Hatchett rushed out of the shack.
“Do you realize what we have here?” Robin said, waving his tape recorder in the air. “We now have proof that Canis didn’t mean to kill the old woman. In fact, we might even be able to argue that the old woman is responsible for all the mayhem the Wolf has created. She literally unleashed the Wolf on the world.”
“But will it matter?” Sabrina asked.
t the end of another long day, after Uncle Jake dashed off for a late dinner with Briar Rose, Granny suggested everyone else get some sleep. She was sure tomorrow would be a big day in Mr. Canis’s trial, perhaps even the day their old friend would be freed. The girls and Puck said goodnight to Granny and Elvis and climbed the steps to their bedrooms. The girls said goodnight to Puck at their door. He grunted and kept walking down the hall. Unfortunately, Sabrina was dragged along with him.
“Oh, I forgot about you,” Puck said, eyeing the handcuffs.
“What are we supposed to do, fairy boy?” Sabrina cried. “We’re not sleeping in the same bed.”
“Who cares about that? I’m going to have to go to the bathroom eventually,” Puck mumbled.
“He could sleep on the floor in our room,” Daphne said.
“I’m not sleeping on the floor. I’m royalty,” Puck declared as he puffed up his chest. “Sabrina can sleep there.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Sabrina said.
Puck huffed and frowned. “Fine, come with me.”
He led the girls down the hallway to his bedroom. The door was covered in signs: DEATH AWAITS ALL WHO ENTER HERE! and WARNING! FALLING ROCKS! There was also a picture of a kitten, with the words CUTENESS WILL NOT BE SPARED! Puck pushed open the door and impatiently ushered them inside.
Sabrina had been in Puck’s room before, but it never ceased to amaze her. It wasn’t like any bedroom she had ever seen. The night sky was the roof, the forest ground the floor, and a trickling brook led to a lagoon in the distance. The chirping of crickets and the rustle of woodland animals drifted across the air like a lullaby. The room was magical, and from what Sabrina could tell, endless. Who knew how far the water rolled downstream? If you followed it, would you find an ocean at its end? Sabrina didn’t know, though she wondered about it from time to time.
Puck dragged the girls down to where the room’s serene beauty came to a dismaying end. There they found a path littered with broken army men and parts from old skateboards and microwaves. Sabrina nearly stepped into dozens of half-eaten birthday cakes.
They climbed up an embankment, where they found a trampoline. A panda bear was sound asleep on its surface. Puck shooed it away. It staggered off, looking for somewhere else to sleep, barking and growling grumpily with each step.
Puck helped Daphne onto the trampoline, then Sabrina, and together the girls pulled him up behind them.
“I love it,” Daphne said, jumping up and down and bouncing like a ball.
“Good to know,” Puck grumbled. “My only concern is making sure the two of you are comfortable. Now, go to sleep and leave me alone.”
Puck lay down, forcing Sabrina to do the same. She nudged as far away from him as possible, feeling entirely uncomfortable. Daphne nestled between them, her head at the tips of their fingers. The handcuffs forced them to sleep on their backs. It was hard to get comfortable, and each time Sabrina drifted to sleep she felt Puck’s hand drag her hand this way and that. Eventually she decided that despite her best efforts, sleeping was out of the question. Instead, she settled on resting. She closed her eyes and lay still, listening to the bubbling water in the distance.
“You awake?” Puck asked.
“Yes,” Sabrina said. Their voices seemed loud in the open air.
“When are you going to tell her what you did?”
Sabrina bristled. “Maybe you should mind your own business.”
Puck laughed. “As if I could around this place. Every time I turn around the two of you are facing down death—monsters, robots, dragons. Saving your butts is a full-time job.”
His tone made her angrier. “Then why don’t you go back to being a villain? I liked you a lot better when you weren’t trying to save us.”
“I’ll go back to being a villain if you go back to the way you were,” Puck said.
“And how was I, Mr. Smarty Pants?”
“For one, you were honest,” Puck said.
The words were like a smack in the face and her cheeks grew hot. Who was he to tell her how to be a good person? Wasn’t his name the Trickster King? He’d been treating people like chumps for four thousand years. “You’re one to talk.”