The Unusual Suspects (The Sisters Grimm, Book 2)

That kid is so un-punk rock, Sabrina thought.

The sisters reached Sabrina's locker and she went to work on the combination. If there had been anything good about the day it was that at least she had been assigned a locker near her homeroom. She wouldn't have to trudge through the halls in the morning with all her books.

"What kind of class are you in?" Daphne asked as she peered through the window into Grumpner's room.

"What are you talking about?" Sabrina said as she put on her coat and closed her locker.

"Look," her sister said, pointing into Sabrina's homeroom.

Sabrina gazed through the window. The room looked as if a tornado had gone through it. Desks and chairs had been tossed around and there was an odd, white substance covering everything. She opened the door and the girls stepped inside. The white substance hung from the ceiling in strands like silky ribbons. It fluttered in the icy wind that blew in from a broken window. In the center of the room, a large sack of the junk was suspended from the ceiling, slowly swaying in the breeze.

"Don't touch anything," Sabrina said, tugging at a strand that had attached itself to her coat.

"What's that thing hanging from the ceiling?" Daphne asked as her sister crossed the room to look. Sabrina grabbed a nearby chair, pulled it close to the sack, and climbed onto the seat.

"Something's inside it," she said as she yanked at the layers of sticky stuff that formed the sack. Soon, something began to reveal itself from deep inside—something with a face. "It's Mr. Grumpner," she whispered. The old man was as purple as an eggplant and his once puffy face was gaunt and drained. "He's dead."





"Awww, man! That's so gross!" Daphne cried unhappily.



"What could have done this?" Sabrina wondered.



"Probably whoever left that," the little girl said, pointing at the far end of the classroom.



Sabrina turned to see what her sister was referring to. On the chalkboard was another horrible but familiar sight. Someone had dipped his or her hand into a can of paint and pressed it on the wall. The handprint was bright red.





Chapter 4



he school doors flew open and a dark-haired man in a purple suit strutted in with his head in the air. He swaggered down the shiny hallway with a dwarf and an obese police officer bringing up the rear. When Sabrina spotted the group, she groaned. Mayor Charming was not one of her favorite people.



To anyone else, Mayor Charming might have seemed like a run-of-the-mill politician, but Sabrina knew better. Mayor Charming was really Prince Charming, the dashing romantic hero of a dozen fairy tales. But, as Sabrina knew firsthand, Charming was only his name. The mayor could be an obnoxious, rude know-it-all, and he had a particular disdain for Sabrina's family. In a nutshell, he hated the Grimms.





Racing to keep up was Mr. Seven, the mayor's diminutive sidekick. Seven was actually one of the original seven dwarfs and acted as Charming's driver, assistant, and whipping boy. Behind him was Sheriff Hamstead, who did his best to keep up with the others while trying to hoist his pants up at the same time.

"So, let's go through this one more time," the mayor said to his followers with an air of condescension. "Who's doing all the talking?"

"You are," Hamstead and Mr. Seven said in unison.

"And why is that?"

"Because we are numbskulls."

"See how easy that was?"

"But what if I see something suspicious? I am the sheriff, after all," Hamstead argued.

Charming came to a halt and spun around on his heels. "Are you going to make me get out the idiot hat? 'Cause it sounds like someone wants to wear the idiot hat!"

"I don't," Mr. Seven said.

The sheriff frowned and shook his head.

"Good," Mayor Charming snapped. He took a deep breath and looked up to the ceiling as if someone were watching from above. "OK, let's relax. Let out all the anger and frustration. You are a great mayor. Smile."

Suddenly, a smile sprang to Charming's face and he started down the hallway again. The mayor was a master at the phony, toothy grin, but it slid off his face when he spotted Sabrina and Daphne.

"What are they doing here?" he moaned.

"They found the body," the sheriff explained.

"The sisters Grimm found the body and no one told me?" Charming said.

"You told us not to talk," Mr. Seven said defensively.