"Hops? Ho-ops? Come on, buddy, where are you?"

Lana paced up and down the upper hallway, scanning the corridor for any sign of her wayward amphibious companion. Just a few minutes earlier, she had taken him out of his terrarium to play with him, only to excuse herself for a quick bathroom break. In her carelessness, she left her bedroom door open, and by the time she got back, Hops was nowhere to be seen.

As the owner of a veritable menagerie of pets, this situation was nothing new to her. Given her propensity to let them roam free whenever she could, it was only natural that she'd lose them every now and then. But that didn't make the situation any less vexing for her. She had to find Hops quick, or else she'd be getting an earful from whoever did - assuming he wasn't in danger, which was a possibility she didn't even want to think about.

As she reached the end of the hallway for the third time, it occurred to her that she may have been looking in the wrong place. She noticed that the door to Lisa and Lily's room was ajar.

Could he have wandered into there?

Lana took a few tentative steps towards the open doorway. It was a real possibility that was worth examining, but she knew she'd look pretty sketchy if she went poking around Lisa's room unattended - and she certainly didn't want to admit to losing Hops yet again. After glancing back and forth around the halls to make sure that the coast was clear, she took a step inside.

The room was uncharacteristically clean and neat, devoid of the scattered papers and chemical stains that marked its typical state. The day prior, Lisa had left on a week-long trip to Boston to give a lecture at MIT, and Rita insisted that she tidy up the room a little before vacating it. (After all, it wasn't as if her roommate could be expected to do any housekeeping.) Fortunately for Lana, this meant that she could scour the room without bearing the risk of Lisa walking in and busting her.

After taking about ten steps inside, her ears picked up a familiar ribbit coming from Lisa's chemistry table. Her face lit up, and she eagerly tiptoed towards the sound. Sure enough, as she approached she caught a glimpse of Hops' small, lime-green form peeking out from behind a wooden test tube rack near the edge of the table.

"There you are, little guy!" she said in an excited whisper. She reached over the rack, grabbed the frog and pulled him into a hug, relishing in the sensation of his gooey, mucus-covered skin pressed against hers.

"You can't keep hopping away like that," she said, her voice tinged with irritation. She held Hops about an inch away from her face and looked straight into its eyes. "Well, you can, but you shouldn't. Don't you know how nervous and scared I get when you run away? Don't you care?"

In response, Hops opened his mouth, whipped out his tongue and gave Lana a slurp on her cheek, causing her to break into a giggling fit.

"Oh, all right. I can't stay mad at you."

With that, she gave Hops a kiss and tucked him into the crook of her arm. As she did, her eyes lingered on the test tube rack that Hops was lurking behind. Each one was filled to the brim with liquid and labeled with a post-it note, and Lana, out of curiosity, scanned her eyes across the labels to see what Lisa was working on. Most of the labels included fancy words that Lana couldn't understand or even pronounce - "hydrochloric acid", "benzene", "potassium hydroxide solution" and things like that - but there was one on the end of the rack that caught her eye.

Strength-Boosting Formula (B)

Lana's eyes widened with wonder. She only somewhat understood what a "formula" was, but she knew full well what "strength" was, and she had to admit that the idea of boosting her own intrigued her. Lana, a tomboy by nature, was always enticed by the prospect of getting bigger and stronger, and her mind bloomed with all the new possibilities Lisa's supplement would yield. A dreamy smile formed on Lana's face as she imagined trouncing Lynn in mud wrestling, outmuscling fully grown alligators, and impressing Skippy by lifting the back end of a car all by herself, obviating the need for a jack.

Okay, she probably wouldn't get that strong. Or would she? Lisa's stuff was typically pretty potent, so who could say for sure?

With a trembling hand, she reached out, grasped the test tube and lifted it out of its slot, knowing that in just a moment her life was going to change. As she brought it closer to her lips, she caught sight of Hops giving her a judgmental look.

"What? I'm just gonna take a little sip. Who'll even know?"

Any other doubts she had about going through with this were rationalized away. Well, Mom did say not to drink something if you don't know what it is, she thought. But I do know what it is. It's a strength potion. It says so on the label. Plus, if Lisa didn't want people to drink it, she wouldn't have kept it out on her shelf. Yeah, she would have locked it up or something. I'm sure it'll be fine.

Don't know what that "B" stands for, though. Maybe "big"? That would make sense. Or "beefy"! That's probably it. Down the hatch!

And so, she tipped her head back, took a swig from the vial, and put it back. The taste was so searingly bitter that she almost gagged, and had to clamp a hand over her mouth to keep herself from attracting any attention.

Wow, that's terrible. But I guess medicine isn't supposed to taste good.

After wiping residue off her lips, Lana strutted out of the room and back to hers with Hops under her arm. Throughout her entire bedtime routine - putting her pets away, changing into PJs, brushing her teeth - she couldn't stop jittering with anticipation. She could scarcely wait until the next morning, when she'd get to put her new body to the test and see if Lisa's new invention actually worked.

July 30

8:30 p.m.

The prototype of my strength-boosting formula is finally complete. The formula, designed to hyper-accelerate the process by which muscle tears and rebuilds itself, will have countless practical applications, most notably in the field of physical therapy. A drug that can enable the sickly and emaciated to make swift, relatively painless recoveries from their illnesses will prove invaluable to the medical community.

That said, I shouldn't get my hopes up quite yet. The formula is still in the testing stages, after all. About an hour ago, I gave a minute dose of the prototype to a lab rat. I will be recording the observed effects every step of the way. If all goes well, I may be able to deem the formula safe to test on humans - but that remains to be seen.

- Lisa M. Loud