The Unusual Suspects

by Michael Buckley

  “That’s good to hear,” Hamstead said, though even from the backseat Sabrina could spot the look of doubt on his face.

  “I want my phone call,” a little voice cried from the glove compartment. “We were framed!”

  The sheriff banged heavily on the dashboard. “Tell it to the judge!”

  Soon, Sheriff Hamstead pulled his squad car into the driveway of the family’s quaint, two-story yellow house. It was very late and all the lights were off. Sabrina opened her door and Elvis lumbered out, still wearing two Lilliputian-free glue traps on his giant behind. It was bitterly cold, and Sabrina hoped the two adults wouldn’t blabber on. Granny could talk a person’s ear off. But the sheriff just thanked them again and excused himself, claiming he had paperwork piling up back at the station.

  At the front door, Granny took a giant key ring out of her handbag and went to work unlocking the many locks. Once Sabrina had believed Granny Relda was just a paranoid shut-in, but in the last three weeks she had seen things that she would never have dreamed possible and now understood why the house was locked so tightly.

  Granny Relda knocked on the door three times and announced to the house that the family was home, making the last magical lock slide back and the door swing open.

  After cookies, and some vegetable-oil swabbing for Elvis, Granny Relda said, “Get cleaned up and hurry to bed. You’ve got school tomorrow. I’ve kept you up too late as it is.”

  “Actually, Granny,” Sabrina replied. “I think I’m coming down with something. I’d hate to go to school and get everyone sick.”

  Granny grinned. “Sabrina, it’s been three weeks. If you two don’t go to school tomorrow they are going to put me in the jail-house. Now, up to bed.”

  Sabrina frowned, forced a cough to make the old woman feel guilty, and then marched up the steps. Couldn’t Granny see there were more important things to do than go to school?

  Long after Daphne had drifted into a steady, snoring sleep, Sabrina crawled out of their four-poster bed in the room that had once been their father’s. His model airplanes still hung from the ceiling and an old catcher’s mitt rested on his desk. She knelt down on her hands and knees and pulled several dusty books and a key ring out from under the bed before climbing to her feet again and creeping silently into the hallway.

  Sabrina was very good at creeping. In fact, she’d have said she was an expert. A year and a half in and out of an orphanage and foster homes had taught her how to step lightly on hardwood floors and avoid creaky beams. In the past she had used these skills to escape from one bad situation after another. In eighteen months, the sisters Grimm had run away from more than a dozen foster families. Some of the families had used them as personal servants while others expected them to be punching bags for their own obnoxious children. These days the girls didn’t want to run away. Granny Relda had given them a home. But being sneaky still had its advantages. Especially when Sabrina was doing something she knew her grandmother would disapprove of.

  When Sabrina reached the door at the top of the steps, she sorted through her own growing collection of keys and found the long brass skeleton key that fit it. Once it was unlocked, she took a quick look around to make sure no one was watching, and then stepped inside.

  The room was empty except for a full-length mirror that hung on the far wall. A single window allowed enough moonlight into the room for Sabrina to see by. She stepped up to the mirror and her reflection appeared. Her long blond hair and blue eyes glowed a ghostly milky blue, but Sabrina wasn’t here to admire herself. Instead, she did what most people would think was impossible—she walked directly into the glass and disappeared.

  The mirror was actually a doorway that led to an immense room Sabrina knew as the Hall of Wonders. In many ways it reminded Sabrina of Grand Central Station in New York City with its incredibly long, barrel-vaulted ceiling supported by towering marble columns. There were literally thousands of arched doorways on either side of the hall. Each door was labeled with a little brass plaque that revealed what was behind it: talking plants; giant living chess pieces; Babe, the Blue Ox; and thousands more impossibly interesting magical items and creatures, all collected by the Grimms for safekeeping. Granny called it the world’s biggest walk-in closet. Sabrina had started to see it as her only hope.

  She scanned the hall and spotted a lonely figure sitting in a high-backed chair several yards away. She headed in his direction.

  “Mirror,” the girl said to the short, squat man. “I think I’ve found something useful.”

  Mirror, as he was called, was a balding man with deep angular features and thick, full lips who lived inside the mirror. His was the face that had proclaimed Snow White “the fairest one of all” to the Wicked Queen. When he spotted Sabrina, he set a celebrity magazine he had been reading down and got up from his chair.

