The Unusual Suspects

by Michael Buckley

  And, unfortunately, that’s when Sabrina noticed the bizarre contraption.

  “What the—?” she said aloud but just then a buzzer drowned out her voice and the girl was catapulted off the metal plate and up, up through the air and then down, down into a large vat of goo, causing an enormous splash.

  “Doesn’t anyone knock around here?” Puck complained when Sabrina finally fought her way to the surface.

  “What is this stuff?” she cried, as she struggled through the vat of thick white mush in which several dark chunks floated. The stink of it nearly made Sabrina barf.

  “It’s a big tub of glue and buttermilk, of course,” the boy said, as if it were obvious. “With some bread-and-butter pickles added for flavor. It’s quite stinky.”

  “You’re going to pay for this, Puck!” Sabrina screamed as she climbed out of the tub. She wiped her face as well as she could and flared her nostrils.

  “There she is, Miss America,” the prankster sang. He tossed his huge ice-cream cone into the wrestling ring and the boxing kangaroo lapped it up happily. Then the boy jumped into the air and two massive pink-streaked insect wings sprang from his back. Soon he was soaring high above Sabrina.

  “Just like an Everafter to use magic to run from a fight! Come down here, you smelly little freak,” Sabrina shouted.

  “With our fists?” Puck cried indignantly. “Human, I’m royalty. A prince fights like a prince.”

  His wings flapped loudly as he flew across his forest room to a nearby table. He scooped up two swords and flew back to Sabrina, tossing one at her feet as he floated effortlessly to the ground.

  The girl grabbed her weapon and held it confidently. It was made of wood, like Puck’s, but it would still hurt if she got a good whack at him.

  The two children circled each other. Sabrina wasted no time thrusting her sword at the boy, who immediately floated several feet off the ground and spun easily, dodging her attack. While she was off balance, Puck flew toward her, trying to strike her arm. But Sabrina shifted her weight, swung her sword, and hit him on the top of his head.

  “Dirty little snotface!” the boy cried as he rubbed his sore noggin. “Someone’s been learning.”

  “Charge me again and you’ll see what else I’ve learned, horse-breath!” Sabrina threatened.

  Puck flew at her, swinging his wooden sword toward her shoulder, only to have it blocked by Sabrina’s sword. She took a swipe at his belly, missing him by less than an inch.

  “Tsk, tsk. Looks like you haven’t learned the most important lesson of all.” He laughed. “Always protect your butt.”

  Puck spun around and smacked Sabrina on the backside with his sword. The blow felt like the sting of a dozen honeybees, but Sabrina would never give him the satisfaction of hearing her cry out in pain.

  “You’re as slow as you are ugly,” the boy taunted.

  “You miserable little stink-pig!” Sabrina screamed, wildly slashing at him. He easily dodged each attack, leaping and flying out of the way, even flipping over her head. When he landed, he jammed his sword into her back and chuckled.

  “Too bad, you’re dead,” he said. “You’ve got to get a hold of that temper. It beats you every time.”

  Sabrina tossed her sword down angrily and spun around on him with her fists clenched. Seeing that she meant to knock his head off, Puck did what anybody would do when facing an angry Sabrina Grimm—he ran. She chased him around the lagoon, through some heavy brush, out the other side, and right into Granny Relda. The old woman stood over them, and her expression, or what they could see of it behind her beauty mask, was disapproving.

  The mask seemed to make a big impression on Puck.

  “Old lady!” he cried—he always called Granny Relda by that name. “Your face! You’ve been cursed by a hobgoblin!”

  “Lieblings, that’s enough of this nonsense,” Granny said as the dirty boy scampered to his feet and hid behind her.

  “First of all, in my defense, the chain saw was propped on the door and was only supposed to scare her,” he said. “If someone got hurt, it wasn’t my fault.”

  “Puck, we’re talking about the spider,” Granny Relda said.

  “Oh, the spider. How did it go off? Were they scared out of their wits?” he asked. “Which one of them wet the bed?”

