The Grimm Legacy

“It’s not stealing.”

I decided not to argue the point. “Did you at least empty out the deposits before you took it?”

He shook his head. “I couldn’t figure out how to get them out, or what to do with them if I did.”

Oh, no! Good-bye to my sense of direction! I wondered whether Mr. Stone would be able to take it out of the kuduo and use it. Good luck to him if he did—it was never much good even when I had it. Good-bye to Aaron’s firstborn and everything else. Not for the first time, I thought Marc was pretty selfish. “Did you at least find out where Anjali is?” I asked. “The Snow White mirror said she’s a puppet.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

I told him about the conversation with Aaron and the mirror.

“So the spell worked on Anjali! A puppet! At least now we know what to look for when we go rescue her,” said Marc.

“So you found out where?”

He nodded. “Stone gave me a name and address. A woman named Gloria Badwin, in the West Village. I’m going there today, as soon as my shift is over—I just have to wait for Mrs. Walker to drop off Andre here.”

“Who’s Mrs. Walker?” I asked.

“Andre’s friend’s mom. She’s dropping him off here after his playdate, when my shift is over. I’ll have to get someone to watch him while I go look for Anjali.”

“That’s not the only problem. Before we rescue Anjali, we’ll need to find the Golden Key, whatever that is.”

“The Golden Key? Why?”

I told him what the mirror had said.

“Well, that’s easy enough. I’ll go get the key right now.”

“You know where it is? You know what it is?”

“Yeah, it’s one of the objects in the Grimm Collection. Wait here, I’ll be right back.”

I sat down and opened the book I was reading for English. I heard him come in, but I didn’t look up. “Did you find it?” I asked.

“Find what?” said Aaron.

My heart tripped over its ankles. “Oh! Sorry, I thought you were Marc.”

That was the wrong thing to say. Aaron scowled at me. I tried to think of something better to say. “How’s your . . .” His what? His evil mirror? His hastily made bed? “How’s your mom?”

He blushed. “She’s fine. Look, what are we going to do about Anjali? Have you figured out what this Golden Key is?”

“Something from the Grimm Collection, Marc said. He went to get it.”

“You told him?”

“Of course I told him! He’s Anjali’s boyfriend. He has a right to know.”

“He’s also the guy who’s been stealing things from the Grimm Collection, remember?”

Marc walked in before I could answer. “I forgot—you need two keys to get into the GC now. Can I take yours?” Marc asked me.

I reached in my pocket.

“You’re not going to give it to him!” said Aaron. “Doc told you never to lend it to anyone!”

“Anjali got kidnapped! I need to rescue her!” said Marc.

“Why are you trying to stop me?”

“I’m not—,” Aaron began.

I grabbed his arm. “Shh, here comes Ms. Minnian.”

Ms. Minnian hurried over to us, her heels clicking on the linoleum. “Have any of you seen Dr. Rust? Or Anjali?” she asked. She sounded very worried.

We all shook our heads. “No—why?” said Marc.

“Nobody’s seen Dr. Rust since yesterday, and Anjali didn’t show up for her shift. If you hear from either of them, can you come and tell me or Ms. Callender immediately, please?”

“Of course,” I said. “Wow, I hope they’re okay!”

“I hope so too. Until we find Dr. Rust, we’re putting the Grimm Collection completely out of bounds. We’ve changed all the locks—your keys won’t work. If you get a *GC slip, send it straight to me.” She walked off quickly.

I waited until I couldn’t hear her heels anymore, then said, “I guess that means we can’t ask Doc for help. But we could still ask Ms. Minnian or Ms. Callender.”

“No!” said Marc. “This is just more proof that we can’t trust anyone.”

“I can certainly agree with that,” said Aaron. He glared at Marc to show exactly who he meant by “anyone.”

“Do you think Wallace Stone stole Dr. Rust too somehow?” I asked. “We should have warned Doc about Stone—Doc trusted him! Or is Doc looking for the kuduo?”

“What do you mean? What happened to the kuduo?” asked Aaron.

Now it was Marc’s turn to glare at me.

“Answer me,” said Aaron. “Where’s the kuduo?”

After a moment, I answered. “Marc took it. He traded it to Wallace Stone for the address of the person who has Anjali.”

“He what? He stole the kuduo? With my firstborn child in it? And you knew about it and you let him? I can’t believe you!” He stared at me for a moment, then spun on his heel and started to walk off.

“Wait! Aaron!” I grabbed his arm again. “Where are you going?”

“To tell Ms. Minnian and then the police. Let go!” He shook his arm.

Marc stepped between him and the door. “You can’t do that. You know you can’t. We’ve got to rescue Anjali—Stone gave me the address and the mirror told you about the Golden Key. Think about it! If we tell the librarians, they won’t let us near it and we’ll never get Anjali back!”

“They’ll get her back themselves.”

“You think you can trust them? Maybe Doc’s in on it. Maybe they’re all in on it!” said Marc.

“Or maybe nobody’s in on it except you. You just admitted you stole the kuduo! Get out of my way!”

“You think I would let my own girlfriend get kidnapped if I was in on it? Just calm down and think for a minute, Aaron! The point is, we know what to do, but if we tell the librarians, they won’t let us do it.”

“Aaron, he’s right,” I said. “You know he is. We have to rescue Anjali! Can we please just stop fighting and figure out how?”

Aaron glared at me some more, but he stopped trying to get to the door. “All right,” he said. “We’ll rescue Anjali. But the moment she’s safe, I’m turning Marc in.”

“Fine,” said Marc. “I don’t care what happens to me if Anjali’s safe. Let’s go get the Golden Key and rescue her.”

“Yeah, but how?” I said. “It’s in the Grimm Collection and they changed the locks. Our keys won’t work. Is there any other way into the Grimm Collection besides the door?”

Both boys looked stumped.

“Not unless you crawled in through the pneum pipes,” said Marc.

“Hey,” said Aaron. “That’s a thought.”

“Yeah, right,” said Marc. “You may be short, but you’re not that short.”

Aaron gave him a withering look. “We can use the shrink ray in the Wells Bequest. Ms. Minnian didn’t say anything about the other Special Collections, just the Grimm Collection—I bet my Wells key still works. I can shrink you down and send you into the Grimm Collection in a pneum.”

“There’s actually a shrink ray? That’s brilliant!” I said.

Marc nodded grudgingly. “I guess that could work,” he said.

I thought about it some more. “Okay, so that’s how we get into the Grimm Collection, but how do we get out? We would need somebody full size to send us back through the pipes.”