Sometime during the night Sabrina woke up. She looked at the clock on the nightstand and saw it was almost three in the morning. She was thirsty, so she padded down the hallway to the bathroom. She flipped on the light and poured some water into a glass. After drinking it she turned to go back to bed—then she spotted the marionette Pinocchio had made of herself sitting in the middle of the hallway. She nearly screamed, but quickly figured that Puck was pulling another prank. Only he would dig through the trash to have some fun at her expense.
“That’s hilarious, Puck,” she called. “I thought the war was over.” She scooped the marionette off the floor and stuffed it into the bathroom trash can. Then she went back to bed.
She hadn’t been under the covers longer than ten minutes when she heard someone shuffling across her bedroom floor. She sat up and flipped on the light. There, on her dressing room table, was the marionette.
“Aargh!” she cried, which woke Daphne.
“What’s with the light?” Daphne grumbled.
“Puck’s having a little fun at three o’clock in the morning,” she said. “C’mon.”
Sabrina snatched the puppet and walked down the hall with her sister behind her. Together, they pounded on Puck’s door until he answered. He wore a pair of footie pajamas with happy cowboys on them. He looked half-asleep and annoyed. “Whatever you’re selling I’m not interested.”
“What’s the big idea?” Daphne said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Puck said.
Sabrina shook the marionette at Puck. “You keep trying to spook me with this. It’s very immature.”
“Why would I play with a bunch of girly puppets? Boys don’t play with dolls.”
“Don’t you sleep with a stuffed unicorn?” Daphne said.
Puck stuck his tongue out and slammed the door in her face.
“Stop goofing off, freak boy,” Sabrina shouted.
Puck’s bedroom door opened again. “You can send your apology to me in writing.” Then he slammed the door in their faces once more.
Sabrina tossed the puppet into the hall trash, and together she and Daphne headed back to their room. They complained about having to live with the king of stupid pranks for a while and then drifted off to sleep.
It didn’t last. Sabrina wasn’t sure what time it was when Daphne shook her awake, but it was still dark outside. She could hear crickets chirping outside her window. The little girl had her hand clamped over Sabrina’s mouth and her finger over her own mouth, signaling to Sabrina that they had to be quiet. Then she pointed at the dresser across the room.
Sabrina turned and nearly screamed. The marionette was back, along with the others Pinocchio had made, but they weren’t sitting on the dressing table. They were walking around the room under their own power. A few of them had opened the dresser drawers and were rooting through the girls’ still-packed suitcases. Another searched in their closet, and others scurried around under their bed.
“Did you know they could do that?” Daphne mouthed the words.
Sabrina shook her head.
“What are they looking for?”
Sabrina shrugged. She turned back and saw her own marionette rummaging through the desk. “I found them,” it squeaked, holding up Sabrina’s enormous set of keys. The weight of the ring made the creature fall backward onto the floor, but it quickly righted itself.
“Let’s go. The boss is waiting,” the Granny Relda marionette commanded, and all the others followed her out into the hallway.
“What are they doing?” Daphne whispered.
“I don’t know, but I think we better find out,” Sabrina said, pulling her sister out of bed. Together they crept into the hallway just in time to watch the marionettes unlock the room that held the magic mirror and hurry inside.
Just then, the bathroom door opened and the girls saw their mother and father inside.
“Did you see that?” Veronica asked.
“You mean the walking, talking marionettes?” Sabrina asked.
“Yeah, we saw them,” Daphne said.
“We’ll get Mr. Canis and your grandmother,” Henry said. “You wake up the fairy.”
The girls pounded on Puck’s door for what seemed like forever. Finally he opened the door. His stuffed unicorn was under his arm. “You two are really pushing your luck,” Puck said. “What could be so important that you have to wake me up not once but twice?”
“The marionettes are alive and stealing the keys to the Hall of Wonders,” Sabrina said.
“OK, that counts,” he said, tossing his unicorn inside his room and pushing past them and into the spare room.
“We should wait for the others,” Sabrina said.
“For a bunch of puppets?” Puck scoffed. “We can take care of this. C’mon!”
The spare room was empty, so Sabrina assumed the creatures had already stepped into the mirror’s reflection. She led Puck and Daphne through the mirror. On the other side they found their marionettes as well as a hundred more—all the puppets Pinocchio had carved. The Granny Relda marionette was busy passing out keys from Sabrina’s key ring to each of its cohorts.
“If we’re quiet we can sneak up on them,” Puck said, louder than he should have. His voice echoed off walls and bounced around like a ball. And then all of the marionettes turned their heads toward them. With their strings dangling behind them, they raced down the hallway, unlocking doors as they went.