Sprig was exhausted. Hop Pop had the three of them working out on the farm all day, and he could not wait to crawl into his hammock and sleep for the next eight hours. No small feat, for an energetic frog like himself.
Anne was already collapsed on the couch, doing something on her "phone", the screen illuminating the creases on her face as the sun set. Something was upsetting her— though her facial anatomy with the weird face-bump was very different from a frog's, Sprig could read her like an open book. It's only been a few weeks since she landed in their lives, but the Plantars have taken to her like their own, able to discern any weird human intricacy.
Sprig slowly hopped over to her, the bright screen stinging his eyes. Images swiped by with a touch of her fingers.
"Anne?" He tried to be gentle, but Anne still jumped, dropping her device and sitting up.
Her face immediately brightened upon seeing Sprig. So whatever was bothering her must not be too bad. "Sprig! Hey buddy, what's up?"
He looked back down at the phone, face down but still illuminating the couch cushion under it.
"Your uh… phhhooone..." He wasn't sure if he was pronouncing the unfamiliar word correctly. "How does it work? Is it magic?"
Anne hummed, picking it back up and running a hand through her hair. "You know, I don't really know how it works. It's not magic though."
"Seems pretty magic to me."
"It's just technology, Sprig. Magic isn't real."
Sprig hopped up onto the couch next to her, inspecting the phone. "Don't say that to Maddie, she'd probably curse you for blasphemy or something."
Anne brushed him off with a scoff, then looked back down at her phone. It was an image of her pet caterpillar, though something seemed off about its wool.
"What do you do with it?"
"Practically everything, at this point. Take photos, play games, pay people with fake money, make calls or texts, video calls, social media…"
"I have no idea what any of that means. You sure you're not putting a curse on me?" Sprig joked.
Anne snorted. "Nah, we just have a lot more technology on my world. It advanced a lot in the past few decades— like things that were a thing when I was young are obsolete now. Half those things I said probably wouldn't have made a lot sense to somebody a few decades ago."
"Wooooow," Sprig cooed. He still didn't understand most of what Anne was talking about, but it sounded interesting. "What other technologies do you guys have?"
"Whoof. Do not get me started! It's so weird how little you guys have! We have TVs, microwaves, showers…"
They sat there talking for hours, Sprig's previous exhaustion forgotten. They compared all the differences in technology from their worlds. How Anne had machines called "cars" instead of snails, spiders, or crabs. Or how they had magic wind called "air conditioning". The most disconcerting thing though, was how apparently there were frogs in her world, but they were more akin to an animal from Amphibia than an actual person. Then Anne went on a whole rant, muttering about how she "hadn't even seen any primates here yet". Sprig wasn't sure what a primate was, but he was sure that interrupting her rant to say this would lead her down another one full of confusing terms he had no equivalent for.
