Magic and Other Misdemeanors (The Sisters Grimm, Book 5)

by Michael Buckley

  "Are we really going to be homeless?" Daphne asked.

  "No!" Sabrina said.

  "Don't lie to her," Puck chimed in. "Things are bleak, marsh-mallow. If I were you, I'd eat as much of this soup as you can. It might be the last meal you get for a long time. Hoboes have to eat out of garbage cans and beg for crusts of bread in the street."

  "I don't want to be a hobo," Daphne said, then turned to her sister. "What's a hobo?"

  Sabrina ignored the question and got up from the table. "Give me that roll, and I'll find you a nice warm refrigerator box to sleep in," Puck said.

  "Daphne, don't listen to him," Sabrina said.

  Daphne glanced at her sister but surrendered her roll to the boy.

  "We need to get to work," Sabrina said with a sigh.

  "Well, that's my cue," Puck said as he pushed back from the table. He had once claimed he was allergic to books and that people who tried to improve their minds were just admitting stupidity. He flew off to his room and left the girls alone.

  Sabrina went to the bookshelves to begin her search for anything on little thieves. She found some books by Tiny Tim, Thumbelina, and one titled

  Life Is Futile, by Itsy Bitsy Spider. She scooped them all up, set them on the table, then went back to scan the collection of family journals. Every Grimm since Wilhelm, the man who brought the Everafters to Ferryport Landing, had documented his or her experiences in the town. Each journal was packed with eyewitness accounts, and they frequently proved very helpful in solving cases.

  For hours, Sabrina and Daphne pored over the old books. They read about the Mouse King of Oz, who ruled a million mice; sorted through the various campaigns of an army of tin soldiers; and learned about the history of Lilliput. But they found nothing concrete and soon they came to a dead end. It was very late and they were very tired. Even Elvis was asleep under the table.

  "I thought detective work was supposed to be exciting," Sabrina said, closing the book that lay before her.

  "I'm excited," Daphne said.

  "You're always excited," Sabrina replied, resting her head on the giant oak dining room table they used as a desk. "Granny has probably solved this case already and won't tell us what she knows."

  "We're training," Daphne reminded her. "She wants us to figure this out for ourselves."

  "She wants to drive us crazy. This town is filled to the brim with talking animals and tiny people, not to mention witches who might be able to shrink themselves. How can we narrow it down?"

  "We'll figure it out," Daphne said. "Remember, we're a great team."

  Sabrina was tired but she had to smile. "C'mon, Elvis, you've probably got to go out," Sabrina said as she got up from the table.

  The big dog nearly knocked Sabrina over as he charged for the front door. Sabrina opened it and Elvis barreled out. "Don't go far," she shouted at the dog, then crossed back through the dining room on her way to the kitchen.

  "I'm getting some water," she said to her sister. "Want anything?"

  Daphne shook her head. She was half asleep with her head resting on a big book about a village in Oz whose citizens were made of jigsaw-puzzle pieces.

  Sabrina went into the kitchen, took a glass from the cupboard, and opened the refrigerator. Inside, there were several containers of leftovers, a package of bologna, and a bowl with a little sign on it that read

  DANGER! SAUSAGES! KEEP AWAY FROM ELVIS AT ALL COSTS

  ! Sabrina knew the explosive effect they had on the dog. She reached past them for the jug of water her uncle kept in the fridge. She poured some into her glass. Tilting her head back, she took a long refreshing drink and let the cool liquid cascade down her throat. Then she heard Elvis's angry bark.

  She peered out of the kitchen window and saw the big dog growling and barking at the edge of the woods. Puck was probably in the backyard preparing another humiliating trap for her, or maybe Elvis was spooked by the odd swirling clouds hovering over the house. Elvis hated thunder and lightning and often hid under the girls' bed during particularly loud storms.

  She turned to put the jug back in the refrigerator but spun back around when she heard a loud cry. Sabrina bolted to the window. There in the moonlight she saw her uncle Jake running through the yard. He looked panicked. Suddenly there was a whipping sound, and he crashed to the ground. An arrow was stuck in his back.

