The Unusual Suspects Page 4

  “The girls were in my custody for a year and a half until we placed them here in Ferryport Landing with their grandmother, Relda,” Ms. Smirt explained. “Unfortunately, Mrs. Grimm has not taken their educations seriously and they’ve been out of school for a month.”

  “Better late than never.” The counselor laughed as he pulled some paperwork out of a desk drawer, and began to write.

  “Casper,” Ms. Smirt said, unbuttoning the top button of her shirt. “I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if I didn’t warn you about these two. They are quite a handful. I tried to place them in good homes more than a dozen times, and each time it ended in chaos and grief. Nothing was ever good enough for them. They ran away from one foster home just because they were asked to help around the house.”

  “It wasn’t a house! It was a stable,” Sabrina said defensively.

  “A pony got into my suitcase and ate all my underpants,” Daphne added.

  “They’re also very argumentative,” Ms. Smirt said, reaching under the desk and giving each girl a hard pinch on the leg.

  “Well, Ms. Smirt,” Mr. Sheepshank said, smiling warmly at the girls. “Here at Ferryport Landing Elementary we like to set our sights on the future. Our motto is ‘Everyone deserves a second chance.’ ”

  “Well, I’ll tell you, Casper, as a professional who’s worked with children for almost twenty years, I’d say a second chance is the last thing a child needs. What most of them need is a swift kick in the …”

  “Thanks for the warning, Ms. Smirt,” the counselor interrupted.

  “Please, call me Minerva,” the skinny woman purred. “You’ll need their transcripts of course. I could bring them up Friday. It’s just a two-hour trip. Maybe we could discuss their files over dinner.”

  There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Mr. Sheepshank blushed and then shuffled some papers on his desk.

  “Bring them up? All the way from New York City? That’s not necessary. Just drop them in the mail when you get a chance,” he said, staring down at his paperwork. “Well, I better get these girls started. I trust you can find your way out, Ms. Smirt?”

  The caseworker shifted in her chair and her face turned red with frustration. “Of course,” she said. She reached into her handbag and took out a card. “Here’s my card if you need any help with them. My home phone is on there, too.”

  Sabrina gazed down at the caseworker’s handbag. When she spotted a book entitled Finding Mr. Right, the unsettling truth about what she was witnessing revealed itself. Ms. Smirt was flirting. An image of the two grown-ups kissing burned into Sabrina’s permanent memory and she shuddered as if she had just witnessed a car crash.

  But what was really bothering Sabrina was the odd feeling forming in her own heart. She felt pity for the cranky old woman. Sabrina might not have had much experience with boys, but it was obvious Mr. Sheepshank wasn’t into Ms. Smirt, even though the caseworker kept on trying.

  “Well, Susie … Debbie, I’m off,” the skinny woman said as she got up from her chair.

  “Sabrina,” Sabrina said. Her sympathy vanished.

  “Daphne,” Daphne added.

  Ms. Smirt stopped and turned at the door. “Maybe we’ll talk again, Casper …”

  Mr. Sheepshank smiled but said nothing. He only stared at her as if he were a deer caught in front of a speeding truck. After several way-too-long, painful moments of silence, Ms. Smirt stepped into the hallway.

  “Be good girls,” the caseworker said as she closed the door. “Or I’ll be back.”

  “Well, I suppose we should get you two to class,” said Mr. Sheepshank as he rose from his desk and led them back into the hallway. “Ladies, the first day of school can be difficult for some students. But I want you to know that if there are any bumps in the road—for example, someone you can’t get along with or a teacher who’s given you too much homework—then I’m the man to come to. Feel free to stop by my office anytime you want. My job is to listen and my door is always open.”

  Sabrina liked Sheepshank’s attitude. She’d been in a dozen schools in the last two years and no one had ever spoken to her the way their new counselor did. While everyone else lectured about learning responsibility and the value of hard work, he seemed to understand how hard it was to be a kid.

  “Mr. Sheepshank!” a man shouted from the other end of the hall. He had a German accent not unlike Granny Relda’s. “We are due for a conversation!”

  The man rushed toward them. He was a tall, dark-haired man in a gray suit. He had a long, lean, ruddy face that made his crooked nose look enormous. Because he was upset, his big bushy eyebrows bounced around on his forehead like excited caterpillars.

