The Problem Child (The Sisters Grimm, Book 3)

by Michael Buckley

  "Help yourself," Uncle Jake said, opening the lid of the box. Daphne reached inside and took two donuts.

  "Two?" Uncle Jake said with a grin.

  "One's for Elvis," the little girl explained, tossing one into the air. The Great Dane leaped up and snatched it in mid-flight. Sabrina wondered if he even tasted it before he swallowed it whole.

  Daphne bit into hers first and sank into her chair in a dreamlike state. "Oh… my… gosh," she mumbled with her mouth full.

  "Sabrina?" Uncle Jake said, offering her a donut. She reached in and took one. They were warm and sticky. She took a bite and couldn't believe how delicious they were. It was like biting into pure happiness. It was all sugar and butter and love.

  "Good, huh?" Jake said with a wink.

  Sabrina nodded, afraid that if she opened her mouth to talk, some of the experience might escape.

  "Mom, I got to thinking. You said yesterday that you and the girls have been pretty busy since they arrived. That's a real shame. This town has a few interesting spots, and I bet the girls would love to see some of the places where their dad and I used to hang out," Uncle Jake said.

  "You mean the places you two used to get into trouble?" she said knowingly.

  "Exactly!" He leaned over and kissed the old woman on the cheek again. "It'll be fun."

  Granny nodded reluctantly.

  "Great!" Uncle Jake said. He scooped up the pink box of donuts and raced out of the room. "I'm going to make sure Mirror gets one of these."

  Just then there was a knock at the door.

  "Who could that be this early in the morning?" Granny wondered aloud.

  Sabrina shrugged and went to the door. When she opened it she was so surprised she nearly fell over. It was Mayor Charming. Snow White stepped out from behind him, followed by his personal assistant, Mr. Seven, who was wearing the biggest grin she had ever seen.

  "Good morning, Sabrina. Is everyone home?" Snow White asked. "Billy has something he'd like to say to your family."

  The mayor looked annoyed.

  "Well, Captain, permission to come aboard?" he said sarcastically.

  Sabrina scowled and prepared to slam the door in his face when Granny came up behind her and invited everyone inside.

  "Relda, I know it's early but I wanted to make sure you and the kids were OK after what happened yesterday," Ms. White said.

  "Oh, no harm done," Granny said, flashing the mayor a disappointed look.

  "Billy also has something important he wants to say to you and your family," the pretty teacher added. "But first, he has to get ready. Mr. Seven, if you would be so kind."

  The little man reached into his jacket pocket and took out a small wad of paper. He unfolded it quickly and handed it to the mayor. Charming stared down at it with a scowl. Sabrina recognized it at once. It was a paper hat with the words I AM AN IDIOT written on it in big black letters. The Mayor often forced Mr. Seven to wear it.

  "Do I have to?" Charming groaned.

  "Billy Charming!" Ms. White scolded. "You promised!"

  The mayor scowled and set the hat squarely on his head. Sabrina couldn't help but laugh, not so much at Charming's humiliation, but at the expression of triumphant satisfaction on the face of his diminutive sidekick, Mr. Seven. The dwarf looked as if he had just won the lottery.

  "I'm sorry," Charming whispered.

  "I don't think they heard you," Snow White said.

  "Well then they all need hearing aids!" Charming snapped.

  "Billy! You said you would do the right thing and if you don't I will never speak to you again," Ms. White threatened. "And you know I mean it. We went a few hundred years without saying even a word to each other!"

  Mr. Seven stood off to the side snickering until Charming shot him a nasty look. The little man straightened up but went back to giggling as soon as the mayor turned his attention to the Grimms.

  Charming sighed and his broad shoulders and chest seemed to deflate right before Sabrina's eyes. "I'm sorry I turned on your family at the dedication ceremony yesterday."

  Sabrina was stunned. Charming had never apologized for anything as far as she knew, and she had two hundred years of family journals to prove it. She realized just how much power Snow White had over the mayor.

  "But you have to understand, this family is like a cancer that is threatening to eat me alive," Charming continued. Ms. White gasped.

  "Don't sugarcoat it, mayor. Tell us how you really feel," Sabrina grumbled.