  Chapter 4

  Sabrina dropped her glass, and it shattered on the kitchen floor. The crash snapped her out of her shock and she sprang into action. She raced into the dining room, pulled her sister from her chair, and shoved her under the table.

  "Stay here!" she ordered, then ran for the front door, shouting for Granny and Mr. Canis. In her bare feet, she raced outside and around the corner into the backyard. She found her uncle lying facedown. Sabrina gently turned him over and he let out a groan.

  "Uncle Jake!" she cried, though looking at him closely, she wasn't positive that he was her uncle. There was something wrong with his face. He had a goatee and a large scar on his neck that looked as if a rope had been tied around it.

  His hair was gray on the sides and his eyes seemed dull. He was clearly in a great deal of pain. '"Brina?"

  "Granny and Mr. Canis are going to help you. They're on their way," Sabrina said through sobs.

  "'Brina, you look so young," he said. "You look just like you did when you were twelve."

  He's raving from the pain,

  Sabrina thought to herself.

  He needs a doctor right away.

  "Someone help us!" she yelled. The storm above was incredibly loud, so she shouted again. She climbed to her feet and turned to the house. "Help!"

  Elvis joined her cries with baleful barking, and in no time, Granny and Mr. Canis were rushing out of the house.

  "Liebling, what is the matter?" Granny begged. She was in her nightgown and slippers and had a green mud mask on her face.

  "It's Uncle Jake. He's been hurt," Sabrina cried, turning to the fallen man. But there was no sign of him. Bewildered, Sabrina scanned the edge of the woods. How could he have crawled away so quickly, and without her noticing? She studied the lawn, searching for a trail of blood, but there was nothing.

  "But... he was lying right here on the ground. I saw him. I saw the arrow! He was dying."

  Elvis rushed to the place where Uncle Jake had been lying. He sniffed the ground and whined.

  "Child, you are mistaken," Canis said. "I can smell such things. No one has been injured."

  "Sabrina, it's late. You must have been having a bad dream," Granny said. "Your Opa Basil used to walk in his sleep too."

  "No! I

  saw him. He was right here. We have to look for him!" she cried.

  Uncle Jake walked around from the front of the house. He was his normal self. No scar on his neck and no goatee. "What's all the commotion?"

  Sabrina suddenly felt woozy. Her eyes filled with little flashes of light and her face grew hot. "You were hurt... ," she tried to say, but then everything went black.

  * * *

  When Sabrina awoke the next morning she felt as if she had been asleep for a hundred years. She was groggy and awkward, and her legs felt like cooked spaghetti as she descended the steps to join her family for breakfast. When she saw that Uncle Jake was working his way through a box of donuts, she began to wonder if her grandmother was right. Maybe the entire incident had just been a vivid nightmare.

  "Feeling better?" Granny said, entering the dining room with a tray of what looked like magenta-colored hash browns. The old woman scooped a spoonful on everyone's plate and a second helping onto Puck's. Elvis hovered under the table, licking Sabrina's feet as if to remind her that he had seen the odd incident as well.

  "I'm fine," Sabrina said, though her head felt full of sludge.

  "We were worried when you fainted. I fear you may have accidentally touched something at Baba Yaga's house that made you hallucinate," Granny said.

  "What does 'hallucinate' mean?" Daphne asked.

&
nbsp; "It's when you think you see something that isn't really there," Sabrina said.

  "It usually means you've lost your marbles," Puck added.

  "We're going to have to be more careful when we go back," their grandmother said as she sat down to eat.

  "Go back?" Sabrina exclaimed. "There's no way we're setting foot in that loony-bin again!"

  "I can't wait to go back," Puck said. "Baba Yaga is very punk rock."

  "Sabrina, of course we have to go back when we find her wand," Granny said, kissing her on the forehead. "Now, hurry up and eat and then get dressed. We've got another busy day ahead of us."

  "Are we back on the case?" Daphne asked in between bites. Granny nodded. "But first we have to pay our taxes."

  * * *

  The courthouse was a grand building with a dome and marble columns. It sat just a few doors down from the police station. Outside, a huge crowd of people milled around carrying signs and shouting angrily.

  "Looks like a protest," Sabrina said, noticing a sign that had the word tax painted on it with a big red slash through it.

