"Where is Englishman?" he bellowed. "Why does he hide from me?"
Sabrina couldn't see what was going on in the car as it was nearly two hundred feet off the ground. Were Mrs. Grimm and Mr. Canis even still alive? It was all so horrible that the two girls barely noticed that something had dropped from the car, landing with a clang at their feet.
"You cannot hide from me, Englishman!" the giant shouted as he lifted his enormous leg and stomped down hard on the little mountain cabin, flattening it like a pancake. Pieces of timber and stone sprayed into the air, just missing the girls. Sabrina and Daphne gasped. The three thugs—Tony, Steve, and Bobby—had been inside the cabin. There was no way any of them could have escaped.
Looking down at the destruction, the giant let out a sickening laugh. He stuffed the car into a greasy shirt pocket, lifted his other humongous leg, and walked away, carrying the remains of the mountain cabin in the treads of his boots. The earth shook violently and a ripple spilled across the land as if someone had tossed a stone into a pond to see it skip. Because of his mammoth stride, the giant completely disappeared over the horizon after just a dozen steps. Only the distant rumbling of his disastrous footfalls and the angry growls of Elvis remained.
The girls stood completely frozen. Competing with Sabrina's fear was another unsettling emotion—humiliation. Mrs. Grimm had been telling the truth the whole time and Sabrina had refused to listen. Sabrina had deliberately been a jerk to the old woman, and now she might never see her again to tell her she was sorry. She moved to comfort her sister, but Daphne pulled away. The little girl rushed over to pick up whatever had fallen from the car. It was Mrs. Grimm's handbag.
"She was telling the truth and you have been a big snot since the first minute. Tell me now if you think she's crazy," Daphne said furiously.
"I don't think she's crazy," her older sister said, but Daphne had already turned and was marching down the road. "Where are you going?"
"I'm going to rescue our family," the little girl called back without stopping.
Chapter 5
abrina looked down the long empty road. They had been walking for over an hour, and not so much as a bicycle had passed them. If they didn't get a ride back to the house soon, the girls would be walking all night.
The time might have passed more quickly if there had been a little conversation, but for an hour, Daphne had marched ahead of Sabrina, refusing to speak. Even Elvis, who followed closely behind, was ignoring her, but since he was a dog, his silence was a lot easier to take. But Daphne hadn't been quiet for longer than five minutes since she was born. She was even a noisy sleeper.
"How was I supposed to know?" Sabrina cried. "Anybody would have thought she was crazy!"
"I didn't," Daphne said, finally breaking her silence.
"You don't count. You believe everything," Sabrina argued.
"And you don't believe in anything," the little girl snapped. "Why are we even talking? You don't care what I think, anyway."
"That's not true!" Sabrina said, but before the words had left her mouth she knew they were a lie. What Daphne thought hadn't mattered in a long, long time, at least not since their parents had deserted them. But it wasn't like Sabrina wanted it that way. She was only eleven and didn't want to have to make all the decisions for both of them. She would love to feel like a kid and not have to worry about whether they were safe. But that wasn't how things were. Unfortunately, she realized now, she had never considered what Daphne thought when it came to their best interests.
"Whatever!" Daphne muttered, and continued her angry march back to the house.
Elvis followed, sniffing the air wildly for the giant's stench. Sabrina could see that he took his guard dog duties seriously. Every little buzz and cracking sound had to be investigated. The dog darted back and forth, peering through the barbed-wire fence that separated the road from the endless forest. Once he was confident that the swaying limbs of the pines or the occasional rooting woodchuck were not a giant sneaking up on them, he trotted to the center of the road and put his huge nose back to work.
"This is ridiculous. We'll never get home if we walk," Sabrina said. Her feet were aching, and at the pace they were going they'd be lucky if they made it back to the house by nightfall the next day.
"You're not helping!" Daphne cried as she spun around. Her face was red and she had her hands on her hips.
"What do you want me to do?" Sabrina asked. "The old woman ..."
"Our grandma," Daphne corrected.