Once Upon a Crime

  Today Show Kids Book Club Pick

  New York Times Bestseller

  Book Sense Pick

  Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Platinum Award

  Kirkus Reviews Best Fantasy Book

  A Real Simple magazine “Must-Have”

  New York Public Library 100 Titles for

  Reading and Sharing Selection

  “Why didn’t I think of The Sisters Grimm? What a great concept!” —Jane Yolen

  “A very fun series …” —Chicago Parent

  “The twists and turns of the plot, the clever humor, and the behind-the-scenes glimpses of Everafters we think we know will appeal to many readers.” — Kliatt, starred review

  ALSO BY MICHAEL BUCKLEY:

  In the Sisters Grimm series:

  BOOK ONE: THE FAIRY-TALE DETECTIVES

  BOOK TWO: THE UNUSUAL SUSPECTS

  BOOK THREE: THE PROBLEM CHILD

  BOOK FOUR: ONCE UPON A CRIME

  BOOK FIVE: MAGIC AND OTHER MISDEMEANORS

  BOOK SIX: TALES FROM THE HOOD

  BOOK SEVEN: THE EVERAFTER WAR

  BOOK EIGHT: THE INSIDE STORY

  In the NERDS series:

  BOOK ONE: NATIONAL ESPIONAGE, RESCUE, AND DEFENSE SOCIETY

  BOOK TWO: M IS FOR MAMA’S BOY

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

  Buckley, Michael.

  The sisters Grimm, book four : once upon a crime / Michael Buckley ;

  pictures by Peter Ferguson.

  p. cm.

  Summary: When the fairy-tale detectives rush to New York City hoping to find an Everafter who

  can cure Puck, they trigger a chain of events that includes a murder mystery, and learn many

  new things about their mother who, along with their father, is still in an enchanted sleep.

  ISBN 978-0-8109-1610-4

  [1. Characters in literature—Fiction. 2. Sisters—Fiction. 3. Grandmothers—Fiction. 4. New

  York (N.Y.)—Fiction. 5. Mystery and detective stories.]

  I. Ferguson, Peter, 1968—ill. II. Title. III. Title: Once upon a crime.

  PZ7.B882323Siw 2007

  [Fic]—dc22

  2006033516

  Paperback ISBN 978-0-8109-9549-9

  Originally published in hardcover by Amulet Books in 2007

  Text copyright © 2007 Michael Buckley

  Illustrations copyright © 2007 Peter Ferguson

  Published in 2008 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. Amulet Books and Amulet Paperbacks are registered trademarks of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

  Amulet Books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact [email protected] or the address below.

  www.abramsbooks.com

  For my mother, Wilma Cuvelier

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  It seems as though the more of these books I write the more people I have to thank. I hope you all know how invaluable you have been.

  First and foremost, thanks to my editor, Susan Van Metre, for her inexhaustible patience and insight. I also want to thank everyone at Abrams Books, most notably Jason Wells, for their support, hard work, and cheerleading. My wife, Alison, deserves special praise, not only for her efforts as my literary agent, but also for being the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. As always, a special thanks to Joe Deasy for his praise, criticism, and hilariously inappropriate humor. I also send out special thanks to Molly Choi, Maureen Falvey, David Snidero, and Susan Holtz-Minihane for friendship that goes above and beyond the call of duty. And to the members of Team Buckley at Wall Intermediate: Lauren, Jillian, Amanda, Meghan, Tim, Dana, Kim, Katherine, Jack, and Veronica.

  Lastly, thanks to Daisy, who passed away during the writing of this book. Daisy was a West Highland White Terrier my wife found in the Czech Republic eleven years ago. Daisy was probably my single biggest inspiration. I’ll miss her playfulness and sweet nature. I hope the squirrels are fast in heaven because here she comes.

  “GET OFF THE STREETS!” SABRINA CRIED. “There’s a monster coming!.”

  “Do you people want to get squashed?” Daphne shouted, but the pedestrians were used to ignoring screaming lunatics. Daphne turned to Granny Relda with a panicked face. “They wont listen!”