  Mr. Canis pulled the car over to the side of the road to park. "Relda, I don't believe it would be wise for me to walk through that crowd in my current condition."

  Granny agreed. "Yes, a seven-foot man with a tail might attract some attention. Stay here. We'll be back in a jiffy."

  The Grimms eased their way through the angry mob and up the steps of the building. The people they passed looked desperate. An elderly man grabbed Sabrina by the arm and pleaded, "They can't do this to us. We've got nowhere to go."

  Frightened, Sabrina pulled away and caught up with her grandmother and sister. They entered the double doors of the courthouse and immediately spotted an armed guard who gave them directions to the tax assessor's office.

  "Is there much of a line?" Granny asked the man.

  The guard shook his head. "You're the first people I know of who have the money to pay."

  Following his directions, they soon came to a door at the end of a long narrow hallway, tax assessor's office was stenciled on the door and a little red tag hanging from the doorknob read b e back in 15 minutes.

  "I guess we have to wait," Granny said.

  Fifteen minutes turned into two and a half hours. Eventually they spotted a short, stocky person approaching from the other end of the hallway. As she came closer Sabrina recognized Mayor Heart, the former "Queen of Hearts" from the famous Alice adventures documented by Lewis Carroll. Sabrina thought she looked like a demented beauty pageant contestant. Her face was painted in bold, harsh colors--bloodred lips, dark purple eye shadow, mahogany brown eyebrows, and a black hole of a beauty mark on her left cheek. She was wearing an elaborate crimson gown of silk and lace that had little red hearts sewn into it. She also held an electronic megaphone in one bloated pink hand. The angry mob followed behind her, waving their tax assessment letters in the air furiously. Mayor Heart seemed to be enjoying their frustration and hopelessness, or perhaps she had applied a permanent smile with her obnoxious makeup. Sabrina couldn't be sure.

  "People, what's done is done," Mayor Heart said through the entirely too-loud megaphone. Her words blasted the people and echoed off the walls, causing a high-pitched feedback that rang in everyone's ears. "The city needs the funds, and you're going to pay them or you're going to move."

  "I'll get a lawyer!" a man threatened.

  "Feel free," Heart snapped. "But I have a feeling any lawyer in this town is in the same boat as you. Now, get lost or I'll have the sheriff lock you all up."

  "For what?" one man shouted. "It's still legal to protest in this county."

  "Then I'll have you locked up for being ugly. Now, scram!"

  The people filed out slowly, muttering threats at the mayor until she and the Grimm family were left alone. Heart looked at them and let out a little laugh. She took out a key and unlocked the door to the tax assessor's office, snatching the little note off the door as she stepped inside.

  Granny Relda and the girls followed her through the door. They found themselves in a small, windowless office lined with big gray file cabinets. There was a single well-worn counter separating the room into an office area and a waiting area. Heart stepped behind the counter and set a bell down on top of it.

  "Good morning, Mayor Heart," Granny said as she stepped up to the counter.

  The mayor said nothing. In fact, she opened up a drawer, took out a newspaper, and started reading the day's headlines.

  "Hello?" Sabrina said.

  Daphne tugged on her grandmother's sleeve and pointed to a sign on the wall. It read ring bell for service.

  Granny looked as if she might leap over the counter and strangle Mayor Heart, but she took a deep breath, reached over, and lightly tapped the bell. The mayor looked up from her paper and flashed the family a forced smile filled with crooked yellow teeth. "Can I help you?"

  "Mayor Heart, I didn't realize that you were required to collect taxes personally," Granny said.

  "Oh, I'm not," the mayor said with a twisted giggle. "But this job is just too much fun to let someone else do it. I suppose you're here to see if you can talk your way out of your debt too?"

  "Not at all," Granny said as she fished in her handbag and took out a stack of money. "I'm here to pay the bill."

  The mayor's face turned bright red even through her white pancake makeup. She tried to speak but fell into a coughing fit for several moments before she managed to squeak out, "You what?"

  "I said we've come to pay our taxes. This is the correct office?"

  The mayor stammered and looked as if she might lapse into another fit. "Yes, it is."

  "Very well," the old woman said as she placed the stack of cash in the mayor's hand. "One hundred and fifty thousand dollars."