  “Children, this is your principal, Mr. Hamelin,” the guidance counselor said, ignoring the man’s frustration. “Mr. Hamelin, I’d like to introduce you to our new students, Sabrina and Daphne Grimm.”

  “My grandmother says hello,” Daphne said.

  Principal Hamelin cocked an eyebrow, aware now that the girls knew who he really was. Granny Relda had told them there were two Everafters working at Ferryport Landing Elementary: Snow White, who was a teacher, and the principal, aka “The Pied Piper of Hamelin.” The girls knew his story. Using his magical bagpipes, Hamelin had enchanted a thousand rats to follow him out of town and into the ocean, where they drowned. Granny had explained that Hamelin had gotten his job based on his leadership skills. If he could lead a bunch of rodents, he could handle a school full of kids.

  “Of course, of course,” Hamelin said, forcing a smile onto his face. “Welcome to Ferryport Landing Elementary. I needed to discuss the … uh … textbook shortage with Mr. Sheepshank, but it can wait. I hope you’ll help them settle in, Casper?”

  “My pleasure, Mr. Hamelin,” the counselor replied, leading the girls down the hallway. Soon, they stopped in front of a classroom and Mr. Sheepshank patted Daphne on the shoulder. “This is your class.”

  The girls peered through the window in the door and saw a woman so stunningly beautiful Sabrina could hardly believe it. Her jet-black hair and porcelain skin were hypnotic. Her eyes were a dazzling blue and her teeth were so white they were nearly blinding.

  “Daphne, your teacher’s name is Ms. White,” Sheepshank said.

  Daphne put the palm of her hand into her mouth and bit on it. It was an odd little habit she had when she was very excited.

  “I’m so happy,” the little girl said giddily, “I might barf.”

  Ever since Granny Relda had told them that Snow White was a teacher, Daphne had prayed on hands and knees each night that she would be placed in the legendary beauty’s class. It looked as if someone had been listening to the little girl’s prayers.

  “Don’t put any crayons in your nose,” Sabrina joked as Mr. Sheepshank led her sister into the room. Daphne stuck her tongue out in reply.

  As the guidance counselor introduced Daphne, Sabrina studied the teacher through the open door. Snow White and Mr. Hamelin were both Everafters. Could they be trusted? Suspicion clouded Sabrina’s mind and anger flowed over her. Maybe Snow White and the Piper were in on her parents’ disappearance. Maybe they were working together to kidnap her and her sister next.

  “Sabrina, are you feeling OK?” Mr. Sheepshank asked. The girl hadn’t noticed him step back into the hall. She nodded.

  “Yes, just got a headache,” Sabrina replied. It wasn’t a lie. Her head was pounding.

  “Check with the school nurse if it doesn’t go away,” the counselor instructed, as he directed her down the hall and up a flight of stairs. On the second floor was another long hallway full of classrooms. They stopped at the first door and Sheepshank opened it. He turned to Sabrina and gave her a warm smile. “I think this might just be the perfect homeroom for you.”

  “Mr. Grumpner,” he said as he stepped into the classroom. “I’d like to introduce you and the class to a new student. Her name is Sabrina Grimm. She and her sister just moved to Ferryport Landing from New York City.”

  �
��She looks like she stuck a fork into a light socket,” a boy called from the middle of the room. He was short with wiry black hair and big bug eyes. A few kids snickered, but most of the class seemed to be asleep, or about to doze off.

  “Toby, shut up,” the teacher growled. The boy’s face turned red with rage and he looked as if he might actually get out of his seat and charge at the old man. A pretty girl with platinum blond hair and big green eyes put her hand on the boy’s arm and it seemed to calm him down.

  Grumpner turned his attention to Sabrina. He was an old man with saggy jowls and thin, charcoal-colored hair. To the girl, he looked like a deflating birthday party balloon you find in the garage a week after the fun is over. He frowned.

  “Sit,” he said gruffly as he pointed to several empty desks in the last row. Then he turned back to the guidance counselor. “Sheepshank, what is wrong with these kids?” he demanded. “Half of them are asleep and the other half are between naps!”

