said, setting down the glue and walking over to the couch with Anne.

"Welp, as much as I'd love to help, not gonna find any of my ancestors on your shrub, so…" Anne pulled out her phone, as did Frank. The two started playing games, with Anne playing a Tetris-like game called Slacker Stackers

"Don't have to be blood to be a Plantar, Anne," Hop Pop said.

"No, but you do have to be a master stacker to get to level 46. If I can just…" Anne tried to best the game, only to lose when the sudden death round began. She groaned. "Curse you, sudden death round! Why you so hard?"

"Isn't that kind of…" Frank trailed off when his game suddenly started to become difficult and he tried to keep up with it, only to die a moment later. "Noooo!"

"Kids, this is based on nothing at all, but I'm almost certain that game will rot your brain!" Hop Pop said with a disapproving look.

"Hop Pop, video games are actually really beneficial and can improve your cognitive abilities," Frank explained.

Hop Pop rolled his eyes, not believing the young boy and tried to place some glue on a name tag. However, nothing came out when he squeezed the bottle. "Uh-oh, looks like we're out of glue!"

"Does that mean we have to stop?" Sprig asked as he and his sister perked up with excitement.

"Can we do something fun now?" Polly asked.

"No fun till the shrub's done," Hop Pop said, walking towards the door. "Just gonna run to the store real quick and get more glue. Be back in a jiffy." He opened the door and walked out with a hum. But then he quickly came back and pointed at the kids. "Don't go anywhere!"

When the door closed again, the frog kids let out groans. "Ah! You're lucky you're an outsider, Anne. Our family history is weak," Polly said.

"They didn't do anything weird. Or different. Or fun," Sprig complained.

"I'm sure some of them did something interesting," Frank said as he continued playing his game.

"Oh sure." Sprig rolled his eyes, before jumping over on top of the fireplace and pointing to a frog painting that looked just like American Gothic. "I mean, look at this. Even this painting's making me feel depressed," he said, placing a hand on the center of the painting.

However, his hand pressed in that section of the painting and activated a mechanism within the walls. "What the... Whoa!" Sprig was knocked off the ledge of the fireplace when the painting turned on its side.

"Sprig!" Frank exclaimed as he and Anne leaped off the couch.

"You broke the house!" Polly exclaimed.

The fireplace lifted up into the ceiling and a dark secret passage opened up. Leading down into a dark hallway that looked to have not been traveled down in years. The passage looked to have been dug out of the earth, judging by the walls that were made from dirt, rocks, and the roots of trees and plants.

"Whoa," Frank and Anne said together as they peered down into the darkness of the passageway.

"Oh, wow. This looks unsafe," Anne said. "We have to go down there!"

"Wait, what?!" Frank said, looking at her like she was crazy. "You want to go down into the dark and scary

"There could be treasure!" Sprig said with excitement.

"Or dead bodies! Let's do it!" Polly yelled.

"I don't know, guys. It looks really dangerous - just kidding, we're going down there!" Frank said with a grin.

He grabbed a nearby lantern and the group started walking down into the secret passageway. However, just a little way into the underground staircase, the door suddenly closed behind them.

"Uh, did we just get locked in here?" Sprig asked.

Dropping the lantern, Frank rushed over to the sealed door and tried pushing it open, but it wouldn't budge. "We're locked in!"

"Oh no. No, no, no!" Anne rushed over and tried banging on the stone entrance. "Help! Wait!"

"Let us out!" Sprig shouted.

Anne turned to Frank and grabbed him by his shoulders. "What are we going to do!?" She asked, shaking him.

"Come on," said Polly, holding the lantern. "Let's just find another way out, you babies."

Anne and Sprig looked to Frank, wondering what he wanted to do. "We can't just stay here. Let's go," he said.

The group kept close together as they ventured down into the hallway. Frank pulled out his knife to defend them from anything that attacked while Anne held the lantern. They soon reached a chamber and they were amazed by what they found in it. This was a laboratory with a large table, a workbench filled with shattered papers, and a shelf that had glass jars with strange objects in them.

"Whoa. You guys had a lab under your house?" Frank asked, looking around in amazement as they explored the room.

Anne walked over to the shelf with Polly in her arm. She whipped her hand on the shelf, kicking up dust that got in her face. "Oh, there's dust everywhere," she commented.

