The Unusual Suspects

"Turn on the lights!" Daphne shouted.

"Hey, let me go!" a voice cried out.

"What's the big idea?" another one shouted.

Elvis circled back around, and Sabrina slid into a pile of what felt like sticky leaves. Some clung to her arms and legs and one glued itself to her forehead.

When the lights finally came on, Elvis stopped, stood over Sabrina, and barked. The girl sat up and then looked down at herself. There she was, in the center of Gepetto's Toy Store, covered in sticky glue mousetraps, each of which had a tiny little man, no more than a couple of inches high, stuck quick in the glue.

"Lilliputians," Sabrina said.

"I knew it!" Gra

of action figures. The old woman, dressed in a bright blue dress and a matching hat with a sunflower appliqué sewn into it, had the nerve to laugh. When Sabrina scowled at her, she tried to stop, but couldn't.

"Oh libeling," she giggled in her German accent.

Daphne rushed over and tried to pull one of the traps off of Sabrina's shirt but found it was stuck tight to her sister, as were a dozen or so Lilliputians.

"Who is the sick psychopath that came up with this idea?" one of the Lilliputians shouted indignantly.

Gra

"But I'm afraid you're under arrest," Sheriff Hamstead said as he stepped out from behind a stack of footballs. His puffy, pink face beamed proudly as he tugged his trousers up over his massive belly. The sheriff was always fighting his sinking slacks.

The Lilliputians groaned and complained as the sheriff went to work yanking the sticky traps off Sabrina's clothes.

"You have the right to remain silent," Hamstead said. "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law."

"Ouch!" said Sabrina as the sheriff tugged the glue-trap from her forehead.

"I'm not talking, copper," one of the Lilliputians snapped. "I'll let my lawyer do the talking when we sue you for police brutality."

"Police brutality!" Sheriff Hamstead exclaimed. Unfortunately, when the portly policeman got angry or excited, the magical disguise he used to hide who he really was stopped working. Now his nose vanished and was replaced by a ru

"What's going on in here?" the guard said with a tough, authoritative voice. He was a tall, husky man with a military-style hair cut. He puffed up his chest and pulled a billy club from a loop on his belt. He eyed the crowd as if he were fully prepared to deal with a gang of crooks, but when he saw the pig in a police uniform hovering over a dozen tiny men in glue traps, his confidence disappeared and his club fell to the floor.

"We forgot some of the shops have their own security guards," Gra

"Another night at work," he mumbled, falling under the forgetful dust's magic.

Sabrina scowled. She hated when magic was used to fix problems, especially when the problem involved humans.

"The glue traps were a brilliant idea," Sheriff Hamstead said as he drove the family home in his squad car. Gra

"I'm just glad we could be of some help," Gra

"I know the holidays are hard on him; he misses his boy," Hamstead said. "It's hard to believe that in two hundred years no one has heard a peep from Pinocchio."

"Wilhelm's journals claim he refused to get on the boat," Gra

"I thought it was a whale," Daphne said.

"No, hon, only in the movie," Gra

"Well, I really do appreciate your help with this," the sheriff said. "The mayor's been cutting budgets left and right these days and I just didn't have the man power or money to catch the little thieves myself."

"Or make sure that the security guard was off duty so we didn't have to mess with his brain," Sabrina grumbled.

"Sheriff, the Grimms are always at your disposal," Gra

"I appreciate that, Relda, and I wish I could give you the credit for the arrest, but if Mayor Charming found out we'd been working together, my backside would be one of those footballs in Gepetto's store," Hamstead said.

"It's our little secret," Gra

"How is Canis?"

Gra

"He's doing just fine," the old woman replied, forcing a smile.

Sabrina couldn't believe what she had just heard. In the short time they had known the old woman, Gra

"That's good to hear," Hamstead said, though even from the backseat Sabrina could spot the look of doubt on his face.

"I want my phone call," a little voice cried from the glove compartment. "We were framed!"

The sheriff banged heavily on the dashboard. "Tell it to the judge!"

Soon, Sheriff Hamstead pulled his squad car into the driveway of the family's quaint, two-story yellow house. It was very late and all the lights were off. Sabrina opened her door and Elvis lumbered out, still wearing two Lilliputian-free glue traps on his giant behind. It was bitterly cold, and Sabrina hoped the two adults wouldn't blabber on. Gra

At the front door, Gra

Gra

After cookies, and some vegetable-oil swabbing for Elvis, Gra