Chapter 87 : A Port Tour with a Frog
Before the clerk can fetch the chairman’s son, I turn to the frog.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, my voice dropping to a whisper. “I didn’t mean to leave you like this. It’s just… you were looking at me like I was some kind of freak for being a witch, and I kind of lost my temper. But the deal for my lumber… it’s off now, isn’t it?”
I feel a knot of panic tighten in my chest.
Haste makes waste, Selina always says.
Well, this is more than waste. This is a total disaster.
I gently scoop the frog into the wicker basket I use for collecting eggs.
He sits there, his little throat puffing in and out. Thinking, frog-style.
“Ribbit, ribbit, ribbit!” he croaks. The deal is a separate matter!
I blink in surprise.
Huh. I guess a merchant is still a merchant, even when he’s green and slimy. And a dedicated one, at that.
“You mean you’ll still buy from me?”
If it were me, I’d want to be on a different continent from the person who turned me into an amphibian.
“Ribbit, ribbit, bit!” he insists. I’ll lose money otherwise!
“That’s… surprisingly professional,” I murmur. “Guess that’s what you’d expect from the chairman of a huge company.”
“Ribbit, ribbit.” He sounds almost smug. Better than being a pig.
My eyes go wide. “A pig? Did Selina turn you into a pig?”
“Ribbit, ribbit, ribbit, ribbit!” he cries, practically vibrating with indignation. She was going to turn me into roast pork!
Okay, fair point. People might eat frogs, but a pig is definitely more of a main course. That’s a whole other level of danger.
“Right,” I say, trying to sound reassuring. “Okay. As soon as we finish our tour of the port, I promise I’ll change you right back.”
I give the basket a little pat just as a young man with sharp green hair walks into the room.
He looks to be in his late twenties, and handsome in a way that makes me wonder if the chairman looked like that when he was young.
Or maybe his wife was just really pretty?
“I heard the Chairman was looking for me,” he says, his eyes scanning the office.
“I’m Zoe,” I introduce myself. “I’ll be selling lumber to your company. I told the Chairman I needed to see what lengths of timber you require, and he said you could give me a tour of the port and the shipyard.”
He gives me a skeptical look that says, You?
“And where is the Chairman?”
I can’t exactly tell him his father is currently contemplating his life choices from inside my egg basket.
“Beats me,” I say with a shrug. “Probably busy. Anyway, could you please hurry up and show me around?”
I need to get this over with. What if the chairman eats a fly? I’m pretty sure that would be a deal-breaker.
I know I wouldn’t be able to forgive it.
Gary’s gaze lingers on me, and I can feel him sizing me up.
He’s looking down on me, just like his dad. Because I’m a kid.
I take a deep breath and remind myself not to turn him into a frog, too.
“If it’s an order from the Chairman, I suppose I have no choice.”
Whew. So even his son calls him “Chairman.” The Marshall Trading Company is a seriously formal place.
The port is a short walk away.
“So… what’s with the frog?” Gary asks, eyeing my basket.
A girl in a black witch’s robe carrying a frog in a basket. Yeah, I probably look about as suspicious as it gets.
“He’s my pet,” I declare.
Gary takes a small step away from me. He’s definitely embarrassed to be seen with me.
The port is bustling. Huge ships are moored along the docks while smaller boats zip between them, ferrying cargo back and forth.
“Wow, the sea!” I say, my eyes wide. “But what’s with that giant wall?”
The city of Alina is ringed by a high, semicircular wall, and it looks like the port is, too. There’s a gap out to the open sea, but the rest is completely enclosed.
“That’s a defensive wall,” Gary explains. “Keeps out sea monsters and pirates. We open that section during the day and close it up at night.”
Sea monsters? Seriously? I had no idea.
“Pirates, too?”
Gary’s face darkens, and in my basket, the chairman starts croaking frantically.
“Alina City thrives on trade with the southeastern islands,” he says.
The textbooks Selina brought from her family are all from the Kingdom of Sarina and pretty old, so this is all new to me. “Oh, right. Of course.”
“You really don’t know anything, do you?”
Okay, now I’m wishing I’d turned him into a frog instead of his dad. What a condescending jerk.
But he’s a business partner, so I bite my tongue.
“I heard you handle lumber,” I say, changing the subject. “Is it for shipbuilding?”
It doesn’t really matter to me what they use it for. I’m just trying to stop the Great Forest from swallowing our cottage.
Though the money would be nice, too.
“It can be for construction or furniture, that’s fine. But shipbuilding is a big industry here, so I figured I should see the shipyard.”
I just want to know what kind of lumber sells for the most. I have a feeling the wood from the Treants will fetch a good price, but I’ve already got a mountain of regular logs piled up.
Gary seems to accept my explanation and leads me toward a massive building.
“The Marshall Shipyard?” I read the sign. “Is this part of the company, too?”
He puffs out his chest. “Technically, it’s a separate company, but the Chairman founded it. He started out just selling lumber, but he realized that if we built better ships, our trade would be safer.”
The frog in my basket tries to puff out his chest, too, but just ends up tipping over.
I set him upright again. “Wow, your dad is amazing.”
“Ribbit, ribbit, bit!” he croaks proudly. I worked hard!
“The Chairman built this company from nothing in a single generation,” Gary says, his voice a little softer now. “I have to inherit it all and make it even bigger, but…”
Oh. So he’s not just an arrogant rich kid. He’s got his own second-generation anxieties.
“Ribbit, ribbit, bit!” the chairman adds. He’s doing his best!
It’s actually kind of sweet, seeing this parent-child affection. The parents who abandoned me could learn a thing or two.
Inside the shipyard, a massive ship is under construction, its wooden skeleton arching toward the ceiling.
“I see,” I say, my mind racing. “So you need really long timbers… I don’t know if we can even transport them. All the wood we have now is cut to fit our wagon.”
I ask to see one of their lumber wagons.
“This is completely different!” I exclaim when he shows me. “Oh, Selina…”
The wagon Selina bought was for hauling vegetables. These things are easily twice as long, with extra wheels.
“I’ll have to build a new wagon from scratch,” I mutter.
Six wheels, heavy-duty axles…
I can already feel the money flying out of my pockets.