The Sisters Grimm: Book Eight: The Inside Story (13 page)

“No need,” Sabrina said, unable to hide her disgust. “We know who you are.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You’re the White Rabbit and a member of the Scarlet Hand,” Sabrina said.

“The Scarlet what?” the rabbit said.

“You’re part of Mirror’s army,” Puck explained.

The rabbit turned to his friends and then reached up and felt his head. “Was I struck in the chaos? I’m having some trouble understanding this conversation. Children, I have never met any of you, ever. I’m sure I would remember. I don’t know any ‘Mirror,’ nor have I ever counted myself amongst any army—certainly not a scarlet one.”

“He’s not lying,” Daphne said, frowning. “We’ve never met him. This isn’t our White Rabbit. This is the fake one from this stupid book.”

Puck rolled his eyes. “All this real-world or storybook-world talk is giving me a headache. The only question that matters is: Can I roast him for dinner or not?”

“No,” Sabrina said, finally understanding her sister’s explanation. “Daphne’s right. He’s not a villain. None of them are.”

“You come from the world outside the Book, correct?” the dodo said.

Sabrina nodded. “We’re here looking for—hey! Where did Pinocchio go?” She scanned their surroundings. The little traitor was nowhere to be seen.

“He must have run off in all the chaos,” Daphne said.

“This Pinocchio is important to you?” the dodo squawked.

“We’re in this book to save our brother from a man known as Mirror. To stop him, we made a deal with the Editor. If we capture Pinocchio before he can make changes to his story, then the Editor will help us with our problem. We’ve been trying to find the little jerk and now we’ve lost him!”

“We can help,” the Cheshire Cat said. “Then you can free us.”

“Absolutely not!” Sabrina said. “You will slow us down.”

“You agreed!” the White Rabbit argued.

“I did not,” Sabrina said. “I barely understood a word you said. I was a bit distracted, trying to keep my head from being cut off.”

“I’m not sure we can take them even if we wanted to,” Daphne added. “They aren’t real.”

“The second we leave the Book, we’ll be as real as you,” the rabbit said.

“You don’t want to leave this book anyway,” Sabrina said. “The town we live in is on fire and our house is not much more than a demolition site.”

“You say all that like it’s a bad thing,” Puck said, surprised.

“Anything would be better than the endless tedium of being a character in a story that never ends,” the dodo said.

“What does ‘tedium’ mean?” Daphne asked.

“Tedium is kind of a boredom due to repetition.”

“What does repetition mean?”

“Having to do something over and over again.”

“It’s like brushing your teeth or changing your underwear. Eventually you just give up,” Puck said.

The Cheshire Cat ignored him. “This story never ends. When it gets to the last page, we are all sent back to the beginning. Each day we say the same things, wear the same clothes, and a few of us meet the same untimely deaths. Imagine living a life where you cannot make your own decisions lest you be devoured and rewritten. Imagine being stuck in the same day, forever and ever.”

“I just want to chase squirrels!” the puppy whimpered. “That’s all, but the Editor is mean. I did it once and he sent the monsters to fix me.”

“None of us volunteered to be in a living history book, and no one asks us if we are happy. The Editor is unsympathetic to our plight; thus, we have come to this drastic decision. The only way to escape our bondage is to escape the Book,” the White Rabbit said.

“The Editor is not going to be happy,” Sabrina warned. “We’ve met him, and he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who’s going to be pleased that you four are taking a vacation.”

“Who put him in charge? He rules over us without thought or mercy,” the dodo said. “Any little change in the story and our very existence is wiped clean.”

“If things are so bad, why haven’t you gone through one of the doors yourself?” Daphne asked.

“We’ve tried!” the puppy barked. “We can’t open the doors. Only outsiders can do that.”

Sabrina took a deep breath. She wished she could get away and think. That was the problem with being a Grimm—there was never any time to contemplate a decision. If only she could find a quiet tree and some time to analyze the characters’ requests. She hadn’t been lying about the Editor; she suspected he would be furious. But she could also be sympathetic. When she found out he was the Master, Mirror had told her a little of what his life was like as a prisoner. She would have done anything to free him if she’d known he was suffering, but he had never shared his pain. These four characters, strange as they were, wanted something she might be able to provide. On the other hand, they were four more people who were going to turn to her to lead them. They were four more people putting their lives and destinies in her hands. No! They couldn’t come. What if something went wrong?

