The Problem Child (The Sisters Grimm, Book 3) (6 page)

The shadow rushed forward to attack but Puck blocked its punches, then threw a few of his own. Unfortunately, Puck's counterattack didn't faze the shadow at all; the boy's fists passed harmlessly through the spirit's body. Startled, Puck fell backward, allowing the shadow to get the upper hand. It leaped into the air, did a backflip over the boy, and landed behind him. A

swift kick to the Trickster King's rump followed. The boy yelped, then swooped over to Daphne and Sabrina, yanked them off the ground, and zipped up through the hole and into the room above. The shadow man followed, grabbing onto Sabrina's feet and forcing Puck to crash into a wall. Sabrina and Daphne tumbled roughly to the floor. Puck and the shadow went back to fighting, and unfortunately the shadow's master, the stranger, flew up through the hole, landed in the room, and headed straight for the girls.

"Here he comes. What do we do?" Daphne asked.

Sabrina looked down at the chunks of burnt furniture scattered about. She grabbed a blackened chair leg and flung it at the stranger, hitting him in the ribs.

"Oww!" he cried.

Daphne snatched another charred piece of wood and hurled it in the man's direction. Unfortunately, her aim was way off and she hit Puck instead.

"Hey! What are you doing?" the boy complained.

"We're trying to help," Sabrina said.

"Well, stop trying so hard," Puck shouted. "Your help hurts!"

"This isn't working," Daphne said.

"Don't worry. I'll think of something," Sabrina said.

"You do that. Meanwhile, I'm going to take care of that weirdo," Daphne said.

Before Sabrina could stop her, the little girl raced up to the stranger and stopped a few feet from him.

"OK, calm down," the little girl said to herself. "First you bow to your opponent." She bowed low.

"Daphne, get away from him!"

The little girl ignored her sister's warning. "Move into offensive stance," she said, stepping forward with her left leg and shifting her body so that her torso was turned perpendicular to her opponent. She raised her fists.

The stranger looked slightly amused.

"Present your warrior face," Daphne said, crinkling up her nose and eyes and then screaming

"Argggghhhh!"

"Daphne, I'm not trying to hurt you," the stranger said. "If you would just listen for a second, I'm your--"

"Deliver attack!" Daphne yelled, cutting off the man's speech. She cried

"Hiya!"

and then kicked the man in the shin. He groaned in pain and bent down to hold his sore leg.

"Deliver secondary attack," the little girl said. She spun around in a complete circle and caught the man's other leg with a sweeping kick. He fell over as if he had been chopped down with an axe.

The little girl continued kicking the man as he lay on the ground. He curled up in a ball and tried to avoid her vicious feet. "Uh, hello… I could use some help," Daphne said to her sister.

Sabrina shook off her surprise and together they took turns kicking the stranger.

The man cried out for help and his shadow immediately stopped fighting with Puck. It rushed to his side and grabbed Daphne and Sabrina in its arms. The girls fought against its grip but it was too strong, and while they struggled, the stranger managed to get to his feet.

"All right, I've had just about all I'm going to take from you kids," the man growled as he reached into his pocket once again. Before he could pull out another weapon, Puck swooped down and snatched the girls away from the shadow by the backs of their coats.

"Well, we've got to run," Puck said as they soared into the night sky. Undeterred, the shadow sailed after them, grabbed at Sabrina with its horrible hands, yanked the medical file from under her arm, and flew away. Sabrina cried out and begged Puck to go back for it, but he refused.

As they flew toward home, Sabrina looked down at the cold, dark forest. It might have been a tear in her eye, or the reflection of the moon, but for a second she could have sworn she'd seen someone racing through the woods below at an incredible speed--someone with a shock of white hair. And then he was gone.

Puck and Daphne were already at the dining room table when Sabrina came down for breakfast. They had forks and knives in their hands and were pounding them on the table. "We want to eat! We want to eat!" they chanted. Elvis was barking along with the children's demands.

Sabrina took a seat just as Granny Relda entered the room carrying several plates of food. She set them on the table and glanced at Sabrina.

"Liebling!

You look like you were up all night," she said. "Slept like a baby," Sabrina lied. She knew she looked tired. When she had gone into the bathroom to brush her teeth before coming down, she saw that her eyes were bloodshot and there were dark circles underneath them. Her stubborn black-marker mustache and goatee weren't helping her appearance, either.

