The Grimm Chronicles, Vol. 2

by Ken Brosky

  I tried to hide my surprise. “I’ve read that book. I really liked it.”

  He shrugged. “I know it’s technically Young Adult, but I’m a big fan of Native American books. And the story’s just really good. And stuff.”

  I laughed. “And stuff.”

  “So you’ll help me?”

  “Sure. We could meet tonight—crap! We can’t. Ugh. I have a date tonight.”

  Chase smiled. “Oh darn. You have such a rough life.”

  “Hey! You don’t know. He might turn out to be a butthead.”

  “True, true. Buttheads are no good.”

  We wheeled/walked over to the cafeteria on the other side of the basement. The students had already been let in and were busily snatching hot sandwiches from the steel lunch counter. Both elderly cashiers looked a bit flustered as they rang in, took money, and handed out change while the hungry teenagers began impatiently devouring their food.

  “Look at them,” Chase said, laughing. “Can’t you just tell who’s a freshman?”

  I stared at the students, then laughed. “Yup! They’re like little kids. Did we look like that when we were freshmen?”

  Chase opened his mouth to answer, then stopped when he saw Ted making his way through the crowd of students by the lunch counter. He gave us both a wave. “We’ve got some extra seats saved for you,” he said. “Hi, Alice.”

  “Hi.” I gave him a smile, then glanced over his shoulder toward the back. “Um, I think I’m going to pass. I’ll see you tonight, though.” He gave me a strange, quizzical look. “I need to talk to Tina—I mean Rachel—about something.”

  “Tina the hyena?” Ted asked. Beside him, Chase snickered.

  “Yeah,” I said. My hands found my hips. I fought the urge to let him have it. Maybe he was just posturing. Trish vouched for him, after all. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  I grabbed a ham-and-cheese sandwich and a side salad and milk and made my way to the back of the cafeteria, where Rachel and her friend Clyde were sitting.

  “Hey, it’s that chick,” Clyde said as I sat down. He was still wearing his sunglasses. His outfit reminded me of some old-fashioned Nirvana fan: flannel shirt, old faded t-shirt, even a chain wallet just like the one Rachel wore. And of course the long hair that refused to stay tucked behind his little ears.

  “Hi, Clyde.”

  He smiled, dipping a French fry in what could only be mayonnaise. “Far out. What’s happening?”

  “Oh, you know. Dreading the first weekend of homework.”

  “Tell me about it,” Rachel muttered. “At least you don’t have gym class. We’re learning Cricket. I don’t even know what Cricket is! I don’t think our gym teacher even knows what it is!”

  I smiled at the perfect opening. “You should join the fencing team,” I said as casually as I could.

  “Oh yeah,” said Clyde. He grinned. “Swords, Rach. Swords!”

  “Foils,” Rachel corrected. She shrugged. “Ugh. I dunno. Last year, it wasn’t very fun.”

  “But you were getting better,” I told her. “You really were.”

  She shook her head, stealing a few French fries from Clyde. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Radical!” Clyde said, snapping his fingers. “We should celebrate with a game of Robot Attack.”

  “I don’t know how to play,” I said.

  Rachel reached into her black backpack, pulling out a pad of paper with some goofy pictures on it and lots of little circles. “We’ll just play the lite version. This is a picture of a giant robot with guns. You have to use those guns to shoot at my giant robot.”

  “And mine!” Clyde added.

  “OK,” I said, looking at the picture. It was a diagram of a giant Automaton with—yup—guns attached to its shoulders. One looked like a machine gun and the other looked like a rocket launcher. “So how do I use my guns?”

  Rachel reached into her pocket and pulled out two white dice. “With these. You roll them first. Then I roll them to defend the attack. If I roll a higher number, I defend your attack.”

  “Your robot’s got a rocket launcher,” Clyde said. “You can totally use that and you can roll an extra die. But then you can’t attack next turn. Because, like, you gotta reload the rockets. I guess it’s pretty realistic.”

  I chuckled.

  “So when you score a hit, I’ll fill in these circles,” Rachel said, pointing with her chewed pencil to the circles inside my robot. There were fifty total. “Once all the circles are filled up, your robot is destroyed.”

  “OK!” I was getting excited. Like, really, really excited. It was so simple. So old-fashioned! And yet it seemed incredibly fun.

  Or, rather, it would have been had a half-eaten chicken sandwich not come flying in our direction.

