"Well, turn off your game and say hello!"
"Mom! I'm about to beat the level-fifteen boss! Do you have any idea how many experience points I can get?"
"Fine, if you don't want to socialize and act like an adult, then go to your room and clean it up. I have to vacuum in there, and you've got your dolls all over the place."
Mordred looked over at his mother with a murderous rage in his face. His pupils vanished and his eyes turned pure white and radiated energy.
"THEY'RE NOT DOLLS. THEY'RE ACTION FIGURES!"
He leaped up from the couch and turned off his game. "The exterminator is in the bathroom," he snapped as he marched into a room and slammed the door behind him.
"I'm sorry," Morgan said. "Mordred is a bit--"
"Geeky?" Uncle Jake interrupted. "Nerdy?" Sabrina offered. "Mucho lame-o?" Daphne added.
"I was going to say aimless," the witch replied. "I know he's a bit old to be living at home with his mom, but he's had a difficult time holding a job. He's worked at Wendy's, Taco Bell, and Burger King, but it always ends the same way--he challenges his manager to combat, takes over the restaurant, and enslaves his coworkers. Then it's back to video games."
"We'd like to get right down to business, if possible," Granny said without batting an eyelash. "You told us you have been robbed. What was taken?"
"The Wonder Clock," Morgan le Fay answered as she walked around the room picking up empty french-fry boxes.
"No way!" Uncle Jake exclaimed.
"Uh, what's the Wonder Clock?" Sabrina asked. Her father had kept her and Daphne away from fairy-tale stories when they were little, trying to protect them. Unfortunately it put the Grimm sisters at a disadvantage in Ferryport Landing. It seemed as if they hardly knew anything about fairy tales. Lately the girls had made a serious effort to read the original tales as part of their training, but Sabrina hadn't come across the Wonder Clock.
"Howard Pyle wrote about it, liebling.
The story goes that it was found in the attic of Father Time," Granny explained, then turned her attention back to Morgan. "I was under the impression the Wonder Clock was a myth."
"So was I!" Uncle Jake said. He prided himself on being able to track down magical items, and he always had quite a number of them on his person. His jacket was sewn with extra pockets where he kept enchanted rings, wands, and potions.
"Nope. It's real and it works," Morgan replied.
"Works?" Granny asked. "In what way? Pyle wrote that its only function was to tell stories when the clock struck the hour."
Morgan le Fay shuffled her feet uncomfortably. "Well... it does something else."
Uncle Jake grinned eagerly. "What?"
"It's kind of a time machine."
Sabrina laughed. She never knew Morgan had such a great sense of humor.
"No, really," Morgan said. "It lets a person go twelve hours into the past."
"What good is that?" Daphne wondered.
"It comes in very handy when you accidentally say yes to two dates on the same night," the beautiful witch said.
"Morgan, how long has the clock been missing?" Granny asked.
"I'm not sure," the witch replied. "I came home from your party and went straight to bed. It was on the kitchen table when I turned off the lights. This morning it was gone."
"And you didn't hear anything?" Granny asked.
"Nothing. The front door was wide open when I woke up, but I know I locked it."
"What about Mordred?" Uncle Jake asked. "Could he have taken it?"
"No," Morgan said. "He's very honest. He says he has no idea what happened to the clock and I believe him."
Just then, a fat orange creature no more than a foot tall stepped out of the bathroom. It was wearing green camouflage pants, a green shirt, an army helmet, dog tags, and heavy boots. At first glance, it looked like a dressed up pet, but Sabrina realized it was much more. Walking erect on its hind legs, it seemed just as startled to see Sabrina as she was to see it. It shouted "Incoming!" and dove behind the couch.
"Boots, it's OK," Morgan le Fay said, trying to calm the cat down. "It's Relda Grimm and her family."
The cat peeked its head from around the couch. He looked nervous and his whiskers were frantically twitching. "You scared the bejesus out of me," Boots said in a thick New Jersey accent. "I coulda had a nervous breakdown. You gotta warn a guy. I'm a veteran. I've seen terrible things. Makes a guy jumpy."
"So, did you find anything?" Morgan asked.
"Well, Ms. le Fay, I've got good news and bad news," Boots said. "I'll start with the bad news. You have mice."
"Ugh," Morgan groaned. She crossed the room to her handbag and showed it to the cat. "I knew it! One of them chewed through my purse." She reached into the bag and poked a finger into a small hole near the bottom. "What's the good news?"
"There is no good news. I just thought it might help to have some hope. My advice is to pack your things, burn this place to the ground, and start somewhere new."