"His wife?" Sabrina asked, as Granny showed her the picture. "I can't imagine that Mr. Cranky found anyone to marry him."
"He was probably a very different man at home," the old woman replied. "You told me once you thought your father was too careful, but the Henry Grimm I know threw caution to the wind. There are many sides to us all."
"His wife must be very sad." Daphne sighed.
Granny sighed, too. "I suppose she is."
"Well, we found a picture," Sabrina said, eyeing a shadow in the corner that looked like the boogie man. "Can we go now? This place is giving me the willies."
"Don't be scared," Daphne said. "I'm a police officer, ma'am. I'll protect you." She leaned down and struggled with her belt, then walked around the room mimicking Sheriff Hamstead's bowlegged gait.
Sabrina laughed so hard she snorted.
Granny reached into her handbag and pulled out a familiar pair of infrared goggles. "Don't worry, lieblings, I'm hurrying," she said as she put the goggles over her eyes and looked around the room, finally focusing on the floor. "Ah-ha! Children, come and take a look."
The girls hurried to their grandmother. Daphne took the goggles and looked down at the floor. "That is so punk rock!" she said.
Eager for a turn, Sabrina snatched the goggles away from her sister and peered through their special lenses. They revealed ghostly white footprints-the last traces of the late Mr. Grumpner.
Granny Relda reached down and ran her finger across the floor. When she lifted it, there was white powder on it. "The plot thickens," she said, holding her chalky finger up to Sabrina's eyes. "Mr. Grumpner's feet were covered in some kind of dust."
A bit of the dust floated up into Sabrina's nose and she sneezed violently.
"Gesundheit," Granny Relda said.
"They come from out in the hallway," Sabrina said, opening the door and following the glowing footprints.
"Notice anything about the steps?" her grandmother asked, following closely behind.
"They're very far apart," the girl said. "Three of my steps are equal to about one of his."
"That's because he was running," the old woman informed her. Sabrina was impressed. Granny Relda was a natural detective, and Sabrina wondered if she'd ever be as smart. The footprints came from the stairs to the first floor and the girl headed in that direction until suddenly the infrared goggles were snatched off her head.
"Hey!" she complained, as she turned on her little sister. "If you wanted to wear them, all you had to do was ask!"
Granny and Daphne said nothing. They were looking at the ceiling with odd expressions. Sabrina followed their gaze and what she saw sent a shock down to her toes. Hanging upside down above them was a fat, frog-faced creature. Its head and feet were amphibious, with slimy, bumpy skin and a puffed, bulbous pouch under its lower lip, but it had the arms, legs, and body of a human being. It was the creature's long sticky green tongue that had snatched the goggles off Sabrina's head, and now it dragged them in and out of its mouth as if it were wondering whether they might make a good snack. Eventually it spit them out at Sabrina's feet, spraying sticky saliva all over the girl's pants.
"Uh, no thanks. You can keep them," Sabrina said, wiping the goop off her jeans.
The frog monster let out an odd, feminine giggle, and puffed up its huge air sack. Sabrina had seen frogs do just the same thing on TV. It was something they did when they were preparing to eat and she suddenly had the feeling that she was on the menu.
"Run!" she cried.
The Grimms and Elvis spun around and ran back down the hallway, but the monster leaped off the ceiling and landed in front of them, blocking their path.
"I spy with my little eye," the frog-girl gurgled, "something dead."
5
Chapter 5
Granny Relda swung her handbag at the frog-girl and cracked her on her forehead. The monster groaned and fell to the ground. Sabrina had seen what sort of stuff the old woman kept in her purse-everything from spy goggles to rolls of quarters-so she knew it packed quite a wallop. It would take the frog-girl a while to get up-if she got up at all.
Not wasting any time, the Grimm women spun in the opposite direction and raced down the stairs. Elvis followed close behind, clumsily navigating the steep steps and barking threateningly.
"If we're lucky," Granny Relda said through winded breaths, "that thing will be too afraid of Elvis to come after us." "And if we aren't?" Sabrina asked as she helped her grandmother down the last of the steps. Unfortunately, the old woman didn't get a chance to respond. The frog-girl bounced down the steps and onto a nearby wall, sticking like a suction cup.
Elvis stood his ground, baring his teeth at the monster, daring her to come closer.
"Your puppy isn't very nice," the frog-girl croaked. "But he'll digest in my belly as quickly as the three of you."
Daphne stepped forward and flashed her shiny new deputy's badge. "You're under arrest for…for…being gross!" she stammered, but the frog-girl was not impressed. She lunged for the little girl.
Sabrina grabbed her sister's hand and dragged her down the hallway toward the exit. The monster followed by leaping back and forth from wall to wall, gaining ground with each jump. By the time the Grimms reached the exit, the frog-girl was right behind them. She shot her thick tongue out and wrapped it around Daphne's arm, dragging the little girl back into her clutches.
Elvis leaped viciously at the creature, but it jumped to the ceiling and hung upside down out of his reach.
"Let her go!" Sabrina shouted as she desperately reached for her sister. The frog-girl let out a sickening giggle and continued to dangle Daphne right above Sabrina's grasp. The little girl struggled and squirmed and finally reached into her beehive hairdo. She yanked a protractor from her sticky locks and stabbed the frog's tongue with it. The monster shrieked and Daphne fell, knocking Sabrina to the ground.
"And you didn't like my hairdo," Daphne said to her sister as she quickly helped her to her feet and the two ran to the exit doors with Granny Relda and Elvis close behind.
"Start the car!" Sabrina shouted as they sprinted across the school lawn. Mr. Canis opened his eyes and, without pausing, climbed off the roof of the car. Within seconds the old jalopy roared to life, grinding metal on metal and shaking violently. The junker's obnoxious concert had never sounded so good to Sabrina.
"What happened?" Mr. Canis asked as Elvis, Granny, and the girls clamored into the car, but no one got to answer. Something slammed onto the roof. It was so loud they all jumped, except Mr. Canis, whose only reaction was to look up and raise a questioning eyebrow.
Just then, a slimy green hand smacked the driver's side window. Sabrina and Daphne screamed. Granny Relda whooped in astonishment and Elvis growled and bared his teeth. But Mr. Canis just took a deep breath, put the car into drive, and floored the gas. The car's tires squealed and the jalopy rocketed into the street, skidding across the country road before some quick steering set it on the right course.
"Oh, I do wish I could drive." Granny Relda groaned. "I used to love situations like this."
"You know very well the police took your license away," Mr. Canis said, steering from one side of the road to the other in hopes of dislodging their stowaway. Unfortunately, nothing the old man did had any effect on the monster and it continued to beat violently on the roof.
"I got a couple of speeding tickets." Granny shrugged.
"You were arrested fourteen times for reckless endangerment. Several neighborhood groups banned you from driving on their streets. The German government said that if they ever caught you in a car in Berlin again you would be hanged," the old man corrected.