  It hit Rachel right in the shoulder, sending mayonnaise and hot grease spraying across her face. Raucous laughter erupted from three rows down. I turned, seeing a bunch of the track and football kids laughing. Even Chase was smiling, and that made me even angrier.

  Then, of course, there was Joey Harrington. Sitting with his arms crossed and a smug look on his face. Ignoring the high-fives from his big gorilla football buddies and then, begrudgingly, holding out a hand so they could slap it.

  “Man,” said Clyde, handing over his spare napkins. He shook his head as Rachel wiped the mayo off her face. Her black t-shirt was a mess, too; when she picked off a piece of wayward fried chicken skin, it left a half-moon grease stain.

  “Give that to me,” I ordered, pointing to the piece of chicken sitting on the empty table beside Clyde.

  “Oooh I wouldn’t eat it now,” Clyde said. “It’s probably pretty dirty, man.”

  I grabbed it and stood up, walking around the row of tables. Joey and his friends had already gone back to their conversation. The joke was over. It had been hilarious and now they’d already forgotten it. But Rachel? Rachel would remember it. She’d remember the humiliation. She’d remember the laughs directed at her.

  Chase saw me first, looking up from his cup of soda. He raised his eyebrows but said nothing. By the time I was just one row of tables away, two of his buddies finally noticed me and turned in their chairs, curious. Oh, did I finally get your attention? Well, here’s how Alice Goodenough does things!

  Joey Harrington turned to look at me just as I wound up and threw that piece of chicken with all my might. Joey reached out with his hands, partially deflecting it. But not before it grazed his ear, leaving a splotch of white mayo on the side of his head.

  He stood up, chest puffing out. The entire cafeteria went silent.

  “How do you like it!” I shouted at him.

  “You’re not one of us,” Joey growled. “You’re not dating Edward anymore. So you’re not one of us.”

  “I don’t care,” I said.

  “I can see why Edward dumped you,” he said with a sneer. There was an audible “ooooooh” from the cafeteria audience.

  “Joey,” Chase said in a calming voice. I glanced at him, surprised. I’d expected Ted—tonight’s date—to try and calm Joey down. But Ted was just watching, enthralled by the entire scene.

  Regardless, Joey wasn’t listening. His face had reddened. He took a step closer to me …

  And then the lunchroom monitor was between us. Or, more specifically, his big belly was between us. “Both of you. Detention. This afternoon.” He turned to me. “Back to your table. Now.”

  I took my sweet time walking back, glancing once over my shoulder. The monitor—Mr. Schultz—hadn’t moved from his place in the center aisle. He crossed his arms over his big stomach, glaring at Joey who was still standing, his fists clenched.

  “Thanks,” Rachel said meekly. “But now you have detention.”

  “Yeah.” I gulped. “Holy crap, I have detention.”

  For the first time. Ever.

  Chapter 5

  An hour and a half inside a cramped, quiet classroom can really make you think. What had I done? I’d thrown a piece of chicken. I
’d acted out.

  Yeah, but Joey had done it first. I never would have retaliated if he’d just left Rachel alone.

  Yeah, but still. Alice Goodenough isn’t a detention sort of student.

  Right?

  I wasn’t so sure now.

  To help keep my mind from running in circles, I read through my tattered copy of Grimms’ Fairy Tales. Sure enough, the evil stepmother from “The Juniper-Tree” story wasn’t crossed out. Nor was the fiddler from “The Miser in the Bush,” who I believed had been the smoke creature from my dreams.

  After an hour passed, I was very much looking forward to my date with Ted. It would be relaxing. A break from all of this stress. Maybe even fun.

  As it turned out, detention would have been better.

  “I’d rather be watching paint dry” about sums it up. I’ll spare all the details, but suffice it to say:

  1. We went Dutch. I paid for my own meal, which was a total bummer because he took me to a restaurant that was waaaaay overpriced.

  2. He talked about the track team nearly the entire time. I have no idea what the “triple jump” is and no amount of explaining it was going to make me care. But that didn’t stop him.

  3. He had the nerve to tell me working at the library was a “nerd” thing.

  OK. I can forgive number one (even though I don’t get paid at the library and my parents weren’t big on giving me money unless I did chores). Number two … well, maybe Trish told him I was interested in track for some reason. But number three? Come on!

  “Maybe he’s right,” Briar offered later in the evening. “He is quite popular, after all.”

