The Inside Story

by Michael Buckley

  They sat still, trying to be patient.

  “I’ve got to find somewhere to go to the bathroom,” Daphne said. She was prancing around and looked distressed.

  “Daphne, it’s too dangerous.”

  “But I have to!” Daphne cried. “It’s an emergency.”

  She looked to Puck. The fairy laughed. “Don’t look to me for help. I’m having a great time watching your silly dance.”

  “Please! If you don’t let me go, something bad is going to happen,” the little girl begged.

  Sabrina sighed. “Don’t go far and come—”

  Before Sabrina could finish the little girl darted off like a roadrunner.

  “—right back!” Sabrina called after her.

  “She can go and I can’t!” Pinocchio fumed. Puck had taken the liberty of tying him up using a tree and a roll of duct tape he carried in his pocket. Sabrina couldn’t get him to explain why he had duct tape, but then realized the boy’s pockets were probably full of emergency prank supplies.

  Puck laughed at the little traitor. “You can suffer, ugly. Besides, I’m not sure I can even get you out of your bindings. The marshmallow told me I was using too much tape, but it was so funny I couldn’t stop. We’re probably going to have to leave you here.”

  “You wouldn’t dare!” the boy seethed.

  “You don’t know him at all,” Sabrina said to Pinocchio.

  “So,” Puck said, turning to Sabrina. “You dropped like a rock back in Pinocchio’s story. I thought you had died.”

  “You wish.”

  Puck shook his head. “No way! You can’t die. I’ve already sent out ‘save the date’ cards for the wedding, and I’ve registered for gifts. If you croak, I’ll never get that mayonnaise cannon.”

  “What store sells a mayonnaise cannon?” Sabrina said, and then shook her head. She didn’t really want to know.

  “You’re not lost,” he said suddenly.

  “Huh?”

  “I know you feel like you don’t know what you’re doing. All your decisions seem to be wrong. You feel like you’re lost, but you’re not.”

  “My decisions seem to be wrong because they are wrong,” Sabrina said. “I gambled with my baby brother’s life. I trusted the White Rabbit and his stupid army. I turned the Editor against us. I lost the magic yarn. I got us hopelessly lost. Worst of all, I wasted all our time and energy on this idiot—”

  “You don’t have to be rude,” Pinocchio said.

  “You’re right. You make lousy decisions,” Puck said. “But you’re supposed to. You’re the hero.”

  “Huh?”

  “Listen, I’ve been told tons of stories and there’s one thing that they all have in common—the hero has a terrible time. It’s what that Lampwick kid said when we were in Pinocchio’s story. The hero has to go through all kind of obstacles so that he or she can overcome them. Like me: I have to overcome your smell!”

  “My life is not a fairy tale,” Sabrina said.

  “But you’ll have a happy ever after when we get married,” Puck said.

  “Don’t tease me. A person can only take so much bad news.”

  Puck jumped to his feet. “I’m not happy about a lot of things either, you know. Look at me—I’m one of the good guys now. Worse, I’m thinking about your feelings and not about what kind of gunk I can pour over your head,” he complained. “Do you realize how low I’ve sunk? I’m the Trickster King. I’m the shaman of stupidity, the Dalai Lama of dumb jokes, the holy man of horrible pranks.” He sighed forlornly. “Now all of a sudden I’m Mr. Sensitive.”

  “Sabrina!” Daphne cried as she raced into the clearing.

  Sabrina and Puck rushed to her. “What? Were you attacked?”

  “What? No, of course not,” Daphne said. “I think I know how to get one of those doors to open for us. We have to put together a new ending. The horseman’s up on the hill looking for his head. I heard him fumbling around up there.”

  “You aren’t suggesting we confront that devil,” Pinocchio said.

  “Yes, you have to if we want out of here.”

  “Me?” Pinocchio looked at the children. “What does this have to do with me?”

  8

  fter unwrapping Pinocchio from his prison of duct tape, the children walked back to the shadow-filled road. The air had turned crisp and chilly and Sabrina could see a puff of water vapor whenever she breathed out.