  "It's the election this weekend. I didn't expect to have an opponent this year. If the queen wasn't running, the only thing your presence would have given me was indigestion. But now that I might lose my job, the last thing I need is for the voters to start thinking that I'm aligned with the Grimms. There's no time for damage control like that. I hardly have time to buy the votes I need and hire people to stuff ballot boxes…"

  Ms. White's eyes flared with anger. The look was not lost on the mayor.

  "I mean, get my message of hope out to the community," he finished.

  "And the last thing you need is to look like you're buddy-buddy with a bunch of lowlifes like us," Sabrina replied sarcastically.

  "See, Snow? The child understands!" Charming cried happily. "This hasn't been a good year for the town; the giant caused millions in property damage, and replacing the school cost millions more. Ferryport Landing is flat broke. People are starting to think a change would be good and, trust me, the last thing you want is Mayor Heart running this town."

  "I absolutely agree," Granny said. "If being anti-Grimm keeps you in office, then do what you have to do."

  "Relda, I can't believe you," Snow White said with disappointment. "Do you know how hard it was to get him to apologize, and here you are encouraging the bad behavior?"

  Just then, Uncle Jake came down the steps. "Ms. White, is that you?" he said, grinning from ear to ear.

  Snow White looked at the young man with a curious expression. "I'm sorry. Have we met?"

  "Ms. White, it's me, Jake Grimm. I was in your second grade class. My brother, Henry, was a year ahead of me."

  "Your brother Henry?"

  Charming roared. "Relda, you never told me you had another son."

  Uncle Jake looked at his mother suspiciously.

  "Oh, I'm sure I mentioned it to you both," Granny said, ushering the visitors to the door. "Well, it was nice of you to drop by. We've got a busy day ahead of us. Good luck with the campaign, Mayor Charming."

  "Every time I turn around there's another Grimm," Charming complained. "They're like cockroaches. This town is infested!"

  "William Charming!" Snow White roared angrily as Granny closed the door in their faces.

  "What did you do?" Uncle Jake said.

  "I'm sure I don't know what you mean," Granny said to her son as she turned and went back to the dining room. He chased after her.

  "Mom, Hamstead doesn't remember me and he caught me and Hank skipping school probably a thousand times. Snow White doesn't remember me even though I wrote her a love letter every day until I turned eighteen. Charming doesn't remember me even though he threatened to have me arrested and had my face put on wanted posters all over town."

  "People forget things, Jake," Granny said. "It has been twelve years."

  "Mom, I'm not bragging when I say this, but let's be honest. I'm pretty hard to forget!"

  Granny Relda looked around the room. Everyone was staring at her. Even Elvis cocked a curious eyebrow. The old woman shuffled her feet and stammered a bit until she finally decided what to say. "They don't remember you because I had the whole town sprayed with forgetful dust."

  "You what?" Uncle Jake cried.

  "When everyone found out what you did, there was chaos in the streets," Granny Relda said, as she cleaned up donut crumbs. "There was a mob outside my door for two weeks. People were getting hurt. It had to be done."

  "What did you do?" the girls asked Uncle Jake.

  Their uncle ignored the question. "So everyone
has forgotten about me?"

  "Not everyone," Granny continued. "Mirror and Mr. Canis remember you."

  "Mom, Mr. Canis is dead," Uncle Jake reminded her. Granny flinched but then regained her composure.

  "And Baba Yaga, of course," the old woman continued.

  "Baba Yaga! Well that's just great! A mentally deranged cannibal who collects human bones still remembers me. How did I get so lucky?"

  Uncle Jake left the room, snatched his overcoat from the hall closet, and opened the front door.

  "Where are you going?" Granny Relda asked.

  "To warm up the car," he called. "Get your coats, girls, and try not to forget all about me before you get outside." He stomped out and slammed the door behind him.

  The girls stared at their grandmother but she wouldn't meet their eyes. "Puck snuck in late last night. Sabrina, run up and invite him along. I'm sure he's feeling a bit left out."

  Sabrina wanted to know more about what her Uncle Jake had done, but Granny Relda had an increasingly familiar expression on her face. The old woman didn't want to talk.