"This place is amazing," said Sprig with wonder in his eyes. He walked over to one of the shelves and looked at all the glass jars. "Whoa!"

He jumped on the table and spotted a lever. "Oh, what this?" Sprig pulled the lever, and the table launched him up into the air. Frank caught him before he could land on his head.

Sprig looked at a sign that said 'SCIENCE! More science'. "Wow!"

"Hey, why do you think the entrance was hidden like that?" Polly asked, looking at a jar.

"To keep it a secret, obviously," said Sprig, looking at some notes. "Who wouldn't want to steal this stuff?"

Frank walked over to where Anne was. She tapped a glass jar, only for the vegetable inside it to turn and show its hideous face that made the Thai girl shudder. "Uh, me, me. I don't wanna steal this stuff," she said, pointing to herself.

"Yeah," said Frank backing away from the shelf. "Whose lab is this anyway?

"It says here this place belonged to Great Uncle Skip Plantar. He was a farmer and a brilliant scientist!" Sprig said, showing the others a picture of his and Polly's great uncle and some of his notes. One of them showed a pumpkin and a brain. "He experimented with all kinds of stuff. This is wild. I wanna know more! Like, what does this do?" Sprig pulled a lever.

Everyone went stiff when they heard a mechanism activated. A gate on the far side of the room swung open, and two large arms made of entangled vines swung out and dug their claws into the floor. A glowing sound could be heard before a very large, mutated pumpkin came out of the cage. It had a short, thick stem and a large orange leaf protruding from the top of its head. It had two slits across its front resembling eyes and a large mouth cut in the shape similar to a jack-o-lantern's with green slime dribbling continuously from it.

The mutated pumpkin growled as it approached the kids, stopping a few feet from them. Frank, Anne, Sprig, and Polly stared at it with wide eyes and jaws hanging as it breathed heavily.

"Whoa, mama," Polly said.

"Maybe it's harmless," Sprig said.

The mutant suddenly roared at them. The kids all screamed as it spread the green slime all over them. It raised its arm and swung at them with its claws, but the four jumped back and out of the way of the attack.

"Alright you pumpkin bastard, you ready to be made into a pie?!" Frank yelled, pulling out his knife and getting ready to attack.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on a minute." Sprig quickly stopped him before turning towards the pumpkin. "There may be another way."

He then hopped towards the pumpkin. "Sprig, don't go near it!" Frank exclaimed.

"Dude, what are you doing?" Anne exclaimed.

"Yeah, that pumpkin will squash you," Polly said.

But Sprig approached the pumpkin, which noticed him. The little frog held up his arms to try and calm down the monster. "There, there. Easy does it," he said in a calm voice. The mutant growled and chomped its jaws.

But to the creature's surprise, Sprig shushed it and gave it a hug. "There, there, you beautiful, disgusting thing," he said as the monster smiled happily.

Frank, Anne, and Polly watched the odd display of love with blank expressions. "What is happening?" Anne asked.

"I don't know, but I hate it," said Frank.

"That's right, Mama Sprig is here," Sprig said motherly as the mutant chuckled. "Oh, you horrible, horrible, sweet boy."

However, his expression changed, and he whispered. "Forgive me."

Sprig suddenly pushed the pumpkin back before jumping up. He grabbed onto the gate and brought it down onto the monster's head. Crushing it in an explosion of green slime. The mutant's arms twitched slightly before falling silent.

Frank, Anne, and Polly approached the young frog, looking rather stunned at his actions. "Sprig, that...that ice cold," Frank said, a little startled by the frog having more mercy in killing the pumpkin

"Love is the cruelest weapon," explained Sprig.

"Agreed. Now let's get out of here before something else happens," Anne said.

But that's when the floor beneath them crack. Before they could react, the floor collapsed, and the four landed on the hard ground in another chamber. They all groaned in pain before sitting up.

"You guys okay?" Anne asked, rubbing the back of her head.

"Yep," Frank said, standing up.

"More or less," Polly said.

"Yeah... ow!" The lantern bounced off Sprig's head and landed in Polly's hands.

"Oh, cool, our lantern," she said before they noticed their new surroundings.

To their amazement, they had landed inside of an armory, with swords, axes, maces, shields, and various other melee weapons hanging from the walls. Polly's wides widened as she hopped around.