  “What do you want me to do?” Pinocchio said. His tone made it clear that he felt very put out by the request.

  “Stand here in the road and taunt the Horseman,” Sabrina said.

  “And how do I do that?”

  “Do what comes naturally,” Daphne said. “Be very annoying.”

  “How dare you!”

  “Just stand there and call him names,” Sabrina said, ignoring his indignation.

  “I hardly think a few insults are going to bother an undead soldier from the depths of the underworld,” Pinocchio whined.

  “You’re right,” Puck said. From underneath his hoodie he removed an object wrapped in old rags and handed it to the boy. It was shaped like a small watermelon and smelled foul. “Wave this around.”

  “What’s this?”

  “The Horseman’s head.”

  Pinocchio let out a girlish scream and dropped the head.

  Puck scooped it off the ground. “Hey! This is valuable.”

  “You had his head the whole time?” Sabrina asked.

  Puck nodded.

  “Why?” Daphne said, her eyes as big as saucers.

  “It’s a souvenir,” Puck said. “I was thinking I’d put it on the mantel above the fireplace.”

  “It’s someone’s head!” Sabrina cried.

  “It’s a conversation piece,” Puck corrected her, and then shoved it back into Pinocchio’s hands. “And I will want it back!”

  Pinocchio held the object as far from his body as he could.

  “Just shout that you have it,” Daphne said to the boy. “According to the story, this guy is obsessed with it. He’ll be along pretty fast.”

  “Great,” Pinocchio said through a thick layer of sarcasm.

  The children scuttled off to hide in the brush and wait. Sabrina watched Pinocchio kicking at pebbles and looking around aimlessly. After several moments, she lost her patience with the boy.

  “What are you doing?” she whispered.

  “My job!” he shouted. “I’m the bait!”

  “Make some noise. Be obnoxious. Tease him!”

  “At least wave the head around,” Puck added.

  Pinocchio rolled his eyes and lifted the head over his own. “Hey! Horseman! I got your head. Nah-nah-na-na-nah!” He turned to the children. “Happy?”

  “You are worthless,” Sabrina said, marching out into the road. She snatched the head from the boy. “Like this! Hey Horseman! You want your head? Too bad! It’s mine now. I might use it like a soccer ball or sell it on the Internet. But you can have it back if you want it. All you have to do is take it from me!”

  Pinocchio growled. “Sorry if I don’t have a lot of experience taunting people with their own body parts.”

  “You don’t have a lot of experience doing anything for anyone else,” Sabrina said. “For someone who claims to be an adult trapped in a little boy’s body, you act like a baby.”

  “You insolent brat!” Pinocchio said. “If I was big enough, I’d put you over my knee.”

  “I’d like to see you try,” Sabrina said.

  “Hey! Can’t you hear that?” Daphne said.

  “Hear what?!” Pinocchio and Sabrina shouted.

  “The horse hooves! He’s coming.”

  Sabrina stood for a moment. She could hear the beating of a horse on the road.

  “You’re supposed to hold this!” she cried, forcing the head back into his hands.

  “It’s too great an honor,” Pinocchio said, slamming it back into her hands. “I insist.”

  Just then, the dark, terrifying figure ap
peared on the road. His silver sword flashed in the moonlight and fire flickered in his horse’s eyes.

  “Where’s the door?”

  “It should appear any second,” Daphne replied.

  “You better be right,” Sabrina said.

  Sabrina watched as Pinocchio sprinted away. She tucked the head under her arm and started to chase after him, but only after a few steps she heard Puck’s voice shout “No!”

  Sabrina turned to find the boy fairy had leaped onto the road with his sword in hand. His sudden appearance caused the horse to reel back. The Headless Horseman lost his balance and flew off, slamming to the ground with a thud.

  “Should I give him the head?” Sabrina asked.

  “Yes!”

  Sabrina tossed the head to the demon, then watched as a door in the road materialized next to her. When Daphne opened it, a fierce gale exploded from the doorway—but a tornado couldn’t have held them back. Sabrina, Daphne, Puck, and Pinocchio darted through, the smell of jasmine tea and spices enveloping their senses.

