Tales from the Hood (9 page)

“I think we need a little something extra,” Sabrina said to Puck. The boy grinned, spun around on his heels, and, in a flash, he morphed into a bull with long, white horns. He huffed and stomped his feet.

“We should get out of his way,” Sabrina said, pulling her sister aside. With a bellow and a grunt, Puck ran forward, head first, knocking the bookcase hard. It toppled over, crashing into another bookcase right next to it and causing that one to fall over, too. That bookcase fell onto the bookcase beside it, starting a chain reaction throughout the library like dominoes. Books and magazines flew into the air, as did the Scarecrow, who was buried beneath them.

“Oops,” Sabrina said, as she, Puck, and Daphne dashed toward the doors. Snow was right in front of them, hurrying to the parking lot. Once outside, they found Ms. White leaning against her car and breathing hard. She was obviously unnerved by her encounter with Bluebeard and was doing her best to calm herself.

“Are you OK, Ms. White?” Daphne asked.

“Daphne?” Snow replied. “Yes, I just ran into . . . well . . .”

“We know,” Sabrina said. “Bluebeard.”

“Yes,” Snow said. “He’s always had a thing for me but I . . . wait a minute, are the three of you responsible for all that chaos?”

Puck nodded and bowed. “At your service.”

“Why haven’t you returned any of Granny Relda’s calls?” Daphne asked. “She wants to apologize.”

“Daphne, when you grow up you’ll find that being an adult is complicated. It’s not as easy as picking up the phone and saying ‘hi.’”

“First of all, I am grown up,” Daphne said. “Second, you don’t understand. Granny feels terrible about what happened. Mr. Charming begged us to keep it a secret. He said he was doing it for your own good.”

“How is pretending to be dead supposed to be for my own good?” Snow asked.

Sabrina and Daphne shared a knowing glance. “I wish we could tell you but he’s sworn us to secrecy,” Sabrina said.

“See, that’s the problem,” Ms. White said. “Everyone is keeping secrets from me and they tell me that it’s for my own good.”

“We’re trying to protect you,” Daphne said.

Snow White groaned. “Everyone wants to protect Snow White. Well, I’m not a little girl, Daphne. I was fighting my own battles before Billy Charming came along.”

There was a long, uncomfortable silence until Snow spoke again. “The three of you should get home. Relda is probably worried sick about you.”

Then she turned, got into her car, and drove away.

Uncle Jake was thrilled with the information they had gathered at the library. But when Daphne offered to write the letter to Goldilocks, Jake shook his head. He claimed he had made a call to some old friends and they were sending something that would work a lot better than a stamp and an envelope. In fact, he promised their search would soon be over. When the girls and Puck headed off to bed, Jake was still staring at Goldilocks through the mirror. She was in a boat riding on a canal. A man with a long pole steered her along as she glanced up at the moon.

The next morning Sabrina woke to loud shouting and pounding. She rubbed her eyes and looked around, not surprised to find that Daphne was still sound asleep. She climbed out of bed, slipped on a robe she had hanging from her bedpost, and stomped down the stairs. By the front door, poking his head out of the umbrella stand, she found a creature that looked like it was part dwarf, part crocodile. He gestured to the door.

“There’s a man out there,” the creature hissed. “He could be dangerous.” He held a walkie-talkie to his face and cried, “Where’s my backup?”

Sabrina looked through the window and saw Robin Hood pounding on the door.

“That’s Robin Hood. We know him,” Sabrina explained.

“Cancel that backup, people!” the creature shouted into his walkie-talkie. “We are back to code yellow. All clear. I repeat, we are at code yellow.” Then he sunk his head back into the stand and disappeared.

Sabrina quickly straightened her hair, tightened her bathrobe, and checked herself in the hall mirror. She could just die, letting the handsome lawyer see her in her goofy pajamas and with a serious case of bed head, but she seemed to be the only one awake and he kept shouting that there was an emergency. Finally, when she realized nothing would make her look better short of a shower, she opened the door.

“You’re not dressed! Kid, you’ve got to get dressed,” the lawyer exclaimed as he barged through the open doorway. “Where is everyone?”

Sabrina was horrified to be called a kid. “In bed. It’s not even eight in the morning,” she said, awkwardly pushing her hair behind her ear.

“Well wake them up! We have to get over to the courthouse, now,” Robin cried. “The trial is starting today!”

“What trial?”

“The trial of the Big Bad Wolf,” he said.

ittle John sent over a demand for a trial last night,” Robin Hood said as he hurried the family up the steps of the Ferryport Landing Municipal Courthouse. “To be honest, after our little run-in with Nottingham yesterday I never guessed they would grant us one. Then my partner, Will Scarlet, was filing a class-action suit and noticed the grand jury’s schedule posted on the wall.”

“Why wouldn’t we be informed of the trial ahead of time?” Granny Relda asked.

“Because Heart and Nottingham are trying to catch us off guard,” Little John bellowed as they met him at the top of the stairs. “If they can present their case without a defense then the trial could be over within minutes.”

“So they’re pulling a fast one,” Uncle Jake said.

