Ginger knew she wasn't supposed to go inside. The sign at the entrance made that perfectly clear. Children were not allowed into the sideshow without an adult, and six-year-old Ginger most definitely did not have an adult with her. She did, however, have a great deal of curiosity and the unfortunate habit of believing that rules sometimes deserved closer examination.

The carnival had come to town a few days earlier, bringing everything Ginger loved about carnivals. Strings of colored lights hung above the midway. Rides spun beneath the evening sky, bells rang from the game booths, and music seemed to come from everywhere at once. The air smelled of popcorn, dust, hot dogs, and cotton candy. Ginger wanted to see everything. At the far end of the midway stood a tent unlike the others. Painted signs covered the front, promising astonishing people and unbelievable sights inside. A man stood on a platform calling to the crowd, his voice rising above the carnival noise as he invited people to step inside and see things they had never seen before.

Then Ginger saw the sign for Frogman. She stopped. A frog man? Ginger knew perfectly well there was no such thing as a man who was part frog. At least she was almost certain there wasn't. She moved closer to the entrance, trying to see inside, but an attendant stood there taking tickets. Ginger watched as a boy tried to enter alone. “Not without an adult,” the attendant told him. The boy walked away.

Ginger should have followed him. Instead, she waited. A large group of adults approached the entrance together. They were laughing and talking, and when the attendant turned to answer someone's question, Ginger slipped into the middle of them. She made herself as small as possible and walked right through. Nobody noticed. One moment she was outside where she wasn't allowed to be. The next, she was inside. Ginger smiled to herself. That had been much easier than she expected.

Inside, the tent was darker than the midway. Bare bulbs hung overhead, casting yellow circles of light. People crowded around curtained areas and small platforms while voices overlapped everywhere. Ginger squeezed between the adults, standing on her toes whenever she could, trying to see what everyone else was looking at. At first, it was exciting. She felt wonderfully daring. She had gotten into the forbidden tent all by herself, and nobody even knew she was there.

Then someone bumped into her. Ginger stumbled sideways, and when she turned around, the group of adults she had followed inside was gone. She looked for the entrance, but she couldn't see it. Suddenly, all those grown-ups seemed enormous. Everywhere Ginger looked there were backs and shoulders, coats and dresses, elbows and unfamiliar faces. Someone stepped backward and nearly knocked her over. Ginger tried going one direction but was pushed another. She squeezed between two people and found herself even farther from where she thought the entrance had been.

The excitement disappeared. Ginger was lost. She didn't want to cry. Six was much too old to cry simply because you couldn't find your way out of a tent. At least that was what Ginger told herself. There was another problem. She couldn't exactly walk up to one of the adults and say, Excuse me, I snuck into a place where children aren't allowed and now I can't find my way out. So Ginger kept moving along the edge of the tent, hoping she would eventually find the entrance.

Instead, she noticed a narrow opening between two curtains. It looked quieter on the other side, and quiet seemed much better than the crowd. Ginger slipped through and immediately knew she had gone somewhere she wasn't supposed to be. There were wooden boxes stacked against the canvas wall, folding chairs, costumes hanging from hooks, and a small table with a mirror. The noise of the crowd became muffled behind the heavy curtains. Ginger decided she had probably broken enough rules for one evening and turned to go back.

“Are you lost?”

Ginger froze and slowly turned around. A man was sitting in a chair a short distance away. For a moment, Ginger forgot all about being lost. She stared. His body was covered with enormous warts. They were on his arms, his legs, his hands, and his face. Some were small and some were very large, and there were so many that Ginger couldn't stop herself from looking. She knew immediately who he was. Frogman. The man from the sign. The man everyone outside had paid money to see. Ginger had imagined all sorts of things when she read the sign, but she hadn't imagined this.

The man looked back at her for a moment before asking, “Have you had a good enough look?” Ginger's face grew hot, and she looked at the floor. “I'm sorry.” There was a pause, and then the man laughed. Not an angry laugh. A warm one. “Well,” he said, “that's better than most.” Ginger looked up. “Better than what?” He smiled. “Most people don't apologize.”