“All right, you can come with us, but let’s get something clear, first,” Daphne said before Sabrina could answer. “We’re not strolling through these stories because they’re fun. We’re looking for Pinocchio. We can’t have anyone slowing us down. You fall behind—you’re on your own. If you get hurt, we will leave you. If the Editor sends revisers after you, we cannot stop to save you, and trust me, they’re gross—so keep up!”

“Agreed,” the White Rabbit said. “We will not be a burden. And in return, we offer our assistance in your search. This Pinocchio you speak of sounds like a powerful foe. You may need all the help you can get.”

“I will bite him!” the puppy said.

“Leave the biting to the experts,” Puck said, and bared his teeth.

“There’s just one last thing,” Sabrina said as she searched the ground for the unconscious body of the Nine of Diamonds. When she found him, she leaned over and snatched the ball of magic yarn out of his pocket. The old tingle of magic was there so she quickly tossed it to Daphne. The Cheshire Cat let out a loud squeal and leaped into the air. He caught the ball in his mouth and landed on all fours. Then he spit it out and batted it back and forth with his striped paws.

Daphne shrieked and rushed over and yanked it from his grasp. “Bad kitty,” she chastised. “This is our way out of here. It’s leading us to Pinocchio.”

“Intriguing,” the White Rabbit replied. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I believe it would be wise to get out of this particular story as soon as possible. The Editor has to have noticed the changes to our story by now.”

“I agree!” the dodo cried.

“Luckily, we’re at the end of this tale, so all we have to do is find the door,” Daphne said, and then whispered instructions to the yarn. It hopped out of her hands and rolled into the woods. They gave chase and soon came to a door standing amongst the bank of trees. As she was the first one to arrive, Daphne turned the doorknob, and it swung open with a blast of wind so powerful Sabrina feared it might knock her off her feet. Struggling against the violent air, she turned and urged her new companions to follow. “This is it!”

“Be brave, friends,” the White Rabbit said to his fellow rebels. He smoothed out the wrinkles in his jacket and slid a monocle in front of his eye. Then he hopped forward and disappeared through the doorway. The puppy let out a happy howl and rushed in after him. The Cheshire Cat tucked his head down and pulled his ears back, and a moment later he was gone too.

“I had my doubts this day would come,” the dodo said as he stared at the open doorway.

“Save it for your diary, pal,” Puck said, kicking him in the behind and forcing him into the abyss. “We’re in a hurry.”

A moment later, the children were charging forward into the unknown. When the world came back into focus, the group found themselves in the thick undergrowth of a huge forest. Almost immediately they spotted Pinocchio several yards from where they were standing. The boy was bent over, with hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. When he spotted them, he cursed creation itself and then hefted the birdcage he had taken from the card soldiers and freed his wooden minions.

“Keep these fools away from me,” Pinocchio ordered. Then he dashed off into the forest.

“Not the puppets again!” Sabrina complained.

“Don’t worry, honey bunny,” Puck said as the creatures raced toward them. “I won’t let anyone put a finger on my sweet-ums.”

The Trickster King never got a chance to defend her—or himself. The marionettes hopped onto his back and legs. They untied his shoelaces and yanked on his hair. When he managed to brush them off, they jumped onto Sabrina. She swatted at them, but even when she managed to knock one off, another took its place.

Finally, the dodo helped out—first it smashed the marionette that looked like Granny Relda, and then the one made to resemble Veronica, Sabrina and Daphne’s mother, with its hard head. That left only the figures that looked like Daphne, Uncle Jake, and Henry Grimm, father of the Grimm girls. The Cheshire Cat snatched them up in his mouth while the puppy furiously dug a hole. The cat spit them out and the dog buried them. All of the marionettes had finally met their end.

Sabrina charged into the woods after Pinocchio, and after only a few steps she spotted him. He was standing before a giant shoe. It was nearly twenty feet high and was brown with a gigantic and tarnished brass buckle on top. Carved into the shoe’s heel was a door decorated with a festive garland and a little mat on the ground that read
WELCOME
. Sabrina watched the boy swing the door open, rush inside, and slam the door behind him.

