Food. I didn't know if my wooden body was capable of consuming it, but I wanted it. All of it. Greasy potato chips, a footlong hot dog, a liter of pop. I wasn't picky. By my count, it had been...hmmm let's see...thirty-seven plus twenty-five, carry the one...a whole hour since I ate last. A man could only withstand so much torture.

I thumped my head against the mast, groaning at the dull thud of wood smacking wood. I'd caught a glimpse of my reflection in a puddle on the deck ten minutes earlier. My skin was covered in dark circles, like knots left behind by tree branches. My hair had grown rough and dark, like bark on a walnut tree. My skin was lighter, resembling oak, or maybe maple. Only my eyes were unchanged. Blue as the ocean, my dad always said, but nowhere near as deep.

I shifted my weight, stretching my legs. My limbs were stiff (obviously), and moving them made me feel clumsy. Like a baby learning to walk.

Wooden legs, pirates on the river, and my sister was kidnapped. Could this get any worse?

My stomach growled.

Apparently, yes.

But at least the dragons hadn't eaten me...yet.

I scoffed. Dragons. What next? Dwarfs? Talking animals?

"Hi there!"

My head snapped up. I scanned the deck, finding nothing.

"Hey! Over here!"

I had to be hallucinating. I needed to eat something; that was it. Once I got some food in me, I could find Mia and –

"Are you stupid? Look down here!"

Feeling like an idiot, I obeyed. But the deck was empty except for a knife and a lighter, both of which probably belonged to Sal and had been conveniently left on a table out of reach just to taunt me. Jagoff.

Something slimy touched my hand. "Back here, you moron."

The mast bumped my head as I struggled to turn around. And there, sitting on my wrist, was a fat green frog.

"Hi!"

Hallucinating. Definitely hallucinating. That thing did not just talk. My arms ached as I reached blindly behind me to capture it. Talking frog or not, I'd just found a food source.

"Whoa, buddy, I'm not a stripper. Keep your hands to yourself!"

I was mad with hunger. Seeing red. I didn't think twice when my bonds fell away. I crawled across the deck, falling on my stomach as the ship tilted portside. The knife and lighter fell off the table into my outstretched hand.

The frog's bulbous yellow eyes blinked. "Dude, think about this. I just saved your shiny wooden ass."

Still hallucinating. But eating would fix that. I had frog legs once when Mom went on a foreign food binge. They weren't half bad.

The frog jumped when I lunged. My hand-eye coordination was awful, but somehow I managed to pin one webbed foot to the deck. I clicked the lighter. The frog shied away as the flame neared its back.

It exploded.

No, not like that. Not in a mess of blood and guts or anything. But it grew. In two seconds, the frog went from a slimy, green amphibian to – poof! – a not slimy, but still green, girl.

A really cute girl. With curly red hair and yellowish, hazel eyes. But her skin was still as green as a traffic light.

Then again, my skin had turned to wood, so I didn't have room to talk. We were a match made in heaven, the green girl and I. Until she slapped me across the face.

"That was for touching me without permission," she said. "And for not even bothering to thank me for rescuing you." She held out the rusty screw she'd used to sever the rope. "I'd give you another one for trying to eat me, but in the end you broke my curse so...thanks, I guess."

"Your...curse?"

"You're quite slow, aren't you? I gathered that." She gave me an artificially cheerful smile, like she thought I was a total dunce, and slowly enunciated, "Thank...you...for...help...ing...me. What...is...your...name?"

"Uh...Leo. You don't need to do that. I can understand you fine."

Green Girl shrugged and held out her hand. She wore a dirty brown smock. Her fingers and toes were webbed. "I'm Corinne. Nice to meet you, Leonard."

I cringed upon hearing my full name. "It's Leo."

"Which would be short for Leonard, wouldn't it?"

I wanted to say no, but I found the truth pushing its way out instead.

"Yes." But the last person (besides my mother) who called me that was Billy Simmons in kindergarten. He made fun of my name. I made fun of his butt after pulling down his pants during recess. An even trade.

My classmates never dared to call me Leonard again.

Corinne studied me, a hint of a smile on her lips. "Then Leonard it is."

I wanted to scream. I needed to distract myself.

"So...I broke your curse by nearly killing you?"