  “I thought you’d given this up,” he said.

  “Granny’s had us pretty busy,” Sabrina explained. “So, let’s get started.”

  “What? No hello? No how are you? How’s the family?” the little man complained.

  “Sorry, Mirror, I don’t have a lot of time.”

  “Apology accepted. So, kiddo, what’s on the agenda tonight?”

  “I found this thing in Burton’s translation of The Arabian Nights,” Sabrina said, opening one of her books and handing it to Mirror. He didn’t even bother to look at the page.

  “Listen, blondie, I assure you, if we had a jinni’s lamp I’d have a lot more hair on my head and we’d all be living in Hawaii. Sweet-ums, don’t you think that if your grandmother had access to that kind of power, your parents would have already been found?”

  Sabrina frowned. She would spend the whole day researching ways to rescue her parents from their kidnappers, and every night, Mirror would shoot her ideas down one by one.

  “Fine,” Sabrina replied, handing Mirror another book she had opened already. “What about this?”

  Mirror looked down at the book, flipped it to view its cover, and smiled. “L. Frank Baum, huh? Follow me, little cowpoke. I think we might just have that one in stock.”

  The little man spun around and headed down the long hallway. “The Golden Cap is one of the most interesting things the Wicked Witch ever owned, yet most people are more fascinated by her broomstick,” he continued.

  “I’ve been reading as much as I can,” Sabrina replied, doing her best to keep up with Mirror’s quick pace.

  “Oh, I have no doubt about that,” the little man said, spinning around on the girl. “So, you know how it works?”

  “Yes, I put it on and the monkeys come. They’ll do whatever I want them to.”

  “The only downside is the monkey smell,” Mirror said. “That’s a stink that never quite goes away.”

  After a short hike, Mirror stopped at a door labeled MAGICAL HATS and reached out his hand. Sabrina handed him her key ring.

  “You’re building quite a collection,” he said disapprovingly. “Does your grandmother know you’ve been swiping her keys and making copies?”

  Sabrina shook her head no.

  “Well, you’ve got one for this door,” he said. He opened the door and went inside. As Sabrina waited in the hall, she could see him rummaging through the room. He made quite a racket moving things around, knocking over a helmet in the process, which rolled across the floor with a clatter. Soon he returned with a gold-colored hard hat, which held a can of soda on each side. Tubes ran out of the cans and dangled below the chin strap. On the front of the hat the words EMERALD CITY GREEN SOX were printed in big green letters. Mirror dusted it off and handed it to Sabrina.

  “This is the Golden Cap the Wicked Witch of the West used to summon the flying monkeys?” she said in disbelief.

  “The Witch was a huge sports fan,” Mirror replied. “The magic instructions are inside.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Sabrina said as she read them.

  “Afraid not.”

  The girl scowled and put the hat on h
er head. Following the ridiculous instructions, she lifted her right leg and began the crazy spell. “Ep-pe, pep-pe, kak-ke.”

  Mirror turned away and snickered.

  “Don’t laugh, I feel stupid enough,” Sabrina said, lowering her leg and lifting the other. “Hil-lo, hol-lo, hel-lo.”

  “I wish I had a camera.” The little man giggled.

  “Ziz-zy, zuz-zy, zik!” the girl said, now standing on both feet. Suddenly, her ears filled with the sound of a hundred flapping wings. Monkeys materialized out of thin air. They gathered around their summoner, grinning and beating their black wings. Sabrina understood immediately why Mirror had warned her about the monkey smell. They were a ripe bunch. She thought she might gag when one of the monkeys, wearing a beanie with a bright blue ball on top, took her hand and gave it a sloppy kiss.

  “What is your bidding, master?” it asked in a deep, unearthly voice. Sabrina hadn’t gotten used to talking animals yet. They made her nervous.

  “OK, uh, Mr. Monkey … uh, I need you to go fetch my parents,” she commanded.

  The monkeys screamed and clapped their hands as if she had just promised them bananas. Their wings started to flap and they leaped into the air. But instead of disappearing as Sabrina expected, they zipped around the hall, flying in all directions, as if they weren’t sure which way to go. The leader floated back down to the girl. He had a confused expression on his face.