  “I know you didn’t mean any harm,” the old woman said. “But the girls do have school today and it would have been nice to have a quiet, chaos-free morning, for once.”

  Puck looked into her face as if she were speaking another language. “And what would be the fun in that?”

  “Let’s back up!” Sabrina demanded. “What chain saw?”

  Granny ignored the question and took the boy’s hand. She placed the tarantula into it and smiled kindly. “Let’s put this somewhere safe.”

  Puck took the spider and rubbed its furry back softly. “It’s OK, little guy. Did the big ugly girl scare you? I know, she’s gruesome, but you’re safe now.”

  Sabrina growled.

  “What’s going on in here?” Daphne said from the doorway. The little girl rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and then looked around. “Holy cow!”

  “Daphne, move off the plate you’re standing on,” her sister warned, but the little girl just gawked at Puck’s room.

  “You’ve got an ice-cream truck,” she cried as the roller coaster whipped along its track above her. “And a roller coaster!”

  “Daphne, listen to me,” Sabrina shouted, but the egg was already cooking. The balloon was already floating upward.

  “Sabrina, why do you look like a booger?” the little girl asked as the seesaw fell. The alarm sounded and, just as it had done to Sabrina, the catapult fired Daphne into the air and sent her flailing into the vat of goo. When she landed, she struggled to stand up and wipe the slime from her face.

  “What is this?” she asked.

  “Glue and buttermilk!” Puck shouted.

  “And bread-and-butter pickles,” Sabrina added, picking a squishy slice of pickle from behind her ear and tossing it to the ground.

  Daphne’s face curled up in confusion as if she couldn’t get her brain around the idea. Then a huge smile came to her face.

  “I want to do it again!” She laughed.

  Granny Relda helped Daphne out of the sticky soup.

  “Look at us,” Sabrina said. “We can’t go to school today!” Suddenly, her anger at Puck faded. We can’t go to school today! I can do more research! she thought.

  “Oh lieblings, you’ve already been out for three weeks. I don’t want you to get too far behind,” Granny said, eyeing the girls and fighting a smile that eventually won the battle.

  “We’ll just go tomorrow, then,” Sabrina suggested.

  Before Granny Relda could respond, Mr. Canis appeared at the door, fully dressed in his oversized suit. He looked exhausted and feverish, even more frail than before his transformation, which was startling. He looked like he could use another three weeks in bed.

  “The children have a guest,” he said, leaning unsteadily against the doorframe.

  “Thank you, Mr. Canis,” Granny Relda said sounding quite motherly. “You go and get your rest.”

  The old man nodded and shuffled back toward his room.

  “Who’s here to see you?” Puck said enviously.

  Sabrina shrugged and turned to follow Granny Relda downstairs, with Daphne and Puck following eagerly. As the family entered the living room they spotted a skinny old woman in a drab business suit standing by a bookshelf. She picked up a book with her bony hand and scrutinized the title. Sabrina knew the book. It was called Mermaids Are People, Too. The skinny woman tossed it aside and turned to face them, and before Sabrina saw the woman’s face, she knew who it was.

  “Good morning, girls,” Ms. Smirt said. “Did you miss me?”

  inerva Smirt hadn’t changed since the last time the girls had seen her. The caseworker was still ugly and tired-looking. Her bones still poked out of her clothes as if they were
trying to escape her body, and she still had the same angry scowl on her face that she’d had when she left them on the train platform three weeks before. She gazed over her long hooked nose and studied the family scornfully. Puck cringed when her eyes swept over him.

  “My, my, my,” she said disapprovingly.

  “Ms. Smirt, what a pleasant surprise,” Granny Relda said without much conviction. “It’s so nice to see you again.”

  “Girls, get your things,” Ms. Smirt said, staring into the old woman’s eyes. “You’re going back to the orphanage.”

  Daphne slipped her hand into her sister’s and squeezed so hard it hurt.

  “What in heavens for?” Granny Relda exclaimed.

  “Because, Mrs. Grimm, you’ve been completely negligent,” the caseworker barked.