"This is heaven." She then gasped when she noticed a painting on the wall and hopped over to it.

The painting showed a rather familiar-looking female frog that was wearing battle armor and holding a sword. But under it was a plack that said PolliAnna.

"This is the same Polliana from Hop Pop's shrub!" Polly exclaimed in amazement. "She wasn't just a turnip farmer. She was a turnt up warrior!"

"Wow," Frank said as he looked around at all the weapons on the walls. However, he stopped when he noticed something on the wall. Something that caught his interest.

Walking over to the wall, Frank approached a hand-and-a-half sword that was tucked away in its sheath. The sword had a bronze handguard that was in the shape of a V with three red gemstones. One in the middle, and two on the ends. The grip was wrapped in leather for a comfortable grip and ended with a bronze pommel. Under it was a heater shield, which bared a frog's foot symbol.

Reaching out for the sword first, Frank lifted it off the hangers. Its weight was perfect and it was just the right size for Frank. Pulling it out of its scabbard, Frank was amazed by how easily it came out in a single motion and saw that the silver blade had not accumulated any rust.

"Now that's a sword," he said with a smile as he sheathed the sword and looped the scabbard's belt around his waist before grabbing the shield. The shield was nice and sturdy, but surprisingly light as well.

Placing the shield on his back. with its strap going across his chest. Frank walked back over to Anne and Sprig with his new toys. "Hey, check it out. I found her diary," said Sprig, grabbing Pollianna's diary from a pile of junk.

The red frog opened it and the three friends looked inside of it as Polly played around with some of the weapons. "The Bogwater Wars of '48. The Western Toad invasion of '53. Man, she was in a lot of battles," Anne said, impressed.

"She was the coolest, most terrifying Plantar ever. Like me!" Polly said, holding a flail.

"Wow, we sure are learning a lot. I'd like to learn more. Like, hey, what does this do?" Sprig ran over and grabbed another lever before giving it a pull.

Suddenly, a suit of armor came to life and swung its axe at Sprig. Frank sprung into action and blocked the ax with his shield and then sliced it with his sword. Cutting the armor in two before it broke apart.

But the lever didn't just do that. Down the hallway that led to the exit, the suits of armor lined the walls started chopping up and down their axes, as spears thrusted down from the ceiling. Then two giant mallets smashed into each other, before a large Pendulum of Death swung down and a pair of buzzsaw crossed the floor.

"Damnit, Sprig! Will you please stop pulling levers?" Anne exclaimed.

"Levers are for pulling, Anne!" Sprig yelled. They quickly dodged a large mace.

"Why would Pollianne install a death trap down here?" Frank exclaimed.

Anne looked back at the diary and found the page that explains it. "Says here this is Polliana's training simulator," she said, not noticing a cluster of darts flying at her.

Frank quickly got in front of her and used his shield to block the darts. "Well, how do we turn it off," he asked, knocking the darts that stuck to his shield with his sword.

"The shut-off switch is by the exit on the other side," Anne said pointing to the switch, which would have been easy to get to it wasn't on the other said of the training simulator.

"Okay, we can do this," Sprig as he, Frank, and Anne got ready to jump into the fray. "We just gotta go very slowly-"

Polly suddenly burst past they while shouting and swinging her flail.

"POLLY!" The humans and red frog yelled.

But to their absolute astonishment, Polly ran through the course like it was nothing. Dodging all the obstacles and smashing all the suits of armor while laughing with maniacal glee. Frank, Anne, and Sprig stared at her with wide eyes in complete and total bewilderment.

Once she was done, Polly went over to the switch and shut off the training course with her flail. "Well, That was intense," Anne said as she and the others joined the polliwog.

"Yeah, you were awesome, Polly," Frank said.

"Thanks. So, you guys wanna do it again?" Polly asked, reaching for the lever.

"Nope, nope, nope, nope." Frank, Anne, and Sprig said as they grabbed Polly and hastily made their way out of the chamber.

They walked down the dug out tunnel with Anne holding the lantern and Frank following behind her with his sword and shield ready. It wouldn't be long before they came across another chamber.

"Oh, wow. Can you believe it? Another mysterious hidden chamber," Polly said, less then enthused by this one. This chamber was filled with maps, paintings, drawings, and game boxes that were placed in stacks around the room.