  “What’s wrong?” Sabrina asked.

  “Great magic blocks our path. Your wish cannot be granted,” he said, and as quickly as he and the others had appeared, they were gone.

  “Why not?” Sabrina shouted, angrily. She took the obnoxious magic hat off her head and shook it, but the monkeys did not return.

  Mirror gave her a sad, pitying smile but Sabrina couldn’t bear to look at it. She was exhausted and angry and not a single step closer to finding her parents. How many more dead ends could she come up against?

  She forced a smile and handed the Golden Cap back to Mirror. The little man nodded and put it inside its room, shutting the door and locking it behind him.

  “Thanks, anyway.” She sighed as she took her key ring and silently walked away. She stepped through the portal without looking back and found herself alone again, in the empty room. Crossing the floor, Sabrina suddenly stopped, turned, and looked at herself in the mirror’s reflection.

  “Mirror?” she called out, softly. A blue mist filled the glass and the little man’s squat, muscular head peered out at her.

  “Want to take a look?” he asked.

  Sabrina nodded.

  He winked. “You know how it works.”

  “Mirror, mirror, near and far, show me where my parents are,” the girl said. Once again, the mirror’s surface changed. As the little man’s face disappeared, Sabrina’s parents, Henry and Veronica Grimm, appeared instead. They were lying on a bed in the dark, fast asleep.

  Sabrina looked at her parents’ faces and sighed. Her father had a round, warm face like her sister’s, framed with blond hair. Her mother, Veronica, was beautiful, with high cheekbones and jetblack locks. They looked vulnerable lying there surrounded by darkness.

  “I won’t let another Christmas go by without you. I’ll find a way to bring you home,” Sabrina said as she reached out to touch them. Her hand dipped into the magic mirror’s reflective surface and her parents’ image rippled the way a pond does when a stone is thrown into it. Sabrina stared at them until they faded away.

  “Same time tomorrow night?” Mirror said as his face reappeared.

  “See you then,” Sabrina said, wiping the tears from her cheeks and flashing Mirror a hopeful smile. The little man nodded and his face faded away.

  The girl tiptoed back down the hallway, but just as she reached her bedroom she heard a painful groan coming from the room opposite. Mr. Canis was having another difficult night. Sabrina stood in the hallway listening to his painful breathing. She imagined that at any moment the door might explode and the Big Bad Wolf would catch her up in his jaws. What would they do if the Wolf beat Mr. Canis and got loose? What if the old man wasn’t strong enough to keep him inside?

  But Mr. Canis wasn’t the only Everafter she had doubts about lately. The charm of living in a community where fairy godmothers and cowardly lions were her neighbors had worn off and Sabrina was beginning to view the Everafters with suspicion. After all, one of them was responsible for kidnapping her parents. She had decided to keep an eye on them all until her parents were home—Mr. Canis included.

  “Go to bed, child,” a voice growled. “Or are you going to huff and puff and blow the door in?” The voice startled Sabrina—it sounded like a combination of Canis and the Wolf—and she quickly darted into her bedroom and closed her door tightly. Leaning against it, she realized how dumb she had been. Of course he could smell her through his bedroom door.

  here were three things that Sabrina took great pride in: one, she had successfully arm wrestled every boy at the orphanage (including two extremely humiliated janitors); two, she wasn’t afraid of heights; and three, she wasn’t a sissy. But when one wakes up to find a giant hairy spider crawling on one’s face, one should be allowed to throw a hissy fit. Which was exactly what Sabrina did.

  And her bloodcurdling scream caused Daphne to wake up, see the spider, and scream, too. Daphne’s scream just made the whole thing that much more horrible for Sabrina, so she screamed even louder, which caused the little girl to scream at her sister’s scream, resulting in a mini-concert of hysteria that went on and on for about five minutes.

  Granny Relda burst into their bedroom with Elvis at her side. Granny’s gray hair, still streaked with its former red, was rolled up in huge curlers and tucked underneath a sleeping cap. She wore a bright blue nightgown patterned with little cows jumping over little moons and her face was covered in a mossy-green mud mask that she swore kept her looking young. But her mud mask was not nearly as startling as the deadly sharp broadsword she held in her hand and the fierce battle cry that bellowed from her throat.