  “What does negligent mean?” Daphne asked.

  “It means she’s a failure,” Ms. Smirt said, interrupting Sabrina, who usually answered Daphne’s vocabulary questions. “It means she’s refused to do what the state requires of her. It means she is unfit!

  “You two haven’t had a day of school since you arrived,” the caseworker continued. “I sent your grandmother a letter reminding her about the law, but I never heard back. So I sent another, and then another, and then another. But, still I heard nothing, so because your granny can’t find the time to put pen to paper and assure me that you two will be educated, I had to get on a five a.m. train and sit next to man who sniffed his own armpits over and over again, for two hours. Imagine how thrilled I am to find out that not only have you two not been in school for a month, you obviously haven’t seen a bathtub or a bar of soap, either!”

  “Who is this woman?” Puck asked.

  “Her name’s Minerva Smirt. She was our caseworker from the orphanage,” Sabrina answered.

  “Cranky old buzzard, isn’t she?” the boy replied.

  Sabrina smiled. Puck sure has his moments, she thought.

  “And who are you supposed to be?” Ms. Smirt asked, turning her angry face toward the boy. “The king of snot-nosed delinquents?”

  Puck smiled. “Finally, someone who has heard of me!”

  “This is my nephew visiting from … uh … Akron, Ohio,” Granny said as she snatched Puck’s crown off his head. “Ms. Smirt, I assure you the girls were going to go to school today. We’ve gotten a little sidetracked with visiting and such.”

  The truth was that Sabrina and Daphne had made every excuse to avoid school. After the family had foiled a plot by Jack (of the beanstalk story) to release giants into the world so he could kill them and regain his fame, the girls convinced their grandmother they needed some time to recover. Then Sabrina had come down with a mysterious stomach flu that Daphne conveniently got the next week. A series of stubbed toes, allergic reactions, dizzy spells, bronchial attacks, and food poisonings had continued to keep them out of the classroom, giving them time to do what they both thought was more important—research. Granny’s immense and disorganized library of books on all things magical probably held the key to finding and rescuing the girls’ parents, missing now for almost two years. The sisters Grimm were in agreement for once: School could wait until Henry and Veronica Grimm were home.

  “You understand, Ms. Smirt,” Granny Relda continued. “After all, I haven’t seen Sabrina since she was a week old.”

  “And now you aren’t going to see her until she’s eighteen,” the caseworker said. She grabbed the sisters roughly and pulled them toward the door. “Girls, we’ve got a train to catch. We’ll send for your things.”

  Just then, Elvis trotted into the room. He spotted Ms. Smirt and his usually happy face instantly turned ferocious. He charged the caseworker, sending her tumbling backward over a pile of books, then stood over her, bearing his teeth and growling.

  “Get this thing away from me or we’ll be making a stop at the pound, too,” Ms. Smirt shouted, waving a book at the dog in a fruitless attempt to intimidate him. Granny Relda stepped forward to help the woman, but Sabrina and Daphne stopped her. Instead, the girls stood on either side of the dog and looked down at their caseworker.

  “Call him off!” Ms. Smirt demanded.

  “Not until you understand what’s going to happen today,” Sabrina said. “My sister and I are going to go upstairs and get cleaned up. We’re going to get dressed and then you are going to take us to school. Then you are going back to New York City, alone.”

  “You don’t get to make the rules, young lady,” Ms. Smirt snapped.

  “Then we’ll just let you and Elvis work out your problems on your own,” Daphne said, patting the big dog on his head. “I guess you could probably make a run for it, but you won’t get far. Elvis can smell evil.”

  Elvis barked viciously.

  Ms. Smirt stared at the girls for a long moment and then furrowed her brow. “Go get ready for school,” she snarled.

  Despite her delay tactics, Sabrina was actually looking forward to her first day of the sixth grade. School offered her something that Granny Relda’s house didn’t—normal people. She would be surrounded by dull teachers and glassy-eyed kids, watching the clock tick slowly, and she would be as happy as a pig in mud. When you lived with a flying boy and the Big Bad Wolf, a little boredom was welcome.