"Good guess, but no. I think fire is the key. Whether that be literal fire or the fiery passion of true love's first kiss." She rolled her eyes. "The curse isn't picky."

"Some curse."

She laughed. "Yeah, well, the witch who cast the spell didn't include enough clauses. Not that I'm complaining, but she was a total dud. She was also an unpaid intern, and you know how unreliable their work ethic can be sometimes."

"Sure...?" I wondered if getting rid of my wooden feet would be as easy as chopping down a tree or something. "Listen, Corinne, you gotta help me. My sister's missing, I can't tell lies, I've turned into a tree stump –"

"You're cursed?"

And she thought I was an idiot.

"You can never be too sure," she continued. "We get all kinds in Pittsborough. Hmmm...let's see..." She knelt beside me. "Hold still a sec."

If I was still human, my heart would have raced as she neared. I might have sweat a little. I would have curled my fingers into her hair, holding her close while my breath fanned out across her cheeks.

But I didn't know what I was anymore. And so there was no throbbing heart. No sweaty skin. My rough wooden fingers stayed clenched in my lap as she quickly, but firmly, pressed her mouth to mine.

Nothing happened.

"Huh." She pulled back. "Definitely no kissing clause. What did the witch get you for anyway? Vanity? Greed?"

"What?" The contrast between her bright red hair and bright green skin was awfully distracting. "No, there was no witch. I showed up like this."

"I don't follow."

Anger bubbled inside me. "I'm not from here! I'm from Pittsburgh. Not borough or whatever. We have sports where I'm from, not magic."

"Oh!" Her eyes widened in understanding. "You're from an alternate universe! Why didn't you say so? We've had your kind before. The last guy who passed through didn't make it out before his time was up. He's living in the Enchanted Sewickley Forest now."

My anger turned to dread. "What do you mean 'before his time was up'?"

"Well, if past experience is any indication, you have until midnight to return home or else you're stuck here." She said it so simply. You're stuck here. Just like: Yes, I'd love fries with that.

Three hours. I had three hours to get home.

"I can't be stuck. My sister's kidnapped, and Mom's making pot roast." Did Mom even know we were missing? Dad was likely too busy watching baseball to notice.

"No biggie," Corinne said. "I'll help you find her. Where'd you last see her?"

"Right here! The pirates said she was a princess and they took her to the Queen."

She paled. "Oh."

"Oh? Just oh? Can't you, like, take me to the castle so I can get her back?"

"The Queen" – she sighed – "doesn't live in a castle. She lives in an office building. You have so much to learn."

"Well," I said, feeling pretty pathetic. The truth ached like a boulder on my chest. "I need help. What do you say?"

Something strange crossed Corinne's eyes. Then, "Fine. Yes, fine. Hang on." She strutted below deck, tossing around a few pots and pans before returning with a cell phone. They had cell phones here?

"I'm getting us a Dragon," she said.

"A what?"

"Relax, Leonard. It's a rideshare service."

A Dragon was a rideshare service. It was also, as Corinne neglected to mention, an actual dragon.

"Scared, Leonard?"

Lying was useless. "Terrified. And it's Leo."

Corinne climbed aboard the red scaly beast, scratching its neck like it was a puppy, like it didn't have teeth longer than my forearm. The dragon's wings flapped, creating a gust of wind that nearly knocked me on my butt.

"Don't worry. This guy is quite domesticated." She pulled me up behind her. "Only the wild dragons will swallow you whole."

During the trip downtown, I learned two things about riding with a dragon. First, bugs will fly down your throat. And second, dragons liked to talk. A lot.

"And so I says to her, I says, 'Patty.' I says, 'Patty, your breath smells like damn onions.''' Mario, our dragon, shrugged, nearly sending us flying off his back. "I thought that was a compliment. I thought that was a new toothpaste she was trying out. But then she does this. Ready? You listening back there?"

"Not particularly," I replied, flinching. Stupid truth curse. Telling a two ton dragon you didn't care about his problems was probably a no-no in Pittsborough. But Mario didn't hear me.

"Patty breathes a fireball right in my face, singeing off my eyebrows! Can you believe it? My face is my money-maker, you know what I'm saying?"

Corinne rubbed his shoulder. "Mario, you know how the ladies are around mating season. Hey, do you watch that new reality show? Gnome Hunters?"

