6
It was obvious to Sabrina that the Scarlet Hand had spooked Granny Relda. The old woman spent the rest of the night silently digging through her old books and taking notes. When the girls announced they were going to bed, she mumbled what sounded like good night, but kept researching.
While Daphne brushed her teeth, Sabrina ran her head under the bathtub faucet and washed her hair for the fourth time that day. She wrapped it up in a towel, and the girls headed for their bedroom. Daphne put on her favorite pair of footie pajamas and pinned her deputy's badge to them. After buffing it into a shine, she went to their father's desk, which the little girl was slowly converting into a beauty parlor, and took a hairbrush from one of its drawers.
'Can I?' she asked. Sabrina nodded and her little sister climbed up on the bed, took the towel off of the older girl's head, and ran the brush over her long blond hair. For some reason, brushing Sabrina's hair helped calm Daphne down so that she could go to sleep. After finding a dead body, being attacked by a frog-girl, nearly dying with Granny behind the wheel of the car, and having the house vandalized right under their noses, Daphne would be brushing for a long time, Sabrina suspected.
'You OK?' she asked.
'I can't get Mr. Grumpner's face out of my head,' Daphne replied.
'Try not to think about it.'
'But we have to think about it. Now that we're police officers, it's up to us to find his killer.'
'I think we should let the sheriff handle this one,' Sabrina said.
'We can't. We made a vow. Besides, the town needs us to solve the mystery. We are Grimms and this is what we…'
'What we need to do is find Mom and Dad,' Sabrina interrupted.
'We'll find them,' her sister said.
'I don't know how. We've been here for three weeks and have spent all our time catching Lilliputians and killing giants. Isn't it time to start putting Mom and Dad first?'
'The mayor needs our help.'
'And while we're busy doing the mayor's job, Mom and Dad are still missing,' Sabrina snapped. 'How do we know that Charming isn't responsible?'
'He wouldn't do that.'
'He's an Everafter, Daphne! Everafters can't be…'
'What?' Daphne said. 'Everafters can't be what?'
'Trusted!' Sabrina exploded.
Her sister looked at Sabrina as if she didn't recognize her. It was an expression more hurtful than any word the little girl could have said.
'It's obvious an Everafter kidnapped our parents and it's also obvious that an Everafter is behind Grumpner's murder,' Sabrina tried to explain.
'Sabrina, they aren't all bad.'
'All the ones I've met,' the older girl insisted.
Daphne set the hairbrush on the nightstand, crawled under the covers, and turned her back on her sister.
'I don't like you very much, right now,' she whispered.
'You'll see I'm right soon enough,' Sabrina said.
She stared up at the ceiling, waiting for Daphne to respond, but the little girl remained quiet. Sabrina told herself she didn't care. Daphne wasn't going to make her feel guilty. She'd worry about being tolerant and accepting when their mother and father came home.
'Good night,' she whispered, but her sister said nothing. Sabrina snatched a copy of The Blue Fairy Book off the night-stand and opened it to page one. Maybe there was something in the book, some kind of magic she could use to find their parents.
Once the house was quiet, Sabrina grabbed her set of keys up from under the bed, snatched a book off her nightstand, and headed to Mirror's room. When she walked through the portal, she found him with a reflective silver card under his chin and a tanning lamp shining in his face. On a nearby table he had a pitcher of margaritas and a bottle of suntan lotion. When he saw Sabrina, he smiled and flicked off the lamp.
'Just in time, kiddo,' the little man said. 'I'm roasting over here. How was your first day of school?'
'Oh, the usual. The kids made fun of me, I punched a bully, and a teacher was murdered by a monster,' Sabrina replied.
'Sixth grade isn't how I remember it,' Mirror said, reaching over to a table and pouring himself a fresh drink. 'Sorry, I'd offer you one but you're a bit young. How about a Shirley Temple?'
'No thanks,' Sabrina said.
'I remember my school days. It wasn't easy for a shy talking mirror, but I managed. Trust me, starfish, it gets better the day after.'
'The day after what?'
'The day after you graduate,' Mirror said. 'Are you feeling OK? You look flushed.'
'I think I'm getting sick,' the girl said, holding her hand to her forehead to check for a fever. 'I've been getting headaches all day and I've been a cranky jerk to almost everybody.'
'Sounds like puberty to me. If you think school is tough now, wait until you start getting zits.'
'So, you're sure I'm not sick?'
'Completely, kiddo. I remember when your dad went through it. He was in a fistfight every day for two weeks. I remember one time he got your grandfather so angry the old man chased him up a tree.' Mirror laughed.
'So, this is normal,' Sabrina said. 'I thought I was going crazy.'
'I didn't say you weren't going crazy,' the little man responded. 'I just said you were growing up. The two are not mutually exclusive. So, did you just come to chat or are we going on a magic hunt again tonight?'
Sabrina sheepishly held out a book about King Arthur's powerful wizard, Merlin.
'Come on, kiddo,' Mirror said, sounding resigned, and Sabrina followed him down the hall.
Early the next morning, Sabrina awoke to a thundering racket, followed by a series of thuds and crashes that knocked a picture off her bedroom wall. Something was going on at the end of the hallway that sounded like a fistfight and Sabrina knew there could be only one source of the chaos-Puck. She eyed the clock and saw that it was only five a.m. and her blood began to boil. Five a.m. was too early for his nonsense.
Of course, Daphne slept through the noise, snoring away as if nothing was happening. The little girl could sleep through World War Three. The only thing she wouldn't sleep through was breakfast.
Sabrina leaped out of bed and marched down the hallway. The day before had taught her not to just barge into his room, so she banged on the door angrily instead. After several moments, she realized that the tremendous noise she heard wasn't coming from inside Puck's bedroom, but from the bathroom down the hall. Fearing her grandmother had fallen in the tub, Sabrina rushed to the bathroom door, grabbed the knob, and flung the door open just as a nearly naked eleven-year-old boy ran past her.
'Puck!' Granny Relda cried. 'Come back here!'
Mr. Canis leaped to his feet and rushed past Sabrina, chasing the boy, who had fled downstairs.
'What's going on?' the girl asked, as she peered into the bathroom. It was a complete disaster. The bathtub was surrounded by a dozen empty bottles of shampoo and what looked like the wrappings of at least twenty bars of soap. The inside of the tub was filled with an oily black sludge that slowly spiraled down the drain. On the toilet basin was a plate where four fat worms, several dead beetles, a hand grenade, and thirty-six cents in change had been collected.
'Puck is having his bath… his eighth bath,' Granny Relda said, partly exhausted and partly annoyed. 'You've let him out and now he's probably in the woods rolling in who knows what … again'
'He's taking a bath?' Sabrina said. Puck hadn't taken a bath since he'd moved into the house and his unbearable stink had ruined many a meal for the girl. One whiff of his nauseating aroma was all anyone needed to realize that the Trickster King and soap were bitter enemies.
'Not that I'm complaining, but why is he taking a bath?' she asked suspiciously.
'We felt it was necessary, under the circumstances,' said Granny Relda. Sabrina noticed the old woman was wearing plastic gloves to protect her hands.
'Circumstances? What circumstances?'
But Granny's explanation was interrupted by Mr. Canis, who stomped back up the stairs with the boy in his arms. Puck squirmed and kicked the entire way.
'This is rubbish!' he shrieked as the old man dragged him back into the bathroom and wrapped him in a clean towel.
