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“Fight him, child,” a voice said from below. Sabrina glanced down. Mr. Canis lay at her feet—old and withered, his body trapped in the clutches of a huge, fur-covered paw. It was squeezing the life from the old man’s chest. She cried out, hoping someone would help her pull her friend from the monster’s terrible grip, but her pleas ceased when she realized the claws that were killing Mr. Canis were her own.
abrina Grimm awoke with a crazy dream fresh in her mind. In it, she was walking along a stone path when she realized she was naked. She screamed and rushed to some bushes to hide herself, wondering how she could have left the house without remembering to get dressed. A moment later the worst possible person came along—Puck. Since she had little alternative, she begged him to bring her clothes. He flew off and quickly returned with a pair of jeans, a shirt, and sneakers, which he left by the bushes so she could dress in private. Then, surprisingly, he walked away without a single smart-aleck comment. Relieved, she put the clothing on and continued on her way, only to find people pointing at her and staring. She looked down and found she was naked, again. Puck appeared once more. He told her that clothes couldn’t hide who she really was. That’s when she woke up, angry and embarrassed. Even in her dreams, Puck was a pain.
She lay in bed, enjoying the cool breeze drifting through her bedroom window. The model airplanes hanging from the ceiling swayed back and forth. She watched them for a while, imagining her father building them when he was her age. He had put a lot of effort into the models. They were painted, glued, and assembled perfectly. Her father was meticulous.
Her little sister, Daphne, lay asleep beside her, breathing softly into her pillow. Sabrina glanced over at the alarm clock that sat on a night table next to her bed: 3:00 a.m. It was a good time, she thought. There were no emergencies to deal with, no impending chaos, no responsibilities, and, best of all, no prying eyes. She climbed out of bed, rushed to the desk sitting in the corner of the room, and opened the drawer. Tucked in the back was a little black bag. She snatched it up and tiptoed into the hallway.
Once she was in the bathroom, she flipped on the light and closed the door. It was nice for once to have the bathroom to herself. There were a lot of people living in the big old house in addition to Sabrina and Daphne: Uncle Jake, Gra
Sabrina unzipped the little black bag, revealing a personal treasure trove of makeup: tubes of lipstick and lip gloss, eye shadow, mascara, blush, and foundation, as well as a variety of barrettes she had purchased with her allowance at a local drugstore. She dug her hands into the bag and went to work.
First she tried to apply the foundation, but it made her look like a ghost. Then, she accidentally put on too much blush, giving her a look of perpetual embarrassment. The mascara was thick and gloppy, and combined with the eyeliner, it made her look like an angry raccoon. The lipstick was fire-engine red.
When she was finished, she studied herself in the mirror and nearly cried. She looked like the joker from a stack of playing cards. She was hideous and worse, hopeless. She would never learn to use this stuff. Frustrated, she washed it all off. It was times like this when Sabrina especially missed her mother.
Lately, Sabrina’s appearance had become more and more important to her. Though she didn’t fully understand the changes she was going through, she knew they had something to do with growing up. It seemed like yesterday when she couldn’t have cared less about what she looked like, but now she spent hours contemplating hairstyles. She gave serious consideration to whether her shoes matched her tops. It seemed as if all she could think about was how others might see her, and she hated herself for it. She had always detested girlie-girls, with their little dresses and hair in ribbons. They were so stupid and superficial. Unfortunately, she could feel herself becoming one of those girls. Each time she applied her lip gloss, she imagined another fleet of brain cells dying a horrible death.
Luckily, no one in her family had noticed her preoccupation with vanity—most importantly Puck. If he discovered she was visiting the bathroom in the middle of the night to primp and study her flaws, he would make fun of her until she was old and gray.
Abandoning her beauty regimen for the night, she washed her face and was about to shut off the light and go back to bed when she heard something bubbling in the toilet. The lid was down and she couldn’t see what was causing the noise, but she had her suspicions. Before Puck moved in with the family, he had lived in the woods for a decade. So modern conveniences mesmerized him—none more so than the toilet. He loved to flush it over and over and watch the water swirl down the hole and disappear. For months he was convinced that toilets were some kind of magic, until Uncle Jake explained how indoor plumbing worked. Unfortunately, this knowledge only increased Puck’s interest, and it wasn’t long before he was conducting what he called “scientific research” to discover what could be flushed down the tubes. It started out with a little loose change, but the items quickly grew in size: marbles, wristwatches, doorknobs, balls of yarn, even scoops of butter pecan ice cream swirled and disappeared. Gra
But it wasn’t the remote control. Instead it was something so shocking she would have nightmares about it the rest of her life and an u
“Who goes there?” he said in a squeaky voice. He was no more than a foot tall and wore a tiny green suit, a green bowler hat, and shiny black shoes with bright brass buckles. His long red beard dipped into the toilet water.
Sabrina shrieked and slammed the toilet lid down on the creature’s head. The little man groaned and shouted a few angry curses, but Sabrina didn’t stick around to hear them. She was already ru
Gra
“Liebling!” her grandmother cried in a light German accent. Liebling was the German word for sweetheart. “What is going on?”
“There’s a person in the toilet!” Sabrina said.
“A what?”
Before she could answer, Uncle Jake came out of a room at the end of the hall. He was fully dressed in jeans, leather boots, and a long overcoat with hundreds of little pockets sewn into it. He looked exhausted and in dire need of a shave. “What’s all the hubbub about?”
“Sabrina says she saw something in the toilet,” Gra