  Sabrina had even planned how her first day would go. She would melt into the crowd and do her best not to draw any attention to herself. She wouldn’t join any clubs or raise her hand, but would drift through the day like an invisible girl. She would find some kids to befriend and they would sit together at lunchtime and maybe pass notes in class. Just like normal kids. It was going to be one long, dull, happy experience.

  Unfortunately, Smirt was ruining Sabrina’s plan. It’s hard to be just another face in the crowd when you’re being dragged down the hallway by your ear. Not that it was entirely Ms. Smirt’s fault that Sabrina was getting attention. Even after three vigorous washings, the girl’s hair was still full of goo from Puck’s booby trap. It stuck out in a thousand different directions like a hungry octopus. Daphne, on the other hand, had sculpted her hair into an old-fashioned beehive style that spiraled high on her head. Inside the sticky tower, the little girl had inserted several pencils and pens, a ruler, a protractor, two gummy erasers, and a package of peanut-butter crackers for later. By the time the girls got to the principal’s office, Sabrina was sure every kid in the school thought that Ferryport Landing Elementary was now enrolling escaped mental patients.

  “Excuse me, I’m Minerva Smirt from the New York City Department of Child Welfare,” Ms. Smirt said, pounding impatiently on a bell that sat on the counter of the school office. Two middle-aged secretaries were busy spraying bug spray at something in the far corner of the room. The one with the thick glasses leaned down and smacked whatever it was with a magazine, while the chubby one stomped on it like an Irish folk dancer.

  “I think it’s dead,” the chubby one said as she bent over to get a better look.

  Smirt rang the bell again, and the two women looked at her as if she had just come in with a flamethrower.

  “I’m in a hurry,” the caseworker said. “I need to enroll these two orphans.”

  “We are not orphans!” Sabrina and Daphne said. Ms. Smirt pinched them each on the shoulder for arguing with her.

  The bespectacled secretary crossed the room and snatched the bell away. Once she had tossed it into a drawer, she looked up at the caseworker and frowned.

  “I’ll see if our guidance counselor, Mr. Sheepshank, is available,” she said as she eyed the children in bewilderment. Shaking her head, she stepped over to a door and knocked on it lightly.

  “Sir, we have some new students … I think,” the secretary said, turning back and eyeing the girls’ odd hairdos.

  “Yes! Yes! Please bring them in,” a happy voice called. The secretary ushered the trio into the office and closed the door.

  Mr. Sheepshank was a little man dressed in a green suit and a bow tie with smiley faces on it. He had a round, full, friendl
y face with freckled cheeks as red as his hair. When he smiled, little wrinkle lines formed in the corners of his glittering eyes.

  “Good morning, ladies. I’m Casper Sheepshank, your school counselor,” the man said cheerily. “Welcome to Ferryport Landing Elementary.”

  Mr. Sheepshank took Ms. Smirt’s hand in his and shook it vigorously. The caseworker blushed; and she did something Sabrina had never seen before: She smiled.

  “I’m Minerva … Minerva Smirt from the New York City Department of Child Welfare,” she said.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” the guidance counselor replied. “And who are these lovely ladies?”

  “Introduce yourselves, girls,” Ms. Smirt said, giggling.

  “I’m Sabrina Grimm,” Sabrina said. Sheepshank seized her hand and gave her the same joint-jarring treatment he had given to Ms. Smirt.

  “I’m Daphne Grimm,” Daphne chirped.

  “Grimm? You wouldn’t happen to be related to Henry Grimm?” the counselor asked.

  “He’s our dad,” Sabrina said.

  “He went to school here with us, too,” Mr. Sheepshank said. “I remember him quite clearly. He was always getting into trouble. I assume I can expect more of the same from the two of you?”

  Unsure of how to respond, the girls said nothing. After a long, uncomfortable pause Sheepshank chuckled and winked at Sabrina. “Just a joke, ladies. Your father was a model student.”