Granny raised a suspicious eyebrow but said nothing, zipping back into the kitchen for more food. Soon, nearly every inch of table was covered with plates overflowing with flapjacks, toast, scrambled eggs, waffles, sausages, oatmeal, French toast, fruit, and yogurt. Best of all, it was normal food. Granny's odd culinary tastes often included black spaghetti, tofu waffles, daffodil gravy, porcupine stew, and cream of skunk cabbage soup.

"What's all this for?" Sabrina said as she enjoyed the feast's delicious smell.

"We're celebrating your return from the hospital, of course," Granny said as she served the girl a heaping spoonful of scrambled eggs, some sausages, a couple of pancakes, and a few slices of apple. She took Sabrina's fork and knife and cut up the meal so Sabrina could easily eat it with one hand. Then she poured maple syrup over all of it. Sabrina took a bite and was surprised to find that it was actually real maple syrup and not some exotic concoction the woman had discovered in Kathmandu or Timbuktu or one of the other zillion places she had visited.

Daphne impaled a pancake on her fork and flipped it into the air. Elvis caught it and wolfed it down without chewing. Daphne took a pancake for herself and shoved the whole thing into her mouth. Sabrina wondered whether Elvis or her little sister had better table manners. Puck had no manners at all. He scooped up some eggs with his dirty hands and crammed them into his mouth. Granny smacked his hand with a serving spoon when he tried to do the same thing with the oatmeal.

"Well, so much for seconds," Sabrina grumbled.

"I was thinking that maybe after breakfast we could dig through the journals and look for clues about Red Riding Hood and the Jabberwocky," Daphne said with a mouthful of food. She winked at her sister.

Sabrina cringed. She hadn't told Granny that she'd discovered that the girl in the red cloak was Little Red Riding Hood. Daphne had just spilled the beans that the children had been doing research. Luckily, the old woman didn't seem to notice Daphne's slip.

"I have a very important announcement to make," Puck said, wiping his greasy mitts on the front of his green hoodie.

Granny raised her eyes in surprise. "Well, don't keep us waiting."

Sabrina scowled. The old woman was intentionally avoiding talking about finding Henry and Veronica.

"As all of you know, I have been saving your lives a lot lately. It seems every time I turn around you three are a breath away from the grave. Well, it's got to stop! I'm retiring."

"Retiring?" the old woman said.

"Yes, I'm out of the hero business. I'm not one of the good guys. I am a villain--"

"Of the worst kind," the Grimm women said. "We know, we know!"

"I thought all the do-gooding wouldn't be so bad if I could make some money, but I extended credit to people who could not pay," Puck said, scowling at Sabrina. "So from now on I'm going back to being one of the bad guys full-time, which, unfortunately, means that since I'm not saving your lives anymore, you're all as good as dead. But a villain has to draw the line somewhere! Bad guys do not save people from the jaws of doom! Bad guys push people into them."

Granny Relda smiled. "But you're so good at being a hero. Maybe you're supposed to be one and just don't want to admit it."

Puck shook his spoon at her. "Don't even joke about that, old lady. I'm serious. I'm going to have to do an awful lot of bad stuff just to break even."

"Oh, so you did this when you were being a saint," Sabrina said, pointing at the doodles on her face.

"I could have tattooed it, Captain!" Puck said.

Sabrina threw down her fork and rose to her feet. "Come here and let me show you how bad I can be!"

Puck leaped up, spun around on his heels, and morphed into a parrot. He leaped onto Daphne's shoulder and shrieked, "Shiver me timbers, it's Captain Doodieface, scourge of the smelly seas!"

"Children!" Granny cried as she stepped in the midst of them.

Just then a series of short honks followed by a long impatient blast came from outside. "Who's that?" Daphne asked.

"Oh, my, he's early. Children, let's hurry and get our coats on," Granny said.

Puck morphed back into a boy. "Where are we going?"

"To the dedication for the new school. Ms. White invited us," Granny said. "Everyone will be there."

"What new school?" Sabrina said.

Granny ignored her and hurried to the closet for the coats. "But I'm not done eating," Daphne complained. "Hurry, lieblings"

the old woman said.

