So I went out back to the kitchen, where we kept the two big brick ovens that Mom did all her baking in. It was connected to a storefront where we sold everything.

I pulled up the wood and I lit the kindling and I got the fire going pretty good. I was poking around with a stick, shoving the coals, making sure the air could get to all the logs, when I happened to glance out the window.

That’s when I saw the toad. It was huge, like longer than my forearm, even hunched over, sitting like that. It was the biggest toad I’d ever seen in my whole life. I bet its legs were three foot long each, fully extended.

I know, right? What was a foot-long toad doing in town? What was it doing dry and miles off from any water, croaking away on my windowsill?

It blinked at me.

I realized it only had one big baby-blue eye staring at me, right in the center of its forehead. Must have been hexed. I crossed myself six times and spit like you’re supposed to.

That toad stared and stared.

I felt dizzy, strange, like I needed a glass of water, like I’d better sit down.

I’m not sure what happened after that. I guess I blacked out. Because when I came to, the stick I was poking the fire with had caught, and it was leaning against a pile of old empty flour sacks Mom had left lying around.

I don’t need to tell you the whole thing was already blazing.

I tried to put it out. I did. But before I could make much of a dent in it, Mom came running in, screaming.

“Put it out, Buddy!” she hollered. “Oh Lord God in Heaven help us, you lit the bakery on fire!”

Mom came back with a bucket of water and a big old blanket. The fire wasn’t huge, and the bakery was built pretty sturdy with brick. A couple of the neighbors had run in to help (you know how that word fire! can spread faster than the flames themselves). Only half the bakery burned down. It didn’t even reach the upstairs, where we lived, where Mom had been sleeping. I counted that a blessing, I did.

’Course I couldn’t find the toad that had mesmerized me with his one jeweled eye, and when I tried to tell Mom about it, all she did was mutter to herself, like I wasn’t even there.

“I have had all I can stomach,” whispered Mom, tears rolling down her cheeks. That was a big deal, and it scared me a little. Never before had I seen my mom cry. She was tough, she was, and quiet. The most you’d ever get out of her was a little chuckle here and there, or a straight-line kind of frown. “I try and I try and I try, and nothing works. I can’t even sleep in an hour without it all coming to ruin.”