  Scanning the room for attackers, the old woman said, “My goodness, lieblings—what is the matter?”

  “That!” Sabrina and Daphne shouted in unison, pointing at a black tarantula the size of a baked potato that had leaped off the bed and now clung to a nearby curtain. Its eight long, hairy legs and vicious-looking pinchers clicked and snapped as it climbed up the drapes.

  “Oh, children, it’s just a spider,” Granny Relda said as she crossed the room and picked the creepy-crawly thing up with her bare hands. Daphne squealed as if she had been the one to touch it and crawled under her blanket to hide.

  “Just a spider?” Sabrina cried. “You could put a saddle on that thing!”

  “He’s South American I believe,” Granny said, petting the spider like it was a kitten. “You’re a long way from home, friend. How did you find your way here?”

  “Like you have to ask!” Sabrina cried.

  “Now, now,” the old woman said. “It’s just a harmless spider.”

  Elvis trotted over and sniffed the creature. The tarantula raised up two legs and hissed at the Great Dane, causing the usually fearless hound to leap back and yelp in surprise.

  “Is it gone yet?” Daphne’s muffled voice came from under the covers. “Has it been squished?”

  “Girls, Puck’s just being a boy. Brothers do these kinds of thing to their sisters all the time,” Granny said soothingly.

  “He’s not our brother!” Sabrina shouted as she crawled out of bed and stomped across the room toward the door.

  “Where are you going?” Granny Relda asked.

  “To tell Puck’s face what my fist thinks of him,” the girl said, marching past the old woman and out the door.

  “Don’t leave me in here with the spider!” Daphne begged, but her sister ignored her plea. Puck was long overdue for a sock in the nose and Sabrina was just the person to give it to him.

  Puck, like Mr. Canis, was an Everafter, a four-thousand-year-old fa
iry in the body of an eleven-year-old boy. Rude, selfish, smelly, and obnoxious, the boy had been taunting Sabrina since he had met her. He’d dumped a bucket of paint on her, rubbed her toothbrush in red-pepper seeds, filled her pockets with bloodworms, and put something in her shoes that still made her shudder when she recalled its smell. Puck also had a slew of magical pranks. He could shape-shift into any animal and several inanimate objects. Sabrina couldn’t count how many times he had morphed into a chair and then pulled himself out from under her when she sat down. Why Granny Relda had taken to him was beyond comprehension, especially with his well-documented history. Everyone from William Shakespeare to Rudyard Kipling had warned about Puck’s exploits, yet Granny treated him as if he were one of the family and had even invited him to live with the Grimms. Now Sabrina was determined to make the “Trickster King” wish he had declined the invitation.

  She marched down the hall to his bedroom. No one had been in Puck’s room since it had been built. Glinda the Good Witch and the Three Little Pigs used nails, hammers, and magic to create it and when it was finished, the rude boy hadn’t bothered to invite anyone in to see the final result. So, when Sabrina opened the door and stepped inside, she was amazed by what she found. Puck’s room was impossible.

  There were trees and grass and a stone path and a waterfall that spilled into a lagoon. There was an actual sky with clouds and kites where the ceiling should have been. In the center of a clearing was a wrestling ring in which a kangaroo wearing boxing gloves and shorts sat lazily waiting for his next challenger. A roller coaster sailed on a track above Sabrina and an ice-cream truck sat off to one side. In the center of it all was Puck, perched on an enormous throne, wearing his stupid golden crown. He was eating an ice-cream cone that held half a dozen different flavored scoops, all of which were dripping down his arm.

  Poor Sabrina was so astonished by her surroundings that she failed to notice the metal plate at her feet. When she stepped onto it, she triggered the release of an egg, which rolled down a narrow track and fell onto a rusty nail that cracked its shell in half. The egg then emptied its drippings onto a skillet, which triggered the striking of a match that ignited a gas burner. Soon, the egg was popping and crackling as the heat from the flame cooked it, causing steam to rise, which, in turn, filled a balloon that rose into the air. The balloon was connected by a string to a small lever that tipped a bucket of water into a drinking glass sitting on the high end of a seesaw. The seesaw tilted downward from the weight, untying a rope that held a heavy sandbag. The sandbag fell to the ground and hit a bright red button and then it all came to a stop.