'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 her 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 jet-black 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.
2
Chapter 2
There 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 batde 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