  When Sabrina’s vision cleared, she stood in an arid desert and blinked into the brutal sun. Even taking a breath seemed to burn her throat.

  “At least it’s not a forest,” Pinocchio said. “All these woodland stories are doing a number on my allergies.”

  “Where do you think we are?” Daphne asked.

  “Not a clue,” Sabrina said as she rolled up her sleeves.

  “I think we’ll find out in there,” Puck said, pointing behind the group. Sabrina turned and saw a slab of marble rising up from the sand. The slab had a golden ring on it and was leaning open, revealing a flight of stairs descending underground. She sighed.

  “All right, then,” Sabrina said. “Let’s get this over with.”

  The children climbed down the stairs and found themselves inside a huge subterranean garden. Sabrina had never seen anything like it. Despite the lack of sunlight, fruit trees and lush flowers grew. A stream fed the green lawn and little birds fluttered from one branch to the next. Four glass vases overflowing with golden coins sat on top of four earthen mounds.

  At the end of the garden they found a flight of stairs that led even farther down into the earth. Since there was little light, the group clung to one another until they came to a set of double doors that seemed to be made from pure gold. Puck pushed them open to reveal a room overflowing with jewels and precious metals. Several torches illuminated the room and the light bounced off every sparking treasure, nearly blinding Sabrina. In the center of all the treasure she could make out two figures. The first was a short, balding man. The second was a toddler.

  “So you found me,” Mirror said. The youngest member of the Grimm family sat at his feet, burbling happily.

  Daphne moved to rush to the boy, but Mirror’s eyes ignited with magic and Sabrina pulled her back.

  “And you’ve come to stop me?”

  “Mirror, we could have found another way to get you what you want,” Sabrina said.

  Mirror shook his head. “I’ve waited long enough.” He leaned down and snatched a golden lamp from a pile of treasure. It was nothing special compared to the treasures that surrounded it, but Mirror eyed it greedily. It was then that Sabrina realized they must be in the story of Aladdin—one of the many magical tales from A Thousand and One Nights. She knew what Mirror’s lamp could do.

  “Don’t do this,” she begged.

  Mirror eyed the lamp. “It’s my only chance. The place I need to go can’t be reached any other way but by magic, and this little lamp, if it is anything like the real McCoy, has even more power than the Blue Fairy, Baba Yaga, and the Wicked Queen combined. This thing can change the future, the past—it could make me a god. Sadly, all that won’t stick once I’m outside of this book and the Editor revises it away. What I need is in my story, which the Editor can’t touch once I’ve changed it.”

  For a split second, Sabrina thought she saw remorse in the little man’s face, but then he polished the lamp against his jacket. There was a strange energy in the air—a building of pressure that pressed against Sabrina’s eardrums. A loud pounding rocked the cavern and then the energy formed itself into a single massive being standing nearly twenty feet tall. Its eyes were furious bonfires. Its skin was green and ghostly. Its arms and chest were thick with stringy muscles, though its lower body remained mist-like and filled with crackling light. The creature looked down at them and snarled, “Who summons me?”

  Mirror raised his hand. “That would be me.”

  “As my obligation, I must grant you three wishes, but I have been trapped in this lamp for eons. You would be most kind to use one of your wishes to grant me my freedom.”

  “You’ll get no such satisfaction from me, genie,” Mirror said.

  The genie roared with rage and the temple’s walls shook. Dust fell from the ceiling. Sabrina worried if it might cave in on her.

  “Tantrums will not help,” Mirror said, seemingly unfazed. “I released you from the lamp. I am your Master.”

  “You intend to change something,” the creature seethed.

  “Indeed, and before the Editor arrives with his creatures, I suggest we get to work. From what I understand, the magic in this book is as powerful as the magic of the real world. You possess the same power as your real-life counterpart?”

  “I do, until I am revised,” the genie snarled. “You have your wishes for a brief time, Master.”

  “I only need a moment. I wish the child and I were in the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” Mirror said.

  “That story is off-limits,” the genie said. “There are barriers to entrance.”

