The Fairy-Tale Detectives (The Sisters Grimm, Book 1) (6 page)

"So sorry, Mr. Charming, sir," Mr. Seven said as he rushed to the girls and shoved a business card into each of their hands. It was purple with a golden crown on one side and the words MAYOR WILLIAM CHARMING—HERE TO LEAD YOU written on it in gold lettering. Underneath the name were a telephone number, an e-mail address, and a Web site:
www.mayorcharming.com
.

"Now, what was I saying before I had to tell you how to do your job, Mr. Seven?"

But before the little man could answer, Sabrina stepped forward. If there was one thing she couldn't stand, it was a bully.

"You were saying there ought to be a law against unsupervised children," Sabrina said angrily. "There should be a law against talking to people like they are morons, too!"

"Yes, that's correct. See, Seven, if this carnival girl can pay attention to the conversation, why can't you? Why, she can't be more than eight years old, and certainly slow in the head," Mayor Charming said.

"I'm almost twelve," Sabrina shouted. "And I'm not slow!"

Mayor Charming seemed startled by her anger.

"Where are your parents, child?" he snapped.

"We're here with our grandmother," Daphne answered. Sabrina spun around on her sister angrily. The old lunatic was not their grandmother.

"How splendid for you," Mayor Charming sneered. "And who is your grandmother?"

Daphne pointed to Mrs. Grimm, who was busy taking notes on a little pad of paper.

"Relda Grimm is your grandmother?" the mayor growled between gritted teeth. "When will this cursed family die out? You're like a swarm of cockroaches!"

Mrs. Grimm looked over, saw Mayor Charming, and quickly came to join them.

"Relda Grimm, I just met your granddaughters," the mayor said, as his face changed from a scowl to a smile. "They're the spitting image of their grandfather."

He bent over and pinched Daphne on the cheek. "Hopefully, they'll grow out of it," he muttered.

"Mayor Charming, what brings you all the way out here? I thought you'd be busy planning the fund-raiser. It's in a couple of days, correct?" said Mrs. Grimm with a forced smile.

"It is not a fund-raiser!" Charming insisted. "It's a
ball!
And it is tomorrow night. But you know how the community is. If I don't investigate every little stray cloud, the flock gets nervous. But then again, I could ask you the same question. What is the famous Relda Grimm doing in the middle of nowhere looking at a broken house?"

He was right—it was a house that had fallen down. Sabrina saw pieces of furniture and clothing sticking out of the pile and an old afghan quilt swinging from a stick in the breeze.

"I don't know what the farmer expected with such shoddy workmanship. He's lucky to have crawled out alive," he continued.

"So there was a survivor?" Mrs. Grimm said, writing in her notebook.

"Here she goes, Mr. Seven. You can almost see the wheels spinning in her head. Relda Grimm, private eye, out to solve the case that never was," the mayor said. "See, that's the problem with you Grimms. You could never quite grasp that in order to solve a mystery there must
be a mystery
to solve. A farmer built a flimsy house and it fell down. It was an accident. Case closed."

"Then why did you call it a crime scene?" Sabrina piped up.

Charming turned and gave her a look that could have burned a hole through her. "You must have misheard me, child," he said between gritted teeth. "Mr. Seven, take down this note, please. New law—children should not ask questions of their elders."

As the little man scribbled furiously in his notebook, Mrs. Grimm said, "We both know why we're here, Mayor."

Charming's face turned red. He tugged on his necktie and adjusted his collar. "This is
none of your concern,
Relda."

Before the old woman could respond, Mr. Canis joined the group.

"Well, if it isn't the big bad . . ."

"Mayor Charming!" said Mrs. Grimm angrily.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I heard you were going by
Canis
now." Charming grinned and leaned in close to Sabrina and Daphne. "Do yourselves a favor, girls, and check Granny's teeth before you give her a good-night kiss."

"Do you think it wise to provoke me?" Mr. Canis said as he took a step toward the mayor. Despite Mr. Canis's quiet demeanor, the words seemed to unnerve Charming.

"That's enough!" Mrs. Grimm demanded. Her voice shocked the girls, but the effect on the two grown men was even more startling. They backed away from each other like two schoolboys who had been scolded by a teacher.

"The dog has found something," Mr. Canis said gruffly. He placed an enormous green leaf in Mrs. Grimm's hand and her eyes lit up in satisfaction.

"Well, look at that, Mayor Charming, I think we've found a clue. There might be a mystery to solve here, yet," she said, waving the leaf in the mayor's angry face.

"Congratulations! You found a leaf in the middle of all these trees," Charming scoffed. "I bet if you could bring out the forensics team you might find a twig, or even an acorn!"

"It looks a lot like a leaf from a beanstalk," the old woman replied.

Charming rolled his eyes. "That proves nothing."

"Maybe, maybe not, but it does seem odd that a fresh green leaf is out here in late November," Mrs. Grimm said. Sabrina looked around at the trees. Every limb was bare.

"Listen Relda, stop meddling in our affairs or you're going to regret it," said the mayor.

"If you don't want me meddling, then you must really do a better job of covering up your mistakes." Mrs. Grimm placed the leaf inside her handbag.

The mayor scoffed and then turned to Mr. Seven. "Get the door, you lumpy bag of foolishness!" he shouted. The little man nearly lost his paper hat as he rushed to the car door. Within moments, the limo was spitting gravel behind it as it drove away.

"Girls, why don't we take a walk over to that hill and sit by the tractor? I'd like to see this site from above," Mrs. Grimm said. Daphne took the old woman's hand and helped her up a sloped embankment where a lonely tractor was parked. When they reached the top, the old woman plopped on the ground and caught her breath. "Thank you,
liebling.
Either the hills are getting steeper or Em getting older."

