The Fairy-Tale Detectives (The Sisters Grimm, Book 1) (5 page)

"They're just pancakes," she said.

"You sound disappointed," Mrs. Grimm said, laughing, as she returned with a large gravy boat.

"Well, after last night's spaghetti I thought maybe you cooked like that all the time," Daphne said wistfully.

"Oh,
liebling,
I do." The old woman tilted the gravy boat over Daphne's pancakes and a sticky, bright pink liquid bubbled out. To Sabrina it looked like gelatin that hadn't had time to set. When Daphne saw it her eyes grew as wide as the pancakes on her plate.

"What's that?" she cried.

"Try it," Mrs. Grimm said with a grin.

Naturally, Daphne dug in, greedily wolfing down bite after bite. "It's delicious!" she exclaimed with a mouth full of food.

"It's a special recipe. It has marigolds in it." Mrs. Grimm, proudly poured it onto Sabrina's pancakes before the girl had a chance to refuse. Sabrina looked down at the funky, fizzing sauce. It smelled faintly of peanut butter and mothballs and Sabrina's stomach did a flip-flop in protest. She dropped her fork and pushed her plate away.

Suddenly, there was a pounding from upstairs.

"So, perhaps we should discuss last night's excitement," said Mrs. Grimm as she sat down at the table and tucked a napkin into the front of her bright green dress. She gazed across at Sabrina and arched a questioning eyebrow.

"It wasn't my idea," Daphne said. Sabrina scowled at this betrayal.

"Well, no harm done. No broken bones or anything," the old woman said.

"Granny, you have some mean bugs in your yard," Daphne said as she poured more of the syrup on her breakfast.

"I know,
liebling.
They sure are mean."

"What is that hammering?" asked Sabrina.

"Mr. Canis is nailing your windows shut," Mrs. Grimm said as she took a bite of her breakfast.

"What?!" the girls said in shocked unison.

"I can't take any chances that something could get into the house or someone might try to get out," the old woman replied over the loud banging.

"So, we're your prisoners?" Sabrina cried.

"Oh, you're just like your
opa."
Mrs. Grimm laughed. "What a flare for the dramatic. Let's put it behind us. Today is a new day with a new adventure. This morning I received a call. There's been an incident that requires our attention. How exciting! You two haven't even been here a full day yet and already we're in the thick of it."

"In the thick of what?" Daphne asked as she placed a fat pat of green butter on her second stack of pancakes.

"You'll see." The old woman got up from her chair, went into the living room, and came back with several shopping bags. She placed them next to the table.

"Mr. Canis went to the store to buy you some clothing, just a couple of things to tide you over until we can go shopping."

Sabrina looked in the bag. Inside were some of the strangest clothes she had ever seen. There were two pairs of bright blue pants that had little hearts and balloons sewn onto them. There were two identical sweatshirts that were as awful as the pants— bright orange with a monkey in a tree on the front. Underneath the monkey were printed the words "Hang in there!"

"You expect us to wear these?" Sabrina moaned.

"Oh, I love them!" Daphne said, pulling the orange monkey sweatshirt out and hugging it like a new doll.

After breakfast, the girls got dressed and looked at their new outfits in the bedroom mirror. Daphne, of course, thought her crazy outfit was the best she had ever had and strutted around like a giddy fashion model. Sabrina, on the other hand, was sure Mr. Canis was trying to punish them for attempting to run away.

"Hurry, girls, we have to get going," Granny called.

"I feel like a movie star," Daphne said as the girls hurried downstairs.

"You look like a mental patient," Sabrina remarked.

•  •   •

The sisters stood by the door, waiting for the old woman to collect her things. Mrs. Grimm rushed around the house, grabbing books off of shelves and from underneath the couch, creating a tornado of dust that followed her from room to room. When she had collected as many as she could carry, she handed them to Sabrina.

"Almost ready," she sang as she rushed up the stairs.