  Ms. Heart reached underneath the counter and snatched her megaphone. She lifted it to her mouth, pushed the button, and bellowed, "NOTTINGHAM!" The feedback rattled Sabrina's ears.

  A moment later, the foul sheriff hobbled into the office. "I hear you, woman! If you haven't noticed, I'm a little busy. There's a mob outside, and some fool on Mount Taurus swears he's seen a dinosaur running around up there. Can you believe that? A dinosaur! I put him in a cell for being intoxicated."

  "Who cares?" the mayor bellowed into her megaphone. "The Grimms have arrived to pay their taxes."

  Nottingham laughed long and hard, but then seemed to realize his boss was not joking. He slammed his fist down on the counter, cursed, and spit on the floor.

  "Why, the two of you act as if you're disappointed that we can pay," Granny said, obviously enjoying the change in mood. Sabrina could have sworn she heard sarcasm in her grandmother's voice.

  Nottingham snatched the money out of the mayor's hand, flipped through it as if he suspected it were counterfeit, and then slammed it on the table.

  "We're going to need a receipt," Granny said sweetly.

  Mayor Heart snarled. Then she snatched a book of receipts off a nearby desk, scribbled onto one of them, and ripped it out of the book.

  "This isn't over," Heart said, dangling the receipt out of the reach of Granny Relda.

  "Oh, we never doubted that for a second," the old woman replied, grabbing the receipt. She placed it safely into her handbag, took the girls by the hand, and escorted them out of the office.

  "Have a nice day," Daphne said just before they closed the door.

  Sabrina heard the mayor and the sheriff scream in frustration as the family walked back down the hallway. They stepped outside, and for a moment the three Grimms gazed down at the throngs of desperate citizens.

  "These poor people," Granny Relda said. "If we had enough I'd give them all the money they need."

  "There's not enough money in the world," Sabrina replied. "Mayor Heart wants them out of Ferryport Landing. Anyway, we should be worried about us. What are we going to do if we're the last human family left in the town?"

  "I don't know, liebling"

  the old woman said as they
stepped into the street. "But for now we should get back to our mystery. Who knows when Baba Yaga is going to lose her patience."

  Suddenly, Sheriff Nottingham rushed through the crowd, waving a paper over his head. "Oh, Mrs. Grimm..."

  "Sheriff, is there a problem?" Granny asked.

  "Indeed," Nottingham said. Sabrina couldn't help but stare at the horrible scar that ran down the man's face. She wondered if that was what made him so ugly or if he had been grotesque before the knife had done its work. "It appears we've miscalculated the tax on your property."

  "Oh, a refund," Granny said, clapping her hands.

  "Bah!" the man said with a sick laugh. "The audit on your house failed to calculate the value of the land it is built on. You have nearly three acres of incredibly valuable property. I'm afraid we need to add to your tax liability."

  "How much more?" Sabrina said suspiciously.

  "Oh, just another three hundred thousand dollars," the sheriff replied.

  "That's outrageous!" Granny Relda cried. "It is, isn't it," Nottingham said as a sinister grin crept across his face.

  "And when we pay this, what are you going to tax next? The air around the house? You're just trying to get rid of us!" Sabrina shouted.

  "Well, Mrs. Grimm, your girls are a lot more clever than I was led to believe," the sheriff said. "By the way, the taxes are still due on Friday."

  When they got home, Granny Relda was dazed and distant, talking to herself in German. She made some peanut-butter-and-rose-petal sandwiches for the girls and Puck and then asked Uncle Jake and Mr. Canis for a moment of their time. The three adults climbed the steps upstairs for some privacy.

  "This is bad," Daphne said.

  "Don't worry, marshmallow. You'll get used to the cold," Puck said as he slathered mustard all over his sandwich.

  "Granny will come up with an answer," Sabrina said angrily. She flashed the boy a look that said "shut your trap."

  Moments later, Uncle Jake returned. "Good news, girls. I'm going to help you with your case. Your grandmother is a little busy with the financials, but it's nothing to worry about."

  "Granny said that yesterday when we only owed a hundred and fifty thousand dollars," Daphne reminded him.