  “I’m sure you’ll find a way to get them motivated, Mr. Grumpner,” the counselor said, as he waved to Sabrina and left the room. “After all, you’re one of our finest teachers.”

  The compliment did little to calm the old man down.

  “Open your books to page one forty-two,” Grumpner growled, as he walked down the aisle and tossed a ratty textbook onto Sabrina’s desk. She opened it and looked for page 142, but it and dozens more pages had been ripped out.

  “You need to read this page carefully, morons,” Grumpner threatened. “Tomorrow you’re going to have a quiz on it.”

  Sabrina slowly raised her hand.

  “What is it, Grimm?”

  “That page has been ripped out of my book,” she stuttered.

  Grumpner’s face turned red. Even from the back of the room, Sabrina could spot a throbbing vein on his forehead, preparing to explode. Luckily, the old grouch was distracted by a short, pudgy boy running into the classroom. He rushed past the teacher and hurried down Sabrina’s aisle, where he slipped behind a desk and opened a book.

  “Wendell!” Grumpner bellowed at the top of his lungs. The chubby boy looked up from his desk, wiped his nose with a handkerchief, and looked genuinely surprised by the teacher’s anger. It took all of Sabrina’s willpower not to break out laughing at the boy’s dumbfounded expression.

  “Yes, Mr. Grumpner,” Wendell replied.

  “You are late, again,” the teacher said.

  “I’m sorry. I forgot to set my alarm clock,” the boy said meekly.

  “You forgot?” Grumpner exploded. “Well, that’s just great! I bet you didn’t forget breakfast this morning! Everyone can see that! Maybe we should cover your alarm clock with candy and French fries; then you’d never forget to set it!”

  “I said I was sorry!”

  The old man stomped down the aisle and roughly pulled the boy out of his seat. He dragged him to the front of the room so everyone could see his humiliation.

  “Do you know why you are always late, Wendell?” Mr. Grumpner asked. “It’s because you are a worthless fat-body. Isn’t that right?”

  This woke up the class, who roared with laughter. Toby, the bug-eyed boy, nearly fell out of his chair giggling.

  “Well, I’m sure I could stand to lose a little weight, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say … !” but the chubby boy never got to finish. Grumpner shoved a piece of chalk into his hand and spun him toward the chalkboard.

  “And you are going to write it until the end of this class. You may think that because you’re the principal’s son you don’t have to play by the rules, but I’m not afraid of your father. I have tenure. Get started!”

  Wendell turned to the chalkboard and wrote I AM A WORTHLESS FAT-BODY. The students roared with laughter again, but Sabrina barely noticed. She was too stunned by what Mr. Grumpner had said. Wendell was the principal’s son—the child of an Everafter? Sabrina had never imagined that the Everafters might have children or that they would send them to a school where all the other kids were human. She gazed around the room, watching the rest of the class laugh at the boy as he scrawled the mean sentence over and over again. Could any of them be Everafters, too?

  As Sabrina drifted from class to class, she began to realize that Mr. Grumpner wasn’t the only teacher on the verge of a nervous breakdown. In fact, the entire sixth-grade faculty was a collection of bullying, screaming nightmares. They shouted through most of their classes, dishing out detentions like scoops of ice cream. Not that Sabrina could really blame them, though. The kids in her classes were real pains in the butt. They slept through the lectures and none of them had done their homework.

  Even in gym class, the kids staggered around exhausted. Unfortunately for them, gym class turned out to be the one place you really needed to be alert. Their teacher was Ms. Spangler. Spangler the Strangler, as the kids called her, was a bulky little woman with a ponytail and an evil glint in her eye, who apparently knew how to teach just one game—dodgeball. Sabrina had played dodgeball many times at school in New York City. She considered herself to be pretty good at it; she remembered being the last kid standing many times, so in Ms. Spangler’s class, when the first rubber ball smacked her in the head and made her brains rattle in her skull, she knew that something about this dodgeball game was different.