Sabrina looked down at the top book. It was entitled
Fables and Folklore: The Complete Handbook.
Before she could question the book's purpose, she heard the old woman pull out her keys and unlock the mysterious door upstairs.

"She's going into her secret room," Sabrina whispered to her sister. Daphne's eyes widened and she bit the palm of her hand. For some reason Daphne did this whenever she was overly excited, and though it embarrassed Sabrina, she let it pass. If she tried to curb all of Daphnes odd little quirks, she would never get any sleep.

"I wonder what's in there," Daphne whispered back.

"That's probably where she keeps the bodies of all the other kids she's stolen from the orphanage."

Daphne stuck out her tongue and gave her sister a raspberry.

Sabrina had to admit she was curious about the room. Whenever she was told she couldn't do something, Sabrina found it was all she could think about doing. But the great thing about rules was that you could break them and drive adults crazy.

"Do you hear that?" Daphne asked.

"Yeah, she's talking to someone," Sabrina replied. "Probably Mr. Canis."

Sabrina strained to hear the conversation, but before she could make out anything, she heard Mrs. Grimm leave the room, lock the door, and head back down the stairs.

"Ladies, we're off," she said as she ushered them outside and went to work locking the front door. Then she knocked on the door three times, as she had the day before, but this time she said, "We'll be back."

"Who are you talking to?" Sabrina asked.

"The house," Mrs. Grimm replied, as if this were a perfectly natural thing to do.

Daphne knocked on the door as well. "Good-bye, doll-house," she said, causing her sister to sigh and roll her eyes.

As they turned to go to the car, Sabrina looked up and nearly stumbled. Mr. Canis wasn't upstairs! He was standing on the path with Elvis at his side. He returned her stare with a look of slight contempt. His gaze unnerved the girl, but no more than the realization that Mrs. Grimm had been talking to herself in her secret room.

"We're ready, Mr. Canis," Mrs. Grimm said, and he nodded. They all climbed into the squeaky car, including Elvis, who laid his huge body across the girls' laps.

"Did you have a chat with our neighbor?" Mrs. Grimm asked Mr. Canis as they all buckled or tied themselves in.

"We began a conversation," the old man grumbled. "But he can be stubborn."

"Well, he'll get used to it eventually, I suppose," Mrs. Grimm replied.

"He doesn't have a history of getting used to things," Mr. Canis said.

Mrs. Grimm sighed and nodded.

"Who are you talking about?" Daphne asked.

"Oh, just a neighbor. Nothing to worry about. You'll meet him soon enough."

Sabrina looked around. She was sure they were miles from the nearest neighbor.

Mr. Canis fired up the engine and the car rocked back and forth violently like a bucking bronco trying to get rid of a cowboy, calming down as they drove out the driveway and through desolate back roads. Sabrina reexamined Ferryport Landing, the world's most boring town. There was little obvious life, except an old dairy cow standing on the side of the road. Mrs. Grimm leaned over and honked, then waved wildly at the cow as they passed. When Daphne giggled about it, the old woman smiled and told her how important it was to be friendly. Meanwhile, Sabrina made the best of the trip by memorizing street names and calculating how long it would take to walk to the train station.

They came to a mailbox with the name
Applebee
marked on it and Mr. Canis turned the car down a long, leaf-covered driveway lined with ancient cedars, pines, and oaks. The car passed a tractor sitting alone on a little hill and pulled over into a clearing where a massive pile of wood and pipes and glass sat surrounded by yellow emergency tape. Mrs. Grimm looked at Mr. Canis and smiled.

"Well, we haven't had to deal with something like this in a while, have we, Mr. Canis?" she asked.

The old man shook his head and helped her out of the car. Once she got on her feet, Mrs. Grimm opened the back door, reached in, and scratched Elvis behind the ears.

"Girls, do you mind if I borrow my boyfriend for a moment?" she asked as she winked at Daphne.

The Great Dane crawled clumsily out of the car, stretched a little, and looked up at the old woman for instructions. She fumbled in her purse and took out a small piece of fabric that she held under the dog's nose. He sniffed it deeply, then rushed over to the huge pile of debris and began hunting through the rubble.

