Elvis circled back around, and Sabrina slid into a pile of what felt like sticky leaves. Some clung to her arms and legs and one glued itself to her forehead.
When the lights finally came on, Elvis stopped, stood over Sabrina, and barked. The girl sat up and then looked down at herself. There she was, in the center of Gepetto's Toy Store, covered in sticky glue mousetraps, each of which had a tiny little man, no more than a couple of inches high, stuck quick in the glue.
"Lilliputians," Sabrina said.
"I knew it!" Granny Relda said, appearing from around a stack
of action figures. The old woman, dressed in a bright blue dress and a matching hat with a sunflower appliqué sewn into it, had the nerve to laugh. When Sabrina scowled at her, she tried to stop, but couldn't.
"Oh libeling," she giggled in her German accent.
Daphne rushed over and tried to pull one of the traps off of Sabrina's shirt but found it was stuck tight to her sister, as were a dozen or so Lilliputians.
"Who is the sick psychopath that came up with this idea?" one of the Lilliputians shouted indignantly.
Granny leaned down to him and smiled. "Don't worry, a little vegetable oil and we'll have you free in no time."
"But I'm afraid you're under arrest," Sheriff Hamstead said as he stepped out from behind a stack of footballs. His puffy, pink face beamed proudly as he tugged his trousers up over his massive belly. The sheriff was always fighting his sinking slacks.
The Lilliputians groaned and complained as the sheriff went to work yanking the sticky traps off Sabrina's clothes.
"You have the right to remain silent," Hamstead said. "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law."
"Ouch!" said Sabrina as the sheriff tugged the glue-trap from her forehead.
"I'm not talking, copper," one of the Lilliputians snapped. "I'll let my lawyer do the talking when we sue you for police brutality."
"Police brutality!" Sheriff Hamstead exclaimed. Unfortunately, when the portly policeman got angry or excited, the magical disguise he used to hide who he really was stopped working. Now his nose vanished and was replaced by a runny, pink snout. Two hairy pig ears popped out of the top of his head and a series of snorts, squeals, and huffs came out of his mouth. Hamstead had nearly completed the change when the security guard from the next store over wandered in.
"What's going on in here?" the guard said with a tough, authoritative voice. He was a tall, husky man with a military-style hair cut. He puffed up his chest and pulled a billy club from a loop on his belt. He eyed the crowd as if he were fully prepared to deal with a gang of crooks, but when he saw the pig in a police uniform hovering over a dozen tiny men in glue traps, his confidence disappeared and his club fell to the floor.
"We forgot some of the shops have their own security guards," Granny Relda said softly as she reached into her handbag and approached the stunned man. She blew some soft pink dust into his face and his eyes glazed over. She told him he'd had another usual night at work and nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. The security guard nodded in agreement.
"Another night at work," he mumbled, falling under the forgetful dust's magic.
Sabrina scowled. She hated when magic was used to fix problems, especially when the problem involved humans.
"The glue traps were a brilliant idea," Sheriff Hamstead said as he drove the family home in his squad car. Granny sat in the front, enjoying his praise while Sabrina and Daphne were in the back, jockeying with Elvis for seat space. Hamstead had locked the Lilliputians in the glove compartment and whenever their complaining got too loud, he would smack the top of the dashboard with his puffy hand and yell, "Pipe down!"
"I'm just glad we could be of some help," Granny Relda replied. "Gepetto is such a nice old man. It broke my heart to hear he was being robbed, and with Christmas only two weeks away."
"I know the holidays are hard on him; he misses his boy," Hamstead said. "It's hard to believe that in two hundred years no one has heard a peep from Pinocchio."
"Wilhelm's journals claim he refused to get on the boat," Granny replied. "I suppose if I had been swallowed by a shark I wouldn't be too eager to go back to sea either."
"I thought it was a whale," Daphne said.
"No, hon, only in the movie," Granny replied. "It's just a shame he didn't tell his father. By the time Gepetto discovered he wasn't on board, they were too far out to turn back."
"Well, I really do appreciate your help with this," the sheriff said. "The mayor's been cutting budgets left and right these days and I just didn't have the man power or money to catch the little thieves myself."
"Or make sure that the security guard was off duty so we didn't have to mess with his brain," Sabrina grumbled.
"Sheriff, the Grimms are always at your disposal," Granny Relda said, ignoring Sabrina.
"I appreciate that, Relda, and I wish I could give you the credit for the arrest, but if Mayor Charming found out we'd been working together, my backside would be one of those footballs in Gepetto's store," Hamstead said.
"It's our little secret," Granny Relda said with a wink.
"How is Canis?"
Granny shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Both Sabrina and Daphne watched her closely, wondering what their grandmother would say.
"He's doing just fine," the old woman replied, forcing a smile.
Sabrina couldn't believe what she had just heard. In the short time they had known the old woman, Granny Relda had never told a lie. Mr. Canis was not "fine" by a long shot. Three weeks earlier, Granny's constant companion and houseguest, Mr. Canis, had transformed into the savage creature known as the Big Bad Wolf. Since then, no one had seen him. He had locked himself inside his bedroom while he fought to put back his real-life inner demon. Every night, Sabrina and Daphne had heard the old man's painful moans and labored breathing. They would be woken by one of his horrible cries or the sound of him slamming against a wall. Mr. Canis was far from "fine."
"That's good to hear," Hamstead said, though even from the backseat Sabrina could spot the look of doubt on his face.
"I want my phone call," a little voice cried from the glove compartment. "We were framed!"
The sheriff banged heavily on the dashboard. "Tell it to the judge!"
Soon, Sheriff Hamstead pulled his squad car into the driveway of the family's quaint, two-story yellow house. It was very late and all the lights were off. Sabrina opened her door and Elvis lumbered out, still wearing two Lilliputian-free glue traps on his giant behind. It was bitterly cold, and Sabrina hoped the two adults wouldn't blabber on. Granny could talk a person's ear off. But the sheriff just thanked them again and excused himself, claiming he had paperwork piling up back at the station.
At the front door, Granny took a giant key ring out of her handbag and went to work unlocking the many locks. Once Sabrina had believed Granny Relda was just a paranoid shut-in, but in the last three weeks she had seen things that she would never have dreamed possible and now understood why the house was locked so tightly.
Granny Relda knocked on the door three times and announced to the house that the family was home, making the last magical lock slide back and the door swing open.
After cookies, and some vegetable-oil swabbing for Elvis, Granny Relda said, "Get cleaned up and hurry to bed. You've got school tomorrow. I've kept you up too late as it is."
"Actually, Granny," Sabrina replied. "I think I'm coming down with something. I'd hate to go to school and get everyone sick."