"You bet! It's on tonight. Man, I was so happy when they kicked off Fabian last week."

"I know! He was such a drama queen!" Corinne turned around, smiling. "See, Leonard? Dragons are perfectly friendly."

But because of their size, dragons weren't allowed to enter the city, so Mario touched down across the river on Pittsborough's North Shore and waved goodbye with a flick of his fifty foot tail. Corinne waved back, grinning. I spit out a mouthful of bugs and tried to massage a kink from my neck.

"Having fun, Leonard?"

I leveled my gaze at her. "Stop calling me that. And no. Are you kidding?"

"Lighten up." She set off across the bridge into town. I followed, my stomach still growling. The sun had set and the lights in the buildings were winking on, spreading a dull glow across the streets. "Tell me more about your sister."

The truth: My new nemesis. "Mia's really annoying...but she's okay I guess. The reason she's missing is because I said some hurtful things about her. I said the truth."

"Because you're cursed to?"

"Exactly! But I didn't mean for it to come out so harsh. I really do care..." I pressed my fingers over my mouth, willing the words to stay inside. But they shot out anyway. "I really do care about her." I groaned. "You have no idea how hard it is for me to admit that. I hate sharing how I feel about stuff. I like being indifferent. There's too much pressure that comes with caring, and I don't want to mess it up."

Had I really confessed that? I'd never felt so exposed. I was going to be sick.

We turned the corner onto Penn Avenue (renamed Pencil Avenue in Pittsborough) and headed uptown, passing a mob of people with large pointed ears. No one looked twice at Corinne's skin or my gnarled wooden cheeks.

Corinne stayed silent for a while – I was sure that meant she thought I was some kind of screwed up loser – but then she started laughing, a crazed, high-pitched noise that stopped me dead in my wobbly wooden tracks.

"You're not dying, are you? Because I hate to admit this, but you're my only hope at the moment."

"No! I'm fine. It's just – it's just so funny! Talk about irony! Honestly, Leonard, –"

"Leo."

"– you hate having feelings, so you get transformed into the most emotionless thing out there – a talking block of wood!"

"I'm not a block," I said, slightly offended. "I have arms..."

Corinne ignored me. "And then you're forced to tell the truth about how you feel! It's just...wow." She wiped her eyes. "It's poetic, really."

"I hate you."

"Yes!" She gripped my shoulders, shaking me. "Hate me all you want, Leonard. It's okay to let your feelings out. That's what humans do!"

"You're awfully insightful for someone who wasn't human two hours ago."

"Never mind that." She shook her head. "Maybe you could learn something from this curse of yours. I mean, all I learned from mine was how to catch a fly on my tongue, but you, Leonard, could change your life."

"Your inspirational wisdom makes me want to hurl," I said in a monotone.

Corinne harrumphed. "I guess that's a start."

We walked on, passing more citizens with pointed ears, some with whiskers on their cheeks, and a few short, wrinkly men in business suits. Corinne said they were goblins. She also said that looking them in the eye could be misconstrued as an ankle biting challenge.

I kept my gaze trained firmly ahead.

I didn't know what we would do once we reached the Queen's building. I had a feeling I couldn't politely ask for my sister back, not after she was mistaken for royalty. And especially not after I recited her list of shortcomings.

Corinne crossed the street, tugging me behind her. I tried to dodge a group of musicians on the corner, but Corinne stopped me. There was a gleam in her eyes that made my legs feel shakier than usual.

"Do you like dancing, Leonard?"

"It's Leo. And not on these feet. Not at all, honestly." I tried to pull away, but her webbed fingers were surprisingly strong.

"Why not?"

"Because...because..." Okay, the truth was really getting old. "Because it's embarrassing. Because I don't like looking like an idiot."

Corinne nodded to the musician closet to us, a girl with blue tentacles for hair. The girl gestured to her friends, who picked up their banjos and began playing a twangy country tune. Pedestrians stopped to watch, clapping their hands in time with the beat.

Corinne tugged me closer, but my feet tripped me up and I crashed into her chest. She laughed it off. "Leonard, no one will think you look like an idiot as long as you don't think you look like an idiot."

"That's not necessarily true."

"Just one dance."

"But my sister –"

"We have tons of time, I promise." She twirled around, making me dizzy. "Live a little first. Feel something."