"Who was that man?" Daphne asked.

"Let's just say he's a royal pain," Mrs. Grimm replied. "Mr. Charming is the mayor of Ferryport Landing."

"What's with the bad attitude?" Sabrina said. The mayor reminded her of the orphanage's lunch lady, who seemed to delight in telling the children they were getting fat.

"He gets a little territorial sometimes."

"He and Mr. Canis sure don't like each other," Daphne added.

"They have a long history," the old woman said. She picked a small, black disk off the ground. "How interesting." She happily jotted down a note in her notebook. "A lens cap, from what looks like a very expensive video camera."

"Maybe it's just junk or something the farmer lost," Daphne said.

"Maybe, or maybe whoever is responsible for all that damage wanted a record." Mrs. Grimm tossed the lens cap into her handbag.

Just then, a white van with the words ACTION 4 NEWS painted on the side pulled up. The doors swung open and a cameraman and a pretty reporter in a business suit jumped out. The reporter checked her hair in a compact mirror as the cameraman handed her a microphone. They eyed the pile of lumber and brick and then spotted the girls and the old woman sitting on the hill. In no time, they were standing before them.

"Hello ladies, I'm Wilma Faye from Action Four News," the reporter said as she shoved her microphone in Mrs. Grimms face. "We were wondering if you might be able to tell us what happened here."

"Oh dear, am I on television?" the old woman asked.

"You will be," the reporter replied. "Tell our audience what you witnessed."

"Oh, we didn't see anything, I'm afraid," said Ms. Grimm. "We only just got here."

The reporter groaned and the cameraman lowered his camera.

"This is just great!" Wilma Faye complained. "Five years of journalism school, graduating with honors and at the top of my class, and I'm out here in Ferryport Landing, in the cold, covering a house that collapsed."

"I'll get some shots of the damage," the cameraman said as he hoisted his heavy video camera back onto his shoulder and walked down the hill to the rubble.

"Good idea," the reporter replied. "Let's get out of here as soon as possible."

"Sorry I couldn't be of any help," said Mrs. Grimm.

"Oh, it's not your fault. I just keep getting sent out to this town when there isn't any news."

"Yes, unfortunately, there's not a lot of excitement in Ferryport Landing," the old woman agreed. Wilma Faye nodded and headed back to the van.

When the news crew had left, Mrs. Grimm removed the large green leaf and an odd little box covered in knobs and lights from her handbag. She placed the leaf on the ground, then pushed a red button on top of the box and waved it over the leaf.

"What are you doing?" Daphne asked.

"I'm analyzing it. Very scientific stuff," the old woman said just as the machine let out a loud honking sound that could only be described as a fart. "Just as I thought, it's from a giant beanstalk."

"There's no such thing as giant beanstalks." Daphne giggled.

Mrs. Grimm pointed at the clearing below. "What do you see?"

"A house that fell down?" the little girl suggested.

"Yes, but what else? What is surrounding the house?"

Sabrina focused her attention on the rubble. What was so unusual about it? Nothing, really, except maybe for the large area of sunken ground that surrounded it. "The earth is mashed around it," she said.

"And what could cause something like that to happen?"

"I don't know. What do you think?" Sabrina said, after running through the possibilities.

"I think a giant stepped on it," Mrs. Grimm answered. "Find a giant beanstalk leaf and you'll probably find a giant."

Daphne began to laugh but Sabrina was horrified. The old woman was getting crazier by the second.

"Well, I better go down and have a second look," the old woman said as she climbed to her feet. She walked back down the hill and joined Mr. Canis at the pile.

"She's funny." Daphne giggled.

Funny in the head,
Sabrina thought.

"I want to ride on the tractor!" Daphne cried.

She jumped up and pulled her sister over to it. Sabrina lifted the little girl onto the seat, who then grabbed the wheel and turned it, making
vroom vroom
sounds as she pretended to drive.

"Look at me, I'm a farmer," she said in a goofy voice. Sabrina looked up at her sister and laughed. Daphne was the funniest person she had ever met.

"What kind of food do you grow on this here farm, Farmer Grimm?" the older girl played along.

"Why, I grow candy on this here farm." Daphne laughed. "Bushels and bushels of candy. Just sent my crop to market last week. Got me a pretty penny, I did."

Sabrina smiled, but then a shadow covered her heart. Why did the old lady have to lie about who she was? Why did she have to make up crazy stories? Why couldn't she be normal? Her house was warm and comfortable and as long as Sabrina kept an eye on Mr. Canis they might just be OK. If the old woman wasn't a lunatic she'd make a perfect grandmother.

"Sabrina, look at the house," Daphne whispered. She had stopped playing and was staring at the pile below.

Sabrina looked down at the clearing but saw nothing new.

"Do you see what I see?" Daphne cried, pointing.

"What? What do you see?"

"Come up here, you have to see it from up here."

Sabrina crawled up onto the tractor and stood high on its hood.

Do you see it:

And then Sabrina saw what her sister was so excited about and her heart leaped into her throat. The indentation surrounding the broken-down house had a shape.

"It's a footprint," she gasped.

 rs. Grimm and Mr. Canis were pulling a prank on them. It explained why Mrs. Grimm talked to the house and served her crazy food and why Mr. Canis said so little and acted so weird. They were trying to make the girls look stupid, which made Sabrina furious. And worse, the joke didn't seem to end. They spent the rest of the day traipsing over the field for more "clues," until Mrs. Grimm looked at her wristwatch and said they'd better get home for dinner.