  Getting knocked out of the game early gave Sabrina a chance to study the other kids. It was easy to see who the dangerous ones were—the only two really playing the game. Sabrina recognized one as the giggling idiot Toby, from her homeroom class, but the other was a knuckle-dragging hulk with ratty hair. To be honest, Sabrina wasn’t sure if it was a boy or a girl; all she knew was that Toby and It were vicious. Together, they whipped balls at the other kids at alarming speeds. When a kid fell down, the duo would pummel him or her mercilessly with the hard rubber balls. Even worse, Ms. Spangler encouraged the craziness. She ran around the gymnasium blowing her whistle and pointing out the weaknesses of the players to Toby and the big It, urging them to target the pudgy, small, slow, and awkward. Whenever a kid was hit and eliminated, Ms. Spangler clapped happily, like a child on Christmas morning.

  There was only one other kid in the class who had the energy to defend herself. Sabrina recognized her, too. The pretty blond from Sabrina’s homeroom managed to duck out of the way of several shots, dodging and jumping until she, too, was struck and tossed out of the game. She joined the battered kids waiting on the sidelines. When she spotted Sabrina, she smiled and waved. It was the first act of kindness Sabrina had experienced the whole day.

  By lunchtime, Sabrina was bruised and belittled, but her main concern was Daphne. Sabrina could handle a screaming teacher or a bully, but her sister was only seven. This school would eat her alive.

  Once Sabrina had her tray of food, she searched the cafeteria for her little sister, fully expecting Daphne to be huddled in a corner bawling her eyes out. She was stunned to find her sitting at a table packed with bright-eyed, happy kids, all hanging on her every word. As Sabrina approached the table, the children exploded with laughter watching her sister pull a ruler out of her big beehive hair.

  “Daphne, you are the funniest person I have ever met,” one of her little friends said.

  “Are you OK?” Sabrina asked her sister.

  Daphne smiled and nodded. “Time of my life.”

  Daphne was the hit of the second grade and Sabrina wasn’t about to take it away from her. Instead, she trudged through the cafeteria looking for an empty table. She thought she had found one, but just as she was about to sit down, two kids quickly slipped into the seats as if she weren’t there at all. She moved in the direction of another deserted table but the same thing happened again. Sabrina was starting to wonder if she could eat standing up, when she felt her feet come out from under her. Her tray flew forward, sending her lunch splattering across the cafeteria. She slammed to the ground hard, pounding her chin into the cold floor, and saw little lights explode in front of her eyes.

  Standing over her was the It from gym cl
ass. The kid was apelike, with long, thick arms, a hulking body, and an under-bite. When Sabrina spotted the little pink ribbon sticking out of Its knotted hair, she finally realized It was a girl.

  “Ooops,” the girl grunted. Toby, the bug-eyed weirdo, was standing next to her, laughing.

  As embarrassed as she was, Sabrina wasn’t at all surprised. She had been bullied before. The orphanage had been like a prison at times, and the new kids always got the worst of it until they proved they could give as well as they got.

  “You did that on purpose,” she said as she calmly got to her feet.

  “What are you going to do about it, Grimm? Cry on me?” the big girl laughed.

  “If you know my name, then you should know I don’t cry,” Sabrina said, clenching her fist tightly and then socking the girl in the face. As the big goon fell backward, Sabrina’s dreams of dull school days fell with her. For when she turned to look around the cafeteria, the sleepy-faced kids from her class were now wide awake and in awe of her.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” Toby hissed.

  “You’re exactly right,” a voice shouted. A meaty hand grabbed Sabrina’s arm and dragged her away. It was Mr. Grumpner and the vein on his forehead was throbbing.

  “She started it,” Sabrina cried.

  “And I’m ending it,” Grumpner shouted back.

  Sabrina sat in Mr. Sheepshank’s hot, windowless office waiting for her punishment. The mousy secretary with the thick glasses told her that the guidance counselor would be with her as soon as he was available. Three hours later, he still hadn’t shown up.

  Sabrina sat and reflected on her day so far. Apparently, the sixth grade was a nightmare, and no one had been courteous enough to let her know in advance. She thought it would be all books and tests—not guerilla warfare. The kids were hateful. The teachers were despicable. It was just like being back in the orphanage.

  By the time Mr. Sheepshank and his smiley-face bow tie showed up, Sabrina was seething with rage. Mr. Grumpner followed him into the office, looking indignant, and the two men sat down.