Daphne grumbled to herself as she got up from the table. She peeked in the old woman's direction and, apparently seeing she was out of view, snatched a handful of pancakes and wrapped them around some link sausages. She dipped them all into the syrup on her plate and shoved them into her pants pocket.

"That's going to smell fantastic later," Sabrina said as Granny returned to the room with the children's' coats.

"It's better to be smelly than hungry," Daphne said matter-of-factly as she tried to put on her mittens with sticky fingers.

Puck crossed his arms in a huff. "I just want to be clear. If a monster attacks while we're at this dedication I am not going to help out. In fact, I might actually help drive the crowd into a frenzy. Are you sure you want me to go, old lady?"

"We'll take our chances," Granny Relda said.

Elvis trotted into the room. Seeing that everyone was leaving, he began to whine. Daphne rushed to the big dog and hugged him.

"Honey baby sweetheart, we wouldn't leave you," she assured the Great Dane and gave him a big smooch on his lips. Elvis licked the girl's maple syrup-covered face and then went to work stealing the pancakes from her pocket. Daphne squirmed away from the furry breakfast bandit. "Hey, get your own, you traitor."

"Come here, boy," Granny said and the big dog darted to her. The old woman quickly dressed him in his Christmas vest and hat before he could get away. Elvis dropped his head and sighed. "Don't be a baby. It's cold out there.

"And what are we going to do about you?" she said, cupping her hand under Sabrina's chin and eyeing her face closely. "Honestly, Puck. This time you've gone too far."

"Really?" Puck cried. "That's the nicest thing anyone's said to me in a long time."

Granny took a bright orange toboggan hat, put it on Sabrina's head, and pulled down until it covered the writing on her forehead. Then she wrapped an itchy wool scarf around the girl's face all the way up past her nose. "Perfect!" the old woman declared.

Once everyone was ready, the family stepped outside. A bright yellow taxicab with fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror was parked in the driveway. Sitting in the front seat was an incredibly old man with a long white beard. His head was tilted back and even from the porch the girls could hear his loud, raspy snores.

Granny stepped over to his window and tapped on it several times. When this had no effect, she knocked even harder, but still the man dozed away. Finally, Granny opened the front door and pushed down on the car's horn. The blast shocked the old man and he jumped in his seat.

"Great Jehoshaphat!" he cried.

"Mr. van Winkle, we're ready to go," Granny Relda said. The tired old man rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and climbed out of the car. He wore a black bomber jacket and gray slacks. He looked like some of the cab drivers Sabrina had ridden with back home in New York City, except for the fact that he had a bristly white beard that hung down to his ankles. "You didn't say anything about a dog," he grumbled.

"Mr. van Winkle, this is Elvis. He's perfectly tame," Granny Relda insisted, ushering Elvis, Daphne, and Puck into the back of the cab, leaving the front seat for Sabrina.

"Has he got all his shots?" the driver grumbled.

"Have you?"

Daphne asked, covering Elvis's ears with her hands so he wouldn't hear the driver's comments. "Don't listen to the mean man."

"Fine, bring that mongrel, but if he wrecks my cab you're going to have to pay for the damage," Mr. van Winkle grumbled. Sabrina looked the car over as she walked around to the passenger side. It was a museum of horrible accidents. Scratches, dents, and duct-taped dings covered every inch of the cab. It reminded Sabrina of the kind of car that is slammed into walls to check for safety. When she looked inside, she half-expected to see a crash-test dummy in the passenger seat. There was nothing that Elvis could do to the four-wheeled death trap that the driver and Father Time hadn't done already.

When they were all inside, Elvis's big head popped up over the front seat and he sniffed the air wildly. The little old man had a greasy sack on the dashboard that smelled of hot peppers and mozzarella. Elvis rested his head on the driver's shoulder and eyed the bag hungrily, letting out a whimper.

"Not a chance, fleabag. That's my lunch," Mr. van Winkle said before he turned his attention to Sabrina. Her scarf had slipped down, revealing her mustache and goatee. "I've never had a pirate in my cab before."

Puck laughed so hard he snorted.

Sabrina frowned and covered her face with her hand.

"Where to?" the cabbie asked.

"We're going to the elementary school dedication, by the river," Granny Relda said as she helped Daphne into her seatbelt.