  * * *

  The last person in the world whom Sabrina wanted to invite anywhere was Puck. She reluctantly climbed the steps and knocked on his door several times, but there was no answer. She pushed it open and inspected the ground for catapults, bear traps, secret levers, and stink bombs. The coast seemed clear, so she stepped inside.

  She called out for the prankster but there was no response. After a couple more shouts she decided to give up. Just then there was a pop!

  A stream of fire and smoke rose high into the sky and exploded into a thousand multicolored lights, followed by an ear-shaking boom!

  Moments later, another trail of smoke whistled into the sky. The fireworks seemed to be coming from over a hill beyond the lagoon.

  The path up the hill was littered with broken toys and melted army men. Shattered marbles, stretched-out Slinkys, and the heads of some Hungry Hungry Hippos were scattered everywhere. At the end of the path was a clearing where Sabrina found Puck sitting on a jewel-encrusted throne wearing his military medals. His chimpanzee army crowded around him, all reaching for a box of matches Puck held in his hands, as the boy lectured them on the art of war.

  "Johnson, step up here," he said. One of the chimps stepped out of the crowd and approached the boy. "Johnson, the enemy is everywhere. You might even have to kill one of your own men if you were to discover that they were sympathetic to the enemy's cause. Could you take out your best friend if you had to?"

  The chimp smiled widely, nodded, and clapped his hands.

  "Johnson, you're a good soldier," Puck said. He lit a match and handed it to the furry creature. The lucky chimp raced over to a collection of fireworks of all shapes and sizes. Johnson lit the biggest red-and-white-striped rocket of the bunch and screamed with glee as it whistled into the air and exploded in the sky. When the lights and noise were gone, the chimps hopped up and down in front of Puck and begged to be the recipient of the next match.

  "Sullivan, front and center!" Puck commanded. "Tell me the first rule of war."

  The monkey screamed and stomped its feet.

  "That's right Sullivan. Kill or be killed," Puck replied, handing him a match. Soon another rocket was flying overhead.

  "What do you want?" Puck said when he spotted Sabrina.

  "Somebody's in a bad mood," she taunted, stepping over several expired bottle rockets.

  "I'm not in a bad mood," Puck said. "I'm busy turning these maggots into fighting machines."

  The chimpanzees turned to him, baring teeth and screaming impatiently for another match. Puck's head suddenly morphed into that of a chimp as well and he hissed and spit at them. The chimps quieted and then went right back to begging for matches.

  "The only thing keeping you busy is your pouting," Sabrina remarked.

  "I'm not pouting."

  "Well, something's wrong. There are donuts in the dining room. Normally you'd have already wolfed them all down and finished by licking the box."

  "Who cares about donuts? I don't even like donuts," Puck said.

  "You like everything. I've seen you eat Elvis's kibble right out of his bowl." There was a long pause. "Are they glazed?" he asked. "Yes, Uncle Jake bought them," Sabrina said. "I don't want anything from him."

  "Why don't you like him?"

  "He's hogging the old lady. Just cause he's her real son," Puck replied.

  "She hasn't seen him in twelve years, Puck," Sabrina explained.

  "Why do you care, anyway?"

  "I don't!"

  "Good!"

  There was a long silence.

  "If you must know, I've been insulted," Puck said. "By who?"

  "By all of you," Puck cried. "I have an impeccable reputation as a scoundrel. I have been banned by thousands of hamlets, hundreds of cities, dozens of countries, and three different dimensions. There are bounties on my head all over the planet and on a few planets you've never heard of. I'm Puck, the Trickster King. I'm the mean and nasty emperor of pranksters. I'm the boy hero to nations of snickering layabouts. My kingdom is the wrong side of the tracks!"

  "So?"

  Puck snarled. "So?

  So?!

  So, I threw it all away to protect this family and not one of you appreciates it. I'm ruined and you have all turned your back on me for

  Uncle Jake.

  He'll save the family, blah, blah, blah!"

  "Oh, stop being such a baby. Of course we care about you. Everyone cares about you," Sabrina said.

  "You care about me?"

  "Don't let it go to your head, gasbag."

  "You're in love with me! I knew it!"

  "Gross!"