"Oh, cool! This place is filled with games and puzzles," Anne said as she looked at some of the games. Frank sheathed his sword and picked up a game, which looked exactly like operation, but with frogs instead of humans.

"Just like science class," he said with an amused smirk.

"Let's see if we can find which Plantar this stuff belonged to," Anne said grabbing a book and sitting down as Frank and the frog kids gathered around her. It showed a family that looked oddly like theirs, but with two key differences. The two Newts that were with them, both bearing a striking resemblance to Anne and Frank with the way their hairs were.

"Emma and Cody the Newts? Honorary Plantars?" Frank read before Anne flipped through some pages.

"Hey, check this out. They traveled all over the place, collected all this cool stuff, fell in love, got married, and settled with the Plantars. They weren't even frogs!" Anne said in amazement.

"Wow, so cool," Sprig said.

Frank kneed down next to Anne and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Anne, do you realize what this means?" He spoke in a whisper.

"I guess even outsiders like us can be Plantars," Anne said.

"Oh, guys. Looks like you've solved the puzzle...of your own heart," Sprig said with sparkling eyes.

"Wow, thanks, buddy." Anne and Frank hugged the red frog and each other.

"No, thank you, buddies," Sprig said, almost about to cry happily.

"Hey!" Polly yelled, breaking the moment of friendship with the more pressing matter at hand. "How about we solve the puzzle of getting the heck out of here!"

"Oh, we think the exit is that way," Anne said, pointing in the direction of the exit.

"Oh."

The four kids walked over to a strange-looking door. It didn't have any handles or looked like any door that they'd seen before. What it did have were square sections and square tiles with some having a different symbol.

"What kind of door is this?" Frank asked, looking at it with a raised eyebrow.

"I don't know," Sprig said, before trying to push it open. However, it wouldn't budge. "It's locked."

Anne looked at the door and squinted her eyes. The design was strangely familiar, she just didn't know where she's seen it. "Maybe it's a puzzle we have to solve," guessed Frank with his hand on the sword's pommel.

"Maybe I can smash it. Hiyah!" Polly swung her flail at the door, only for it to bounce off the surface. She didn't even leave a scratch. "Well, that didn't work."

"WE'RE GONNA DIE DOWN HERE!" Sprig yelled, jumping up and flailing his arms around.

"Wait a second," said Anne as she pulled out her phone. Opening the game that she was playing before, she held it up and gasped. "Frank, you're right! This isn't just a door. It's a puzzle!"

"Think you can solve it?" Frank asked.

"Definitely," she said, walking up to the door and cracking her knuckles. "All right, let's do this." With lightning-fast hands, Anne assembled the squares in the correct positions with ease. "There, I did it!"

There was a sudden rumbling as the chamber trembled violently. They looked up and saw spikes extending from the ceiling, before it started slowly descending on the four.

"Sprig!" Frank yelled accusingly.

"What?! I didn't pull a lever!" Sprig exclaimed, holding up his hands.

"Oh, no! I know what this is," Anne said in a panic as she glanced down at her phone's screen. "It's the sudden death round!"

Seeing more squares sliding down the surface of the door, Frank quickly rushed over and started placing them in the right order. "Alright, let's do this," he said.

"What are you doing?" Anne asked.

"You couldn't finish the sudden death round, so we'll do it together," Frank said urgently, prompting Anne to quickly join them. Together, they worked as one. Sliding the shapes into the correct order to save themselves and Sprig and Polly. The ceiling was almost upon them, breaking down the stacks of game boxes.

"Guys, no pressure, but we're gonna die," Sprig said urgently as he held his sister.

"Almost... there!" Frank and Anne exclaimed simultaneously as they placed the last piece of the puzzle in place together.

That's then the door finally opened.

"Woo hoo!" They cheered together.

"We did it! Take that, Hop Pop. Who's brain is rotten now, sucker?" Anne exclaimed as the ceiling was now upon them, making them bend their necks.

"Time to go!" Frank grabbed her and jumped out of the chamber with Sprig and Polly before the ceiling crushed them.

Now safe and sound, the four of them breathed a sigh of relief. "We had your family history all wrong, guys," Anne said with a smile. "The Plantars weren't just farmers."