  Granny Relda took the girls by the hand. “They will. Run, children.”

  The girls shared a nervous glance as they raced down the sidewalk, pushing through the crowd and calling out warnings to anyone who would listen. As far as Sabrina knew, her grandmother had never run from anything. She was the bravest woman Sabrina and her sister had ever met. Soon, the family came to an intersection and stopped in their tracks. They weren’t on the quiet streets of Ferryport Landing anymore; this was the big city. If they tried to cross against the light, a truck or a speeding taxi would flatten them. While they waited anxiously, Sabrina took a quick look back, in time to see the entire front of the building they had just been standing in collapse. A huge leg stepped through the rubble. The people around them paused, then let out a collective scream.

  “They’re paying attention now,” Sabrina muttered.

  With a dreadful pounding, the gigantic creature freed itself of the store. Its lantern eye scanned the streets far below and fixed on Sabrina.

  “I’ll get you, my pretty,” the monster cried, then lifted one of its enormous, pointed shoes and kicked a taxicab out of the way, sending it slamming into a light pole and then skidding into the intersection, where it crashed into a newspaper delivery truck.

  A wave of terror rolled through the crowded street; pedestrians turned as one mass and rushed toward Sabrina and her family. Many people were looking back as they ran; a young woman knocked Daphne to the ground in her panic. If the monster didn’t kill the Grimms, Sabrina realized, they would be trampled to death by the mob.

  he explosion shook Sabrina Grimm so hard she swore she felt her brain do a somersault inside her skull. As she struggled to get her bearings, a noxious, black smoke choked her, burning her eyes. Could she escape? No, she was at the mercy of the cold, soulless machine otherwise known as the family car.

  “Isn’t anyone worried that this hunk of junk might kill us?” she cried, but no one heard her over the chaos.

  As usual, Sabrina was the only person in her family who noticed anything was wrong. Murder plots, horrifying monsters, the shaking, jostling, rattling death trap the Grimms called transportation: Sabrina had her eyes wide open to trouble.

  She was sure if she didn’t stay on her toes her entire family would be dead by nightfall. They were lucky to have her.

  Her grandmother, a kind, sweet old lady, was in the front seat, buried in the book she had been reading for the last two hours. Next to her was the old woman’s constant companion, a skinny, grouchy old man named Mr. Canis, who drove the family everywhere. Sharing the backseat with Sabrina was a portly, pink-skinned fellow named Mr. Hamstead, and nestled between them was Daphne, Sabrina’s seven-year-old sister, who had been slumbering peacefully the entire ride, drooling like a faucet onto Sabrina’s coat sleeve. Sabrina gently nudged her sister toward Mr. Hamstead. He grimaced when he noti
ced the drool and shot Sabrina a look that said, Thanks for nothing.

  Sabrina pretended not to notice and leaned forward to get her grandmother’s attention. Granny Relda set her book down in her lap and turned to Sabrina with smiling eyes. The old woman’s face was etched in wrinkles, but her pink cheeks and button nose gave her a youthful appearance. She always wore colorful dresses and matching hats with a sunflower appliqué in the center. Today she was in purple.

  “Where are we?” Sabrina shouted.

  Her grandmother cupped a hand to her ear to let Sabrina know she hadn’t heard the question over the car’s terrific racket.

  “Are we getting close to Faerie yet?”

  “Oh, I love chili, but I’m afraid it doesn’t love me,” Granny shouted back.

  “No, not chili! Faerie!” Sabrina cried. “Are we getting close?”

  “Why no, I’ve never kissed a monkey. What a weird question.”

  Sabrina was about to throw up her hands in defeat when Mr. Canis turned to her. “We are not far,” he barked and turned his gaze back to the road. The old man had better hearing than anyone.

  Sabrina sighed with relief. All of the rumbling and sputtering would soon be over, and it would all have been worth it to help Puck. She looked at the shivering boy huddled next to her grandmother. His blond hair was matted to his head and his face was drenched in sweat. Sabrina felt a pang of guilt in her belly. If it weren’t for her they wouldn’t be on this trip at all.