  "You want me to be your boyfriend, don't you?" Puck taunted. His wings suddenly popped out of his back and he swooped over to Sabrina. Before she knew how to react, the boy kissed her on the lips. A million thoughts ran through Sabrina's head at once. Puck was annoying. He had dumped her in vats of disgusting glop. He'd put creepy crawlers in her bed. But the most awful thought of them all was the one about the kiss--it was nice.

  The two separated and stared at each other for a long time. Puck grinned and broke the silence. "I believe the words you are searching for are thank you."

  And then Sabrina punched him in the belly.

  Puck hunched over, gasping for breath.

  "You try that again, you little freak, and you're going to need a dentist," Sabrina shouted. She turned and stomped back down the path. "We're going out with Uncle Jake. Granny says you have to go. We're waiting in the car!"

  Sabrina found the door to Puck's room, opened it, and slammed it behind her. She leaned against the wood, feeling

  hot embarrassment on her face. Ever since she had started noticing boys, she had dreamed about her first kiss. She had imagined it would occur on the beach or in a flower garden with a nice boy who really liked her. She had never once, not even in her worst nightmares, thought the boy would be Puck. She couldn't believe her first kiss had been from a dirty, smelly Everafter surrounded by a bunch of screaming chimpanzee pyromaniacs.

  She rushed to the bathroom to see if her face looked different. Would anyone be able to tell what she and Puck had just done? She turned the water on, ran some soap over a washcloth, and scrubbed her face. When she was finished, her skin was as raw as when she had tried to scrub off Puck's mustache and goatee. She still looked flushed and embarrassed.

  By the time Sabrina got back downstairs, Daphne was tapping her foot by the door.

  "Where's Puck?" the little girl asked.

  "He's coming," Sabrina said as she snatched her coat from the closet.

  "Did you two kiss and make up?" Daphne asked.

  Though she couldn't see it, Sabrina was sure her face was as red as a tomato. "C'mon, Uncle Jake is waiting," she said and hurried outside with Daphne at her heels.

  Uncle Jake was leaning against the family's rusty old jalopy. It hadn't moved an inch since Mr. Canis had died.
<
br />   Puck came out of the house to join them, and when the boy fairy got close enough, Uncle Jake extended his hand. "Glad to have you along, Puck," he said sincerely.

  The boy sneered at the man and crawled into the backseat of the car. The girls followed and the ancient car's shock absorbers groaned with complaint. Seeing Uncle Jake behind the wheel where Mr. Canis usually sat was strange to Sabrina. But when Uncle Jake inserted the key something even stranger happened--the car didn't backfire. Every other time the girls had been in the car, it had started with an ear-shattering explosion that could be heard across town. Now it rumbled softly like a brand-new automobile. Sabrina saw her own surprise reflected in her sister's face.

  "How did you do that?" Daphne said.

  "I have a way with women," Uncle Jake said, caressing the dusty dashboard. "Besides, this is my car. I left it here when I skipped town. Your father and I got into a lot of trouble in this car."

  He put the car in reverse and backed it out into the street, and soon they were tooling through the back roads of Ferryport Landing. What Sabrina had always thought of as the world's dullest town took on a whole new light when her uncle talked about it. Every mailbox, abandoned house, graffiti-covered bridge, and broken window had a story. The more the girls heard, the more it became clear that Uncle Jake and their straight-laced father had been first-class juvenile delinquents. As interesting as all the stories were, Sabrina found herself especially interested in the ones that had a magical element; the boys had cast a gigantic spell on the Three Blind Mice and watched them stagger around the town, they had poured a rusting potion onto the Tin Woodsman, and even found a way to give the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe and her thousand kids athlete's foot. Jake and her father had done it all.

  Which made Puck's dislike of her uncle all the more puzzling. After all, the two had so much in common. Uncle Jake's stories were filled with mischief, but Puck was clearly unimpressed. He sat in the backseat, with his arms crossed, acting as if he weren't paying attention.

  Sabrina and Daphne, on the other hand, had a wonderful time. Even the "A VOTE FOR HEART IS A VOTE FOR CHANGE" signs that had sprung up all over town couldn't cast a shadow on the trip.