The Grimm Legacy

“Okay . . . Well, bye.”

“Bye.”

I had just finished a tricky math problem and was feeling proud of myself when the phone rang again.

“Elizabeth? It’s Aaron again.”

What on earth was going on with him?

“You don’t say,” I said.

He laughed uncomfortably. “Actually, I was wondering. What are you doing Friday?”

“I’m going to the basketball game,” I said. “There’s a big home game at my school. Why?”

“Oh.” His voice fell. “I just thought . . . never mind.”

Before he could hang up again, I said, “Well, maybe—you could come to the game if you want.”

What on earth was I doing? Was I asking him out? Why was I doing that? He was kind of awful, and he liked Anjali—Anjali, not me. I was making a complete fool of myself.

“It’ll probably be an exciting game,” I went on. “We’re playing the World Peace Academy. They’re a charter school, they have a dumb name but a killer team, and they keep winning. But we’re doing great too this season.” I was babbling, but I couldn’t stop. “We have a lot of talent on our team. Especially Marc. I think this time we might actually have a chance of winning. You should see Marc play. He’s been amazing lately.”

Aaron finally spoke. When he did, nice, nervous Aaron was gone. He had turned into cold, sarcastic Aaron, the Aaron who hated Marc. “Yeah, I bet he has. I just bet he has,” he said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“There’s more to sports than just speed and strength, you know. There’s also honesty and fair play.”

“What are you talking about? Are you implying Marc cheats?”

“I know what I’ve seen at the repository.”

“You know what you think you’ve seen, but you’re wrong. Marc is just as worried as you are about the suspicious objects. He’s helping me and Anjali figure it out and get them back.”

“What? You told him about them?”

“Of course I did. Why shouldn’t I?”

“I can’t believe you! I can’t believe myself. What was I thinking, deciding I could trust you?”

“What’s the matter with you, Aaron? I didn’t do anything to you, and you call me up out of the blue and start yelling at me!”

“Fine. I’ll get off the phone now.” He hung up.

“Bye,” I said to the dead phone. I went back to my math, wondering why I felt like I was about to cry.

I didn’t see Aaron at the repository on Thursday. Ms. Callender sent me to the MER to handle the pneum traffic, and it was so busy I didn’t have a moment free to look for helpful GC objects in the catalog, even if I’d had the heart to.

Friday after school I made my way to Anjali’s house. I managed to get there by keeping careful track of the building numbers as I walked up Park Avenue. I gave my name to the doorman, who gave it to whoever answered the buzzer at the Raos’.

“Fourteenth floor,” he told me.

I found the elevator okay. It was in plain sight, right in front of me.

“Elizabeth! So nice to see you again, dear,” said Mrs. Rao, opening the door. “Are you excited about the basketball game tonight?”

“Totally,” I said. “We’re playing World Peace Academy. They have a cutthroat team, but we’re doing great this year, so it should be a close one.”

“It sounds exciting. Anjali is in her room—you remember the way?”

“I think so.”

“No, the other way—to the left,” said Mrs. Rao.

I opened the door to a linen closet and what must have been Jaya’s room, judging by the sparkly clothes strewn all around, before I came to a door marked Anjali in careful calligraphy. I knocked and tried the handle. It was locked.

Anjali’s voice came through the door, muffled but firm: “Go away.”

“Anjali? It’s me, Elizabeth.”

“Oh, sorry!” The door opened. Anjali was wearing pink sweats with clouds on them, and even in sweats she looked great. “Sorry, I thought it was Jaya.” She stood aside to let me in, then locked the door again.

“Well? Did you figure out who took those objects?” I asked.

“I think so. Maybe. Marc wants us to meet him in your school library after the game so the three of us can go over it together. But why don’t you take a look now and see if there’s anything I missed?” She got out her laptop and patted the sofa pillow next to her. I sat down and tilted the screen so that I could see it better.

“What am I looking at?”

“This is everyone who checked out any of the objects on Ms. Callender’s list. These are their affiliations— their business or school or whatever. Here are pairs of people who checked out at least one object in common. Do you see the pattern?”

I shook my head.

“Yeah, I didn’t get it either at first. All right, let me show you one more list.” Anjali opened a new window on her computer. “This has all the objects you pulled for Ms. Callender on the y-axis, with all the patrons who took them out in chronological order along the x-axis. The objects that still smell like magic are highlighted in red. Okay, now I’m going to highlight the patrons who work for a place called Benign Designs.” She touched a key, and a bunch of spreadsheet cells lit up in blue. “Get it now?”

I shook my head. “I don’t really understand what all the boxes mean. How do you know this stuff? Is this what they teach you at Miss Wharton’s—like, AP Spreadsheets or something?”

Anjali laughed. “Sorry, I forgot not everybody has to live with my dad. He had Jaya and me using these programs the minute we were born. Look.” She pointed to the screen. “These seven patrons are from some business called Benign Designs. Notice how somebody from Benign Designs took out every one of the objects that you said doesn’t smell magical?”

She was right. At least one of the seven names appeared on every row. “Yes, but they also took out most of the ones that do smell magical,” I said. “Maybe they’re just heavy library users. And they’re not the only ones who took out the messed-up objects. Look, two or three other people did too, including Ms. Minnian.”

“Maybe. But look at when. With the ones that don’t smell right, someone from Benign Designs took them out at least three patrons ago. The ones that still smell magical have been checked out only once or twice since the Benign Designs patron.”

“Except for the ones that haven’t ever been checked out by Benign Designs. Like the seven-league boots,” I pointed out.

She waved her hand. “I’m not counting those. They’re clearly mistakes.”

“You can’t just decide anything that doesn’t fit your theory is a mistake! And what actually is your theory, anyway?”

“That the people at Benign Designs are doing something to the objects.”

“What kind of something?”

“I don’t know. Stealing their magic, maybe.”

“Can you do that? Can you take the magic out of something magical?”

“I don’t know. I can’t, obviously, but maybe somebody can.”

“But then why do the objects still work for the next three patrons?”

“I’m not sure. It has to be some kind of delayed action. Maybe the magic fades slowly.”

“Or maybe they put a spell on them so the third person to take them out has to give them to Benign Designs, and they replace it with a fake, like you and Marc do with the seven-league boots.”

“Maybe—that’s another possible theory. We could test it, by borrowing one of the objects.”

“Oh, wait!” I remembered the comb. “I already did!” I took it out of my bag. “This was on the list.”

“What is it?” Anjali turned it over in her hands.