“Absolutely,” Robin replied, “but they’ve forgotten how fast I can be. We’ll put a stop to this.”

“Do you have anything prepared?” Granny asked.

The lawyers shook their heads. “No, but there’s nothing to worry about,” Little John said. “After we ask the judge for a postponement, we’ll have plenty of time to prepare.”

Sabrina watched Daphne take out her dictionary. “Daphne,
postponement
means that they want more time before the trial begins.”

Daphne scowled and put her dictionary away. “I don’t need your help.”

Robin and Little John hurried the group through the front doors, up a flight of marble stairs, and into the courtroom. Sabrina was startled to find that the room was packed with Everafters. Goblins, witches, fairy godmothers, winkies, munchkinlanders, talking animals, and countless more were all excitedly discussing the trial. There were few empty seats left.

Past the audience gallery, Sabrina noticed the jury box—two rows of seats set apart on the far side of the room. Each row contained six people for a total of twelve, and each juror was more bizarre than the last. The Cheshire Cat was one of them, as was Glinda the (not-so) Good Witch. There was also an enormous snail smoking a hookah pipe, a talking sheep, a young man dressed entirely in blue, and, much to Sabrina’s horror, an enormous egg with arms, legs, and a face. The top of its body was cracked but whatever was inside was still intact. Sabrina recognized most of them from around town or from one of the many books the family had on Everafters. Only one was a mystery to her. He wore a black hood that kept his face in shadow.

At the front of the room was a wooden chair on a raised platform. Next to it was a much taller podium where a short, oddly shaped man with a tremendous head was sitting. He had an unruly mane of white hair stuffed under a big black top hat and a nose so incredibly large Sabrina suspected Lilliputians could live in his nostrils. He wore a long, black robe and held a carpenter’s hammer in his hand. Sabrina guessed he was the judge.

Watching over the crowd were three card soldiers. Sabrina had run into their kind before. Their limbs and heads were human but their bodies were huge playing cards. They acted as Mayor Heart’s personal guards. The Three of Clubs seemed to be guarding the judge, while the Five of Diamonds and the Seven of Spades watched the doorway.

There was heavy pounding on the door and the guards opened it. Several more card soldiers filed in, pulling the heavy chains attached to Mr. Canis. They forced him into a seat behind a big desk, then ran the chains through an iron ring fastened to the floor. Canis looked tired, but he grew angry when he spotted the family.

“What are you doing here?” he growled.

“We came to help, of course,” Granny Relda said.

“I don’t want your help!”

“Order!” the judge demanded, pounding on his desk with the hammer. Sabrina had seen judges use gavels on TV, but never real hammers. With each pound of the tool, splinters from the desk shot into the air. “Order! What is this commotion in my courtroom?”

Robin Hood and Little John rushed to the judge’s bench and bowed respectfully. “Your honor, we apologize to the court for our tardiness. We’re counselors for Mr. Canis.”

“Do you think you can show up for court whenever you want to, counselors?” the judge roared. “I should have the two of you thrown out of here on your ears.”

The outburst caused quite a bit of excited chatter, which enraged the judge even further. He slammed his hammer down again and again. “Order. I’ll have order in this courtroom,” he bellowed. “I want a toasted sesame bagel with low-fat scallion cream cheese. You folks can order whatever you want, but get separate checks.”

Robin Hood and Little John looked puzzled. “Your honor, we would like to ask for a postponement,” Robin Hood said as the family took whatever seats they could find. “We only just learned our client was being tried a half an hour ago.”

“Your client wasn’t tried a half an hour ago. He is being tried right now,” the judge said matter-of-factly.

“No, your honor, I mean we learned about the trial a half an hour ago.”

“What trial a half an hour ago? I think the two of you should be concerned with the trial that is going on right now!”

Little John looked as if he might climb up on the podium and strangle the judge, but Robin gestured for him to calm down. “Your honor. As I was saying, we wish to postpone this case until we’ve have had time to speak with our client about his defense, as well as to interview the prosecution’s witnesses.”

The judge’s face turned beet-red and he slammed his hammer down, angrily. “Overruled!”

“But your honor—” Robin begged.

“Why did you invite us down here if you aren’t ready for the trial?” the judge moaned.

“Sir, we didn’t invite you down here,” Little John protested.

“Well, that’s terribly rude,” the judge cried. “You put on a trial and you don’t have the common decency to invite me? Counselors, you are not getting off to a good start.”

“This guy acts like he’s lost his mind,” Sabrina said.

“He has,” Granny whispered. “He’s the Mad Hatter.”

Sabrina’s mouth fell open and she gaped at the judge in disbelief. Even she knew the story of the Mad Hatter. Alice met him at a tea party and he nearly drove the poor girl mental. He was the very definition of crazy.

“How did he get to be a judge?” Uncle Jake asked.

“I appointed him,” a woman’s voice said from behind them. Sabrina turned and found Mayor Heart sitting directly behind her. Heart’s face was painted in bone-white pancake makeup, dark ruby lipstick, and purple eye shadow that crept up to the edge of her hairline. She looked like a deranged party clown—worse, she looked like Sabrina did when she tried to put on her own makeup.