  “Did you not just say you are powerful? In the real world, a genie is beyond limits. It can raise the dead, change the course of rivers, and make the world bow at its master’s feet. Use your powers to remove the barrier,” Mirror commanded. “I want to go there. Do as I command.”

  The genie bent over and peered at him with angry eyes. “Very well.” He clapped his hands. There was a mighty explosion and Mirror and the baby boy began to shimmer as if thousands of lightning bugs were crawling under their skin. Soon the light grew so bright that Sabrina could not look. She shielded her eyes until it faded. By then, Mirror and her brother were gone.

  “Send us, too,” Daphne said.

  The genie shook his proud head. “I cannot. Mirror is my master. He has two more wishes for me to grant. I cannot offer you any help, even though I would truly like to destroy him.”

  “We have to get out of here,” Daphne said. “We need to find a door.”

  Pinocchio shook his head. “We won’t. The story hasn’t ended. The door will never come.”

  Sabrina felt like she had been slapped. “You mean we’re stuck here?”

  Pinocchio nodded.

  Sabrina leaned against a column and slid to the floor. They had failed. Mirror was changing history and getting whatever it was he set out to do. He would take her brother’s body and use his magic to conquer the world. She remembered the terrible and bleak future she had seen when she and her sister had fallen into a time tear—humans were hunted by dragons and the world was on fire. She had hoped that she and her sister had made enough changes in the present to prevent that future. Now it looked as if it were all in vain.

  And then a blast of wind blew her hair back and there were three figures standing over her.

  “Why the long face, liebling?” Granny Relda said. Sabrina’s mother, Veronica, and her father, Henry, were standing behind her.

  Sabrina stood up and rushed into their arms. Daphne did the same. It wasn’t long before all four of the Grimm women were in tears.

  “We’re going to have to have a very long talk, young ladies, about rushing headfirst into danger without your family,” Henry scolded. “But first . . .”

  He swept the girls into his arms and lifted them off the ground for a huge embrace. Though her father was tall and thin, almost wiry, she had forgotten how strong he could be. “Are you OK? Ha
ve you been hurt? Are you hungry?” There were a million questions.

  “How did you find us?” Sabrina asked instead of answering.

  “After Pinocchio opened all the doors in the Hall of Wonders, the monsters tore through the house. We were worried about your safety and came looking,” Veronica said.

  Granny nodded. “I’m afraid that much of our home is destroyed. All that we could salvage was the magic mirror, so we brought it out into the yard and started searching for you three inside the Hall of Wonders. Eventually we found the room with the Book of Everafter. We were examining it when the White Rabbit hopped out of the pages. Your father snatched him up and we took the magic yarn from him. I knew what it was instantly. We have the real one stored in the magical fabrics room—or at least we did. There was a lot of pillaging when the monsters were let out.”

  “I had to threaten to turn his feet into key chains, but he eventually told us how he had deserted you,” Veronica said.

  “He wasn’t too happy that we tossed him right back into the Book,” Granny said. “But the world does not need two White Rabbits.”

  “The world doesn’t need one,” Sabrina added.

  “Then we used the yarn to bring us here. Wherever ‘here’ is.”

  “We’re in the story of Aladdin, Mom,” Henry said, waving toward the towering genie, who waited patiently. “My biggest question is,” he said, “why did you jump into this book?”

  “Mirror is the Master,” Sabrina said. “We followed him in here.”

  Granny Relda nearly fainted. “That can’t be possible. Our Mirror?”

  “He’s been behind all the troubles in Ferryport Landing. He has helped plot out all the bad stuff that has happened to us. Jack worked for him—Rumpelstiltskin, the Mad Hatter, Mrs. Heart, Nottingham, they are all part of the Scarlet Hand—the group he created!”

  Granny Relda looked on the verge of tears.

  “And he’s not finished with us,” Sabrina said. “He’s got one more plan. It involves the baby.”

  Sabrina looked to her mother. Veronica had kept her secret as long as she could.

  “Henry, I don’t know how to tell you this,” Veronica said as she took her husband’s hand into her own. “The night we were abducted, I had an important announcement.”