  She sat back in her seat as the car came to a stop at a crossroads. She looked out the window. To the left was farmland as far as she could see. To the right a dusty country road leading to a tiny, distant house. Behind her was Ferryport Landing, her new hometown, and ahead . . . she wasn’t sure. A place called Faerie, her grandmother had said. They were taking Puck home.

  As the car rolled forward, Sabrina lost herself in memories. It seemed like a lifetime ago when she had had a home. Once she’d been a normal kid living on the Upper East Side of New York City, with a mom and a dad, a baby sister, and an apartment near the park. Life had been simple and easy and ordinary. Then one day her parents, Henry and Veronica, disappeared. The police looked for them but all they found was their abandoned car and a single clue—a red handprint left on the dashboard.

  With no one to take care of the girls, Sabrina and Daphne were dumped into an orphanage and assigned to Minerva Smirt, an ill-tempered caseworker who hated children. She’d taken a special dislike to the Grimm sisters and for almost a year and a half had stuck them with foster families who used and abused them. These so-called loving caregivers forced the girls to be their personal maids, pool cleaners, and ditch diggers. More often than not, the families were in it for the state check. Some were just plain crazy.

  When Granny Relda took in the sisters, Sabrina was sure the old woman was one of the crazies. First, their grandmother was supposed to be dead. Second, Relda moved the girls to a little town on the Hudson River called Ferryport Landing, miles from civilization. Third, and most astounding, was that she claimed that her neighbors were all fairy-tale characters. Granny Relda was convinced that the mayor was Prince Charming, the Three Little Pigs ran the police department, witches served pancakes at the diner, and ogres delivered the mail. She also claimed that Sabrina and Daphne were the last living descendants of Jacob and Wilhelm, the Brothers Grimm, whose book of fairy tales wasn’t fiction but an account of actual events and the beginning of a record kept by each new generation of the family. Granny said it was the Grimm legacy to investigate any unusual crimes and to keep an eye on the mischief-making fairy-tale folk, also known as Everafters. In a nutshell, the girls were the next in a long line of “fairy-tale detectives.”

  After hearing Granny Relda’s wild tale, Sabrina was sure her “grandmother” had forgotten to take her medication—that is, until a giant came along and kidnapped the old woman. Suddenly, her stories held a lot more weight.

  After the sisters Grimm rescued their grandmother, they agreed to become fairy-tale detectives—Daphne enthusiastically, Sabrina reluctantly—and plunged headfirst into investigating the other freaky felonies of their new hometown.

  Daphne loved every minute of their new lives. What sevenyear-old wouldn’t want to live in a town filled with bedtime stories come to life? But Sabrina couldn’t get used to the strange people they encountered. She also distrusted the Everafters, and it was no secret that the community felt the same way about her family. Most thought the Grimms were meddlers. Others just downright despised them. Sabrina really couldn’t blame them. After all, the Everafters were trapped in Ferryport Landing and it was her family’s fault. Two hundred years prior, Wilhelm Grimm had constructed a magical barrier around the town in an effort to quell an Everafter rebellion against their human neighbors. And since then, the Everafters, whether good or bad, had been prisoners, and the Grimms, many felt, had been their prison guards.

  But the real reason Sabrina didn’t trust the Everafters was the red handprint the police had discovered on her missing parents’ car. It was the mark of a secret Everafter organization called “the Scarlet Hand.” No one knew who its members were, or the identity of the mysterious Master who was its leader.

  A recent confrontation with Red Riding Hood, an agent of the Scarlet Hand, had led to the recovery of Sabrina and Daphne’s missing parents. Unfortunately, Henry and Veronica were under a sleeping spell that the family didn’t know how to break.

