“Leave the biting to the experts,” Puck said, and bared his teeth.
“There’s just one last thing,” Sabrina said as she searched the ground for the unconscious body of the Nine of Diamonds. When she found him, she leaned over and snatched the ball of magic yarn out of his pocket. The old tingle of magic was there so she quickly tossed it to Daphne. The Cheshire Cat let out a loud squeal and leaped into the air. He caught the ball in his mouth and landed on all fours. Then he spit it out and batted it back and forth with his striped paws.
Daphne shrieked and rushed over and yanked it from his grasp. “Bad kitty,” she chastised. “This is our way out of here. It’s leading us to Pinocchio.”
“Intriguing,” the White Rabbit replied. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I believe it would be wise to get out of this particular story as soon as possible. The Editor has to have noticed the changes to our story by now.”
“I agree!” the dodo cried.
“Luckily, we’re at the end of this tale, so all we have to do is find the door,” Daphne said, and then whispered instructions to the yarn. It hopped out of her hands and rolled into the woods. They gave chase and soon came to a door standing amongst the bank of trees. As she was the first one to arrive, Daphne turned the doorknob, and it swung open with a blast of wind so powerful Sabrina feared it might knock her off her feet. Struggling against the violent air, she turned and urged her new companions to follow. “This is it!”
“Be brave, friends,” the White Rabbit said to his fellow rebels. He smoothed out the wrinkles in his jacket and slid a monocle in front of his eye. Then he hopped forward and disappeared through the doorway. The puppy let out a happy howl and rushed in after him. The Cheshire Cat tucked his head down and pulled his ears back, and a moment later he was gone too.
“I had my doubts this day would come,” the dodo said as he stared at the open doorway.
“Save it for your diary, pal,” Puck said, kicking him in the behind and forcing him into the abyss. “We’re in a hurry.”
A moment later, the children were charging forward into the unknown. When the world came back into focus, the group found themselves in the thick undergrowth of a huge forest. Almost immediately they spotted Pinocchio several yards from where they were standing. The boy was bent over, with hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. When he spotted them, he cursed creation itself and then hefted the birdcage he had taken from the card soldiers and freed his wooden minions.
“Keep these fools away from me,” Pinocchio ordered. Then he dashed off into the forest.
“Not the puppets again!” Sabrina complained.
“Don’t worry, honey bunny,” Puck said as the creatures raced toward them. “I won’t let anyone put a finger on my sweet-ums.”
The Trickster King never got a chance to defend her—or himself. The marionettes hopped onto his back and legs. They untied his shoelaces and yanked on his hair. When he managed to brush them off, they jumped onto Sabrina. She swatted at them, but even when she managed to knock one off, another took its place.
Finally, the dodo helped out—first it smashed the marionette that looked like Granny Relda, and then the one made to resemble Veronica, Sabrina and Daphne’s mother, with its hard head. That left only the figures that looked like Daphne, Uncle Jake, and Henry Grimm, father of the Grimm girls. The Cheshire Cat snatched them up in his mouth while the puppy furiously dug a hole. The cat spit them out and the dog buried them. All of the marionettes had finally met their end.
Sabrina charged into the woods after Pinocchio, and after only a few steps she spotted him. He was standing before a giant shoe. It was nearly twenty feet high and was brown with a gigantic and tarnished brass buckle on top. Carved into the shoe’s heel was a door decorated with a festive garland and a little mat on the ground that read WELCOME. Sabrina watched the boy swing the door open, rush inside, and slam the door behind him.
“No way!” Daphne said as she caught up with Sabrina.
“What?” the Cheshire Cat asked when he and his friends joined the children.
“This can’t be real,” Sabrina said.
“Hello?” Puck cried impatiently. “What story is this?”
“It’s ‘The Little Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe,’ ” Daphne said, and then bit into her palm.
“Never heard of it,” the dodo squawked.
“Never heard of it?” Daphne exclaimed. “Everyone knows this story.”
“I don’t,” Puck said. “If it’s in a book, I’m blissfully unaware of its existence.”
“It goes like this, ‘There once was an old lady who lived in a shoe; she had so many children she didn’t know what to do.’ Honestly, I don’t know the rest.”
“There’s no monster?” Puck said.
Daphne shook her head.
“No dragon? No witch? No one gets eaten?”