“No way!” Daphne said as she caught up with Sabrina.

“What?” the Cheshire Cat asked when he and his friends joined the children.

“This can’t be real,” Sabrina said.

“Hello?” Puck cried impatiently. “What story is this?”

“It’s ‘The Little Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe,’ ” Daphne said, and then bit into her palm.

“Never heard of it,” the dodo squawked.

“Never heard of it?” Daphne exclaimed. “Everyone knows this story.”

“I don’t,” Puck said. “If it’s in a book, I’m blissfully unaware of its existence.”

“It goes like this, ‘There once was an old lady who lived in a shoe; she had so many children she didn’t know what to do.’ Honestly, I don’t know the rest.”

“There’s no monster?” Puck said.

Daphne shook her head.

“No dragon? No witch? No one gets eaten?”

“No,” Sabrina said.

“Then what are we doing out here? Let’s go in there and grab that pointy-nosed loser,” Puck said. He marched up to the door and threw it open, only to be drowned in a flood of filthy children squeezing out of the door and running into the woods. There were hundreds, maybe even thousands. It was hard to tell, as they just kept coming and coming like the bubbles in a shaken bottle of soda. The dodo snatched the puppy and flew into the air while the rabbit straddled the cat and was carried high into the branches of a tree. Sabrina and Daphne had to leap out of the way to avoid being trampled.

A frail old woman appeared in the doorway. “Have fun!” she called. “And don’t be late for supper. We’re having broth.”

She spotted the group of interlopers, eyed them angrily, and whispered, “Go away,” before slamming the door closed.

The girls rushed to help Puck to his feet. The poor boy had been trampled and had little shoe prints all over his body.

“Are you OK?” Sabrina said.

“I would have preferred a monster,” Puck said, much the worse for wear.

“He’s using the children to escape,” Daphne said. “He’s hiding in the crowd.”

“I’ll get him!” Puck said as his wings sprang from his back. They flapped a bit, but he didn’t seem to have the energy to get off the ground.

It was pointless anyway. A door appeared across the clearing and Pinocchio raced toward it from the woods. Before anyone could stop him, he had slipped through and slammed it behind him. The door then dissolved before their eyes.

Sabrina sat down beside the shoe. She was tired, hungry, and angry. She knew everyone was looking to her for answers. But besides her sister and Puck, she couldn’t have cared less about any of them.

“I beg your forgiveness, but what do we do next?” the White Rabbit asked. “Shouldn’t we go after the boy?”

“We eat,” Puck said. Sabrina wondered if the boy’s sudden leadership was his way of taking some of the pressure off of her, but then she shook her head. Puck was incapable of being so sensitive.

The rabbit and the cat groused a bit but said nothing that would start an argument. The puppy sniffed the air and claimed he could lead them to wild berries. Sabrina wasn’t sure it was wise to step outside the boundaries of the story again. The last thing she or the others needed was another encounter with that . . . that
thing
that lurked there. Still, everyone was famished. There was no point in putting everyone in danger, so she insisted that Puck and Daphne and the others stay behind.

She and the puppy searched for the fruit and came across a bank of walnut trees and an abandoned garden filled with carrots and cucumbers. Sabrina filled her pockets with all she could carry and headed back to the camp. While they were gone, Puck had built a fire. It was far bigger than they would need, but once they got it under control they sat and shared the food with the others.

“Please tell us of the real world,” the Cheshire Cat begged as he munched on some berries.

“Yes,” the puppy dog yipped. “What’s it like?”

“Well, that depends on who you ask,” Sabrina said. “Most people live pretty uneventful lives.”

“But not you?” the White Rabbit said.

Puck laughed. “Not at all.”

“Yeah, our lives are nonstop excitement,” Daphne said. “We’re always fighting monsters and saving the world.”

“Monsters!” the White Rabbit cried.

“Just in our hometown,” Sabrina said. “The rest of the world, for the most part, is happily dull. Unfortunately, once you step into Ferryport Landing, you’ll be as stuck there as you are in this book. There’s a spell that traps Everafters within the town limits.”

The animals shared uncomfortable looks and were quiet for a moment.