“We should get out of his way,” Sabrina said, pulling her sister aside. With a bellow and a grunt, Puck ran forward, head first, knocking the bookcase hard. It toppled over, crashing into another bookcase right next to it and causing that one to fall over, too. That bookcase fell onto the bookcase beside it, starting a chain reaction throughout the library like dominoes. Books and magazines flew into the air, as did the Scarecrow, who was buried beneath them.
“Oops,” Sabrina said, as she, Puck, and Daphne dashed toward the doors. Snow was right in front of them, hurrying to the parking lot. Once outside, they found Ms. White leaning against her car and breathing hard. She was obviously unnerved by her encounter with Bluebeard and was doing her best to calm herself.
“Are you OK, Ms. White?” Daphne asked.
“Daphne?” Snow replied. “Yes, I just ran into . . . well . . .”
“We know,” Sabrina said. “Bluebeard.”
“Yes,” Snow said. “He’s always had a thing for me but I . . . wait a minute, are the three of you responsible for all that chaos?”
Puck nodded and bowed. “At your service.”
“Why haven’t you returned any of Granny Relda’s calls?” Daphne asked. “She wants to apologize.”
“Daphne, when you grow up you’ll find that being an adult is complicated. It’s not as easy as picking up the phone and saying ‘hi.’”
“First of all, I am grown up,” Daphne said. “Second, you don’t understand. Granny feels terrible about what happened. Mr. Charming begged us to keep it a secret. He said he was doing it for your own good.”
“How is pretending to be dead supposed to be for my own good?” Snow asked.
Sabrina and Daphne shared a knowing glance. “I wish we could tell you but he’s sworn us to secrecy,” Sabrina said.
“See, that’s the problem,” Ms. White said. “Everyone is keeping secrets from me and they tell me that it’s for my own good.”
“We’re trying to protect you,” Daphne said.
Snow White groaned. “Everyone wants to protect Snow White. Well, I’m not a little girl, Daphne. I was fighting my own battles before Billy Charming came along.”
There was a long, uncomfortable silence until Snow spoke again. “The three of you should get home. Relda is probably worried sick about you.”
Then she turned, got into her car, and drove away.
Uncle Jake was thrilled with the information they had gathered at the library. But when Daphne offered to write the letter to Goldilocks, Jake shook his head. He claimed he had made a call to some old friends and they were sending something that would work a lot better than a stamp and an envelope. In fact, he promised their search would soon be over. When the girls and Puck headed off to bed, Jake was still staring at Goldilocks through the mirror. She was in a boat riding on a canal. A man with a long pole steered her along as she glanced up at the moon.
The next morning Sabrina woke to loud shouting and pounding. She rubbed her eyes and looked around, not surprised to find that Daphne was still sound asleep. She climbed out of bed, slipped on a robe she had hanging from her bedpost, and stomped down the stairs. By the front door, poking his head out of the umbrella stand, she found a creature that looked like it was part dwarf, part crocodile. He gestured to the door.
“There’s a man out there,” the creature hissed. “He could be dangerous.” He held a walkie-talkie to his face and cried, “Where’s my backup?”
Sabrina looked through the window and saw Robin Hood pounding on the door.
“That’s Robin Hood. We know him,” Sabrina explained.
“Cancel that backup, people!” the creature shouted into his walkie-talkie. “We are back to code yellow. All clear. I repeat, we are at code yellow.” Then he sunk his head back into the stand and disappeared.
Sabrina quickly straightened her hair, tightened her bathrobe, and checked herself in the hall mirror. She could just die, letting the handsome lawyer see her in her goofy pajamas and with a serious case of bed head, but she seemed to be the only one awake and he kept shouting that there was an emergency. Finally, when she realized nothing would make her look better short of a shower, she opened the door.
“You’re not dressed! Kid, you’ve got to get dressed,” the lawyer exclaimed as he barged through the open doorway. “Where is everyone?”
Sabrina was horrified to be called a kid. “In bed. It’s not even eight in the morning,” she said, awkwardly pushing her hair behind her ear.
“Well wake them up! We have to get over to the courthouse, now,” Robin cried. “The trial is starting today!”
“What trial?”
“The trial of the Big Bad Wolf,” he said.
ittle John sent over a demand for a trial last night,” Robin Hood said as he hurried the family up the steps of the Ferryport Landing Municipal Courthouse. “To be honest, after our little run-in with Nottingham yesterday I never guessed they would grant us one. Then my partner, Will Scarlet, was filing a class-action suit and noticed the grand jury’s schedule posted on the wall.”
“Why wouldn’t we be informed of the trial ahead of time?” Granny Relda asked.