So I hear my last chapter was a little more emotional than expected … surprise emotional chapters are my specialty.

But this time I thought I would give you something a lot more lighthearted and fun. I actually wrote this one before I started posting my fic. It was made when I was first conceiving writing a fic about their differences.

Chapter 5: Language

"Hey Anne!" Sprig greeted as Anne made her way back to where Sprig was waiting for her. They had both bought supplied Hop Pop needed at the market and it was time to head back home. "Where were you? I was looking for you everywhere!"

"Sorry, dude. I got caught up talking with Wally. I guess I just lost track of time." She fell into step beside Sprig as they started walking back home.

"What happened to not liking him because you thought he was a weirdo?"

"He is weird," Anne agreed. "But he's not so bad once you get to know him. I guess it's just like my mom always says, 'pâa kêe ríw hòr tong."

Sprig's head spun around so fast, she was surprised he didn't hurt himself. "Did you just speak in tongues?"

Anne huffed and rolled her eyes. "No, its Thai. It basically means… the rag covers gold… kind of like… you can't judge something by appearance because there might be something good underneath."

"Ohh…" Sprig paused. "What's Thai?"

Anne stopped walking. "I'm Thai."

Sprig also stopped and tilted his head to look up at her. "I thought you were human?"

"I am." Anne paused as she tried to determine the best way to explain this to him. "I'm a Thai... human? Wait, that sounds weird. Technically, I'm a Thai-American but that wouldn't make any sense to you."

"None of this makes any sense to me!"

Anne sighed and ran a hand through her hair as she considered what explanation would make the most sense to Sprig. "Okay, so you know how on Suspicion Island there are a bunch of humans that all look different from each other?"

Sprig nodded.

"And like, how there are different frogs that come from different places? It's kind of like that. My family is from a place called Thailand. I've only visited a few times but it was a lot of fun," Anne said wistfully.

"So you are Thai and you can speak Thai…" Sprig said slowly. "That's really cool, Anne! Actually, when you think about it, it's pretty amazing we speak the same language at all. It's a good thing too. Think of how much harder it would have been to convince everyone that you weren't a monster if they couldn't understand you."

"Yeah, you would probably still think I was trying to eat you," Anne said with a chuckle.

"Nah!" Sprig waved his hand dismissively. "We would still be besties. We never let any of our other differences stop us from becoming friends."

Anne smiled warmly at that. "That's true."

They started walking again. The sounds of the busy market faded away and they were left with just the sound of dirt crunching underneath their feet.

"Will you teach me?" Sprig asked eagerly.

Anne looked over at him in surprise. "You want me to teach you some Thai?"

"Yeah!"

"Really?"

"Why not? It sounds really cool!"

Anne smiled. "None of my other friends were interested in learning Thai."

"Why not? It's sounds so cool! How do you say frog in Thai?"

"Gop."

"Gop?" Sprig tried the word out on his tongue. "That's awesome! If you teach me more then it will be like we have our own secret language that no one else in Wartwood understands!"

"That actually sounds pretty fun," Anne admitted, a large grin spreading across her face at the thought of trading secret words and laughing together as Hop Pop and the rest of Wartwood tried to figure them out.

Sprig's smile faltered. "Maybe we should keep this a secret from Polly."

"She's going to ask me to teach her curse words."

"She's going to ask you to teach her curse words, yeah."

I don't know anything about speaking Thai other than what I researched for this fic, so yeah, let me know if anything is wrong.

Actually…this chapter made me think of an interesting AU. What if Anne and Sprig didn't speak the same language (maybe Sprig spoke some frog language). I wonder how that would change how they met and became friends.

Hope you liked it even though it was short! Let me know what you thought!