Mars Devlin was thirteen years old, the very same age as was his nemesis Billy Miller . School had been hard for Mars. He was attending a local military Academy which was a front for a right wing religious school. As the son of a warlock and a witch, his father thought it would build character. His father was wrong.

Mars was squinting as he sewed the lips shut on a small wax voodoo doll of his nemesis and foe, (the dung beetle that rolled his dreams into nightmares.) "O.K. Billy Miller; try to say bad things about me and my family with your mouth stuffed full of sawdust and your lips sewn shut." Just then a golf ball sailed through Mars's open window, ricocheted off his bedroom wall and hit him from behind. His eyes watered but he wasn't going to cry. "That Damn Billy Miller! Mars got up from his desk rubbing his injured neck. He retrieved the little white ball and turned it around in his fingers. "Die Satanic Scum!" Was scrawled across its dimpled surface with a blue ball point pen. He kept his head low as he sidled over to his open window. It was August, it was muggy, probably a hundred degrees and eighty percent humidity. He looked down upon the lawn of the stately Mars Mansion, there was Billy doing a victory dance down on the grass about one hundred yards away from his bedroom window.

All through the school year at the academy, Billy had tormented Mars and his only friend Herman who had been promptly nicknamed Herman the Spook by nearly all the boys from freshman to senior year. Being a friend to Mars Devlin had it's own special set of drawbacks. One of the most fundamental of these was being called evil. Billy saw to it that everyone knew that Mars Devlin and Herman the Spook were outcasts who should taunted and teased at every opportunity. And as boys will be boys, especially at military academies, most everyone followed Billy's example.

It was summer vacation. Billy didn't have anything constructive to do so he spent his days devising new ways of catching Mark Devlin and his only friend off guard, annoying, and bating them both. With characteristic meanness that seemed to have been condoned and fostered by faculty of the military academy, Billy Miller had caught and killed Herman the spook's cat and hung it from a tree near the Mars Mansion.

The idea was to make it look like a satanic ritual killing and blame it on Mars. Everyone knew that only Billy Miller would do such a thing, but the device worked. When Herman the spook saw his beloved pet skewered on a stick and hung by the neck from a branch near his friend's house, he ran to his own home crying. As it turned out he was never to speak to Mars again.

As the summer progressed Billy Miller was a daily trial for Mars Devlin. He was relentless. As relentless and annoying as a mosquito whining in his ears, biting him, stinging him, sucking his blood, making him scratch and itch whenever he had a chance.

Mars's neck was still stinging but worse was the pain of knowing that someone could hate him so thoroughly that not only had he ended his friendship with Herman, but now he had the audacity to attack him at home in broad daylight by lobbing golf balls through is open window.

As it was, Mars' parents were not at home, so there was no running and complaining to them. This was a problem that Mars would have to handle by himself. "Billy is going to have to learn a lesson" Mars muttered as he wiped the message off the ball with his thumb. He grabbed his own ball point pen from his desk and wrote a return message on Billy Myer's golf ball.

Frog magic, that the ticket! Mars was warned against using it by his mother. but he felt drastic measures were in order. He put his hand into his father's terrarium and hustled up the largest frog that he could find. Due to the sheer size of the amphibian, the golf ball fit easily into its mouth and the frog swallowed it hardly blinking. Holding the heavy animal in front of him he hustled down the stairs to the ground level of the house. Opening a side door, he placed the frog on the lawn and nudged it toward Billy with a gentle pat. The frog leapt off toward the unwitting boy.

Mars went up to his room and peered out of his window down onto the golf course below. There was Billy laughing as he put on a bogus show of putting on a nearby green. Mars could see the large frog hopping toward him like a small green dog on the grass. It seemed to evade Billy's notice. Hop, hop, hop, it made its way right up to Billy's foot and jumped on top of his tennis shoe. As if it was a large wart, it fastened onto the boy's foot. Billy caught sight of it and tried to jump back but it was too late, the huge frog melted into the top of his shoe and seeped into his bones. Billy could see a lump crawling up inside of his leg underneath the skin. With a scream he threw down his golf club, grabbed his leg and held it ferociously trying to stop the frog from going up any further. It didn't work. The frog seeped under his desperate hands and made its way up his inner thigh.

Billy cluched his stomach and started wriggling frantically. Mars became almost hysterical with laughter watching Billy Miller scream and dance around. He was holding on to his heart now as Mars paused in his merriment. Suddenly it wasn't so humerous. Billy fell on the ground and was jerking around in a not so funny way. Mars turned sickly from the sight. he picked up his Billy Miller doll. the stitches glared back at him with an evil grin. "You're better than them." his father had said and now there was Billy out there lying face up on his lawn holding onto his throat and turning a very bad color of violet. "They are going to find out! They are going to find out! They are going to find out!" Mars repeated over and over to himself as he hid in the corner of his room. Mars thought of the frog crawling around inside of Billy's body and began to cry.

Mars was shaking and mumbling hysterically as he ground the appropriate herbs in his mother's mortar and pestle. "I can do this!" He said frantically to himself as he rushed the antidote down stairs and flew out of his side door running at top speed. Mars sprinted across the green trying not to spill any of the antidote. He knelt next to Billy Miller's body, his hands shaking as he brought the potion up to Billy's face. Billy Miller's mouth was clamped shut. "The Stitches!" Mars screamed aloud in a terrified panic. Mars looked up ant the house. It might as well have been a hundred miles away. by the time he got back and undid the stitches on the voodoo doll it would be too late!!! Frantically he tore at Billy Miller's mouth. Some of Billy's bottom lip came away. Mars was crying. Now Billy Myer's face had become almost as bloody and grusome as poor Herman's squerred cat.

Beneath the torn lips, the mouth was showing teeth clamped shut. Mars tried to pour antidote into Billy's mouth but it just ran down Billy's cheek. Nothing got into Billy's mouth. Mars took the handle of Billy Myer's golf club and beat at Billy Miller's teeth.

"Hey there! What are you doing?" Several large adults were running toward Mars. It was too late. Billy was dead and disfigured. It wouldn't matter that Mars had written "The curse is on you." On the golf ball buried deep within Billy Miller's bowels because the frog magic had come back to Mars.

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