Ginger thought about that. “Do they stare at you?” she asked. “All day long,” he answered. Ginger studied him. “Doesn't that bother you?” The question seemed to surprise him. “Sometimes.” Ginger moved a little closer. “Does it hurt?” He knew what she meant. “No,” he told her. “Not usually.” That seemed important to Ginger. She had imagined that something covering so much of a person's body must hurt terribly.

She looked at him again, but this time she wasn't looking in quite the same way. “Are you really Frogman?” The man smiled. “That's what the sign says.” Ginger frowned. “But you're not really a frog.” He laughed. “No.” Ginger was relieved. “I didn't think so.”

“Where are your parents?” he asked. Ginger hesitated. “They're not exactly here.” His eyebrows rose. “Not exactly?” Ginger looked at her shoes. “I came by myself.” He reminded her that children weren't allowed inside alone. “I know,” Ginger admitted. “And you came anyway?” She nodded. When he asked why, Ginger decided there wasn't much point in lying now. “I wanted to see the Frogman.” The man looked at her for a moment and then spread his hands. “Well,” he said, “here I am.”

Ginger smiled. “Do you have another name?” He laughed. “Of course I do.” He told her his name, and Ginger repeated it. Just like that, something changed.

They began talking. Ginger asked him what it was like traveling with the carnival. He told her about towns he had visited and people he had met. He told her about sleeping through thunderstorms in tents and eating food from carnival stands until he never wanted to see another hot dog again. He was funny. Very funny. Before long, Ginger forgot about the warts. She forgot about the painted sign outside. She forgot that she had come looking for Frogman. She was simply talking to a man who made her laugh.

At one point, Ginger laughed so loudly that someone outside the curtain shushed them. The man put a finger to his lips, and Ginger covered her mouth with both hands to keep from giggling. Then he looked at her seriously. “You really are lost, aren't you?” Ginger nodded. “I thought so.” He showed her a quieter way through the back of the tent that would take her toward the entrance without having to push through the crowd.

Before she left, Ginger stopped. “Do you mind people calling you Frogman?” He was quiet for a moment before answering, “It's how I make my living.” Ginger didn't completely understand the answer. She was only six. But she understood enough to know that he hadn't said yes. She looked toward the curtain where she could hear people waiting to see him, then back at the man. “I'm glad I met you.” He smiled. “I'm glad you got lost.”

Ginger followed the path he had shown her and soon stepped outside into the bright carnival lights. Everything seemed louder after the quiet behind the curtain. Music played. Children ran past carrying cotton candy. Someone rang a bell at one of the games. People were still lining up outside the sideshow, and above them hung the painted sign: FROGMAN.

Ginger stopped and looked at it. Earlier, that sign had seemed mysterious and exciting. It had made her wonder what strange creature might be waiting inside. Now it seemed different. Ginger watched the adults hand over their money and disappear through the entrance. They were going inside to see the Frogman. Ginger had gone inside for exactly the same reason.

But somewhere between getting lost in the crowd and finding her way behind that curtain, she had found something else. She had found a man with a real name. A man who traveled from town to town. A man who told funny stories. A man who sometimes got tired of hot dogs. A man who could make a frightened six-year-old girl forget that she was lost.

Ginger walked slowly back toward the midway. She knew she would probably be in terrible trouble if anyone discovered where she had been. She had broken a rule, sneaked into a place where she wasn't allowed, and gotten herself lost in a crowd of strangers. Perhaps she deserved to be in trouble.

But Ginger carried something away from the sideshow that evening that she would remember long after the carnival packed its tents and moved on. When she first saw the man behind the curtain, she had stared at his warts. She couldn't help it. They were the first thing she saw.

But they weren't the last thing she saw.

Hundreds of people went into that tent to see the Frogman. Ginger had gotten lost—and met the man.