"What are we doing here?" Sabrina asked.

"We're investigating a crime, naturally," Mrs. Grimm said.

"Are you a police officer or something?" asked Daphne.

"Or something," the old woman said with a grin. "Why don't you get out and take a look around?" She walked away, apparently to snoop through the rubble.

Having a two-hundred-pound dog lie on her lap had given Sabrina a charley horse, so she and Daphne decided to get out and stretch their legs.

"She talks to the house, and cows, and has all these crazy rules. Now she thinks she's Sherlock Holmes," Sabrina muttered.

"Maybe it's a game," Daphne said. "I'm going to be a detective, too! I'm going to be Scooby Doo!"

Despite all of Sabrina's warnings, Daphne seemed to be having fun, something she hadn't had in nearly a year and a half. It was nice to see a smile on her sister's face and that old light in her eyes. It was the same look she used to have when their father would read them the Sunday comics or when their mother would let them invade her closet to play dress-up. Sabrina smiled and put her arm around the little girl's shoulders. She'd let her have her fun. Who knew how long it would last?

Just then, a long white limousine pulled into the clearing. It was bright and shiny with whitewall tires and a silver horse for a hood ornament. It parked next to Mrs. Grimm's car and a little man got out of the driver's side. He couldn't have been more than three feet high. In fact, he was no taller than Daphne. He had a big bulbous nose and a potbelly that the buttons of his black suit struggled to contain. But the most unusual thing about the man wasn't his size or his clothing. It was the pointy paper hat he wore on his head that read, I AM AN IDIOT. He rushed as quickly as he could to the other side of the car, opened the back passenger door, and was met with a barrage of insults from a man inside.

"Mr. Seven, sometime today!" the man bellowed in an English accent. "Do you think I want to sit in this muggy car all afternoon waiting for you to find time to open the door? You know, when you came to me for a job, I happily gave you one, but every day you make me regret it!"

A tall man in a purple suit exited the limousine and looked around. He had a strong jaw, deep blue eyes, and shiny black hair. He was probably the best-looking man Sabrina had ever seen, and her heart began to race. That was, until he opened his mouth again.

"What is this? Heads are going to roll, Mr. Seven," the man fumed as he looked around.

"Yes, sir," Mr. Seven answered.

"I was told that this was taken care of last night. It's just lucky that I realize that everyone who works for me is an incompetent boob or we would never have known this was still out here until it was too late. My goodness, look at that rubbish sitting there in broad daylight. What do the Three think I pay them for? I can't have this nonsense going on right now. Doesn't everyone realize that the ball is tomorrow? Heads are going to roll, Mr. Seven."

The little man nodded in agreement. His boss looked down at Sabrina and Daphne and scowled.

"Look, the tourists are already here and they're leaving their filthy children unsupervised. They are children, right, Mr. Seven? Not just a couple more of your kind?"

Mr. Seven's dunce cap had slid down over his eyes. He lifted it and gazed at the two girls. "They're children, sir."

"The way they are dressed you would think they were circus folk. You worked in the circus for some time, didn't you Mr. Seven?"

The little man nodded.

"Why, there ought to be a law about unsupervised children. This is a crime scene and it's crawling with kids. Mr. Seven, let's make that a law, if that isn't too much trouble?" the man continued.

"No trouble at all, sir," said Mr. Seven as he took a spiral-bound pad and a pen from his jacket pocket and furiously jotted down his boss's instructions.

"See how easy it is to be a team player, Mr. Seven? I like your change of attitude. If you keep this up we might be able to get rid of that hat," the man said.

"That would please me, sir."

"Let's not rush things, Mr. Seven. After all, you still haven't given these children my card, which is incredibly frustrating, especially since we discussed this just last night. What did I tell you, man?"

"Give everyone your card. It's good networking."

"Indeed it is," the man replied, tapping his toe impatiently.