"Nope, they were twisted," said Sprig.

"More like demented!" Frank exclaimed, having enough of the Plantar family's oddities and traps.

"Yeah, they were pretty cool," Polly said. "Now, can we finally find a way out of here?"

"Yeah," Sprig said, before noticing another lever hanging over his head. "And I think I know how…."

"Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope." Frank, Anne, and Polly grabbed him and quickly walked away from the lever.

When Hop Pop came back to the house, he was completely exhausted. One simple trip to the shop to grab some glue for the family shrub turned into a disaster when he tripped and spilled all of Loggle's glue all over himself. After what had to be hours of cleaning himself off, he was happy to be back home.

However, just after he stepped into the house, the grandfather clock suddenly turned around in a complete turn, ejecting Frank, Anne, and his grandkids out of the wall and onto the floor.

All four of them breathed heavily before Anne noticed Hop Pop. "Hop Pop! We found those Plantar family layers you were talking about."

"Eh? Found them?" Hop Pop asked, pulling dried glue off his skin. "Kids, I wasn't being literal."

"No, she's right!" Frank said with a big grin on his face. "There's a bunch of secret chambers under the house and we explored them all."

"There was a moving fireplace," Anne added.

"Secret rooms!" Polly exclaimed.

"Crazy science lab," Sprig said.

"Family heirlooms!"

"New weapons!"

"Turnip with a face."

"Family's amazing!"

"Actually proud to be a Plantar."

"Games don't rot your brain!"

"I have a sword and shield!"

"Secret rooms? Full of Plantar family heirlooms?" Hop Pop exclaimed with wide eyes as a smile spread across his face. "Why, this is incredible! And most importantly, once again, I was right."

The kids rushed over to the family shrub and started getting back to work on it. However, this time, they wrote down everything that they learned in the chambers. "Our ancestors were the most amazing scientist, warrior, farmers ever!" Polly exclaimed.

"Everyone needs to know," Sprig said.

"Well, I want to see these rooms, too!" Hop Pop said.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on there, Hop Pop. That's not a good idea," Anne said.

"You can't go down there all by yourself," Frank said. "They're full of traps and super hard but satisfying puzzles."

"Oh, and there was a pumpkin abomination! A real affront to nature," Sprig said. "I loved it! And then betrayed it." He said that last sentence in a dark tone.

Polly then commented: "No offense, but I'm not sure you could handle it."

Hop Pop laughed at them. "You have no idea what I can or can't handle. What do you say, Loggle? Up for another adventure?" He asked the axolotl, before turning around to reveal Loggle glued to his back.

"Absolutely...NOOOOOOOT!" Loggle screamed as he was carried away by Hop Pop running into the secret passage.

"Hop Pop, no!" Anne called out to him, but it was too late.

"Should we go help them?" Sprig asked, before ominous noises and the sounds of the two frogs screaming for help could be heard from down in the secret rooms.

"Yeah, probably," Polly said, pulling out her flail and swinging it around. Frank pulled out his sword and led the charge back into the secret chambers.

TEENS IN A FROG WORLD!

A mole squeaks before it dodges Sprig's mallet.

"Nuts." Sprig says knowing he missed. The mole comes up and Frank tries to hit it, but the mole escapes.

"Shit!" Frank curses.

"Hey guys," Anne says coming in and bending over. "What you doing?"

"Ugh! Pest problem." Sprig tells her "This guy's ruining our crops!"

"Not for long, keep your eyes peeled." Frank says as he and Sprig ready their mallets. The mole then comes up from different holes like a whack-a-mole. Sprig misses and so does Frank. Anne then takes Sprig's mallet.

"Step aside, boys." She says while pushing Sprig away "Back home, I was the whack-a-mole champ." She gets on her knees and waits for the mole to come up. It squeaks and Anne strikes.

"Pow!" Anne says as she hits the mole, causing it to dive back into the ground.

"Hey! You got him!" Sprig praises.

"Yeah! Suck it mole!" Frank shouts.

"I hope I didn't hit the little guy to hard." Anne says. Sprig chuckles before saying.

"Little?" The ground shakes as more moles come up being red and angry. Before being revealed as a bigger mole with the tiny moles as its fingers, hair and nose. The kids scream and run away, while the mole creature roars.