  Puck, a family friend, had been injured helping the Grimm sisters fight the demented Red Riding Hood and her ferocious pet, the Jabberwocky. The monster had ripped off Puck’s fairy wings, and now he was dangerously ill. Luckily for Puck, the Vorpal blade, which the Grimms had used to kill the Jabberwocky, could cut through anything, including the magical barrier around Ferryport Landing. Leaving Henry and Veronica in safekeeping, Sabrina, Daphne, Granny Relda, and their trusted friends had set out with the sick boy, using the Vorpal blade to cut a hole big enough for the family car to drive through. Now they were on their way to Faerie, home of Puck’s family, whom they hoped could make the young fairy well again.

  Sabrina sighed, shifted in her seat, and wondered for the hundredth time when they’d get to Faerie. Then out of the corner of her eye she spotted blue-and-red lights flashing in the window behind them. Mr. Canis pulled the car over to the side of the road and turned off the engine.

  “What’s going on?” Sabrina asked.

  “We’re being pulled over by the police,” Granny said. She and Mr. Canis shared a concerned look.

  There was a tap on Mr. Canis’s window. The old man rolled it down and a very angry police officer, wearing a short navy blue coat and sunglasses, peeked inside. He eyed the family suspiciously.

  “Do you know why I pulled you over?” he said.

  “Were we speeding?” Mr. Canis asked.

  “Oh, I didn’t pull you over for speeding. I pulled you over because this … this tank you’re driving is violating at least a hundred different environmental and safety laws. Let me see your driver’s license.”

  Mr. Canis glanced at Granny Relda and then turned back to the policeman. “I’m afraid I don’t have one.”

  The policeman laughed, seemingly in disbelief. “You’ve got to be kidding me. OK, folks, everyone step out of the car.”

  “Officer, I’m sure we can—”

  The officer bent down. His smile was gone. “Step out of the car.”

  Granny turned in her seat to look at the girls and Mr. Hamstead. “OK, let’s get out of the car.”

  Daphne was still sound asleep, so Sabrina shook her until the little girl opened her eyes.

  “Whazzabigidea?” Daphne grumbled.

  “Get up, we’re going to jail,” Sabrina said, helping her out of the car.

  They were parked on a bridge and the wind coming off the water below was brutal. The cold air froze Sabrina to the bone as she watched cars and trucks whiz by. It was a terrible day, and the dark clouds hanging in the sky warned that it was going to
get worse.

  “Officer, if I could be of any assistance,” Mr. Hamstead said as he tugged his pants up over his belly. “I happen to be the former sheriff of Ferryport Landing and—”

  “Where?”

  “Ferryport Landing. It’s about two hours north.”

  “Well, as a former sheriff you should know it’s against the law to ride around with someone who doesn’t have a driver’s license, let alone someone who is driving around in this menace.” The policeman poked his head back into the car and spotted Puck.

  “Who’s the kid?”

  “He’s my grandson and he’s not feeling very well. We’re taking him to a doctor,” Granny said.

  “Not in this thing, lady,” the policeman said. “I’m impounding this vehicle for the good of humanity. I’ll call an ambulance and have him taken to Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital.”

  He reached down to the walkie-talkie strapped to his waist and brought the device to his mouth. He barked an order for a tow truck as he watched the family suspiciously.

  “If Puck is sent to a hospital, they’re going to discover he’s not human,” Mr. Hamstead mumbled to Granny Relda.

  “The boy needs a special kind of doctor,” Canis growled to the cop.

  “And the devil needs a glass of ice water,” the officer snapped back. “You should be worrying about yourself. You’re going to be lucky if you don’t spend the night in jail. Does anyone have any identification?”

  “Of course,” Granny Relda said as she reached into her handbag. “I know I have my ID in here somewhere.”

  But the police officer was now focused on Mr. Canis. A big brown tail had slipped out of the back of the old man’s pants and was blowing in the wind. The cop studied it for a moment, unsure of what it was, and then walked around Mr. Canis to get a better look.

  “Is this a tail, buddy?” the policeman asked.

  Sabrina looked anxiously at the old man, who was sweating in the icy air. His expression was nervous and angry. She’d been seeing this expression more and more lately. It was the look he got when the transformation came over him.