  “Oh, so now you’re an expert on high school cliques?” I asked, brushing the snarls out of my wet hair. We’d just done a short run and I’d showered afterward, deftly avoiding my parents so they couldn’t pry more out of me about the date. I didn’t want to talk about it. Ted was so different from Edward and any other boyfriends I’d had early on in high school. Before Edward, boyfriends had been not-too-serious, just a step above “friend” where you went to the movies with a half-dozen people or spent the afternoon at a house playing video games or goofing off in the park. Then Edward got more serious, adding make-out sessions to the mix.

  Now I had to figure out if Ted was “boyfriend material.” At least, this according to Trish’s five thousand texts she sent during the evening.

  “I may not know much about the high school hierarchy,” Briar admitted, “but I do know a thing or two about orphanages, thanks to the Google.”

  I set my brush on the desk. “Shoot.”

  “Well, for starters, it’s technically called a foster agency.” Briar swiveled in the chair, kicking his legs in the air as he did so. “But the name is still Orwell Orphanage. And that dastardly dwarf was right about one thing: the details are scant on it, I’m afraid. Why, they don’t even have a website! Can you imagine, in this day and age?!”

  “So what did you find out?”

  “About Orwell Orphanage? Relatively little. But look at this.” He turned the laptop. It was a map. Always with the maps, this rabbit. There were ten red pins placed in a map of the U.S. The pin farthest east was in New York City. The farthest west?

  Milwaukee.

  “Those pins are orphanages,” I said. “And not just orphanages … fires.”

  Briar’s whiskers twitched. “You are correct. How did you know?”

  “Because.” The memory seemed to rush back like a flood. The sound of the children crying in my dreams … somewhere deep inside my subconscious, I’d known why they were crying. But I could never remember it when I woke up. Until now. “They were in my dreams. Deep down. I heard the flames, but I didn’t know what the sound was.”

  “You must be more aware,” Briar urged. “If we had known about the fires days ago, we might perhaps have a better idea of what’s going on.”

  “OK, OK.” I crossed my arms. “I’m still new at this, you know.”

  The rabbit sighed, then nodded, letting his ears flop down. “You’re right. Just … tonight, please please please pay close attention. We need all the help we can get on this one, I’m afraid.”

  That night, I tossed and turned, listening to Briar’s soft snoring coming from beside the bed. He’d become like a dog, I realized; a big, protective dog. No doubt he was dreaming about carrots and milk and his home in the briar patch. Me? I was dreading sleep now. The peaceful dreams were few and far between. All I could expect when I finally fell asleep tonight was darkness and evil.

  My dream didn’t disappoint. I found myself once again making my way through the same corridor of the mansion, only this time before I could take inventory like Briar suggested, the scene rapidly changed once again.

  I appeared on a dark street, moving beside a young lady. A beautiful young lady wearing a long flowing floral pattern dress, her brunette hair tied back into a braided ponytail. She had big hoop earrings and a silver bracelet that her other hand found and clutched as if she was afraid it might be taken away.

  “Never,” she said sharply.

  A man caught up to her, grabbing her hand and stopping her. “I won’t stop, then.”

  She turned to him. I recognized him: the fiddler! The drunk guy from the bar with the funny eyebrows. He looked drunk again, his eyes half-open and his body swaying back and forth. He tried to steady himself, then gave up when the woman laughed.

  “You’re a mess, Gerald! Ever since you started drinking a hundred years ago, you’ve been a mess.”

  He opened his mouth to defend himself, then burped.

  The woman shook her head. “If you would just stop drinking …”

  “No,” he said. “You don’t understand. I can’t—”

  “You’ve done so much damage already, Gerald.” She ran her fingers across his rough cheek. “Release the music you’ve stolen. I’ll right this wrong. I’m not yet Corrupted.”

  The man’s eyes darkened. With his next breath, a little trail of black smoke slipped out like a tongue, lapping at his chin. “I’ll take all the music from this city. And then, when I’m done with that, I’ll take all the music from the world. That which you love the most will be gone forever.”

  “You can never take all of the music,” said the woman. She took a deep breath and opened her mouth, and from it came a beautiful single note. She held it, and the sound seemed to echo all around us.

  Gerald’s eyes narrowed. He held one hand in front of her throat and clenched his fist. The woman’s singing stopped, cut off as if he were choking her.

  “I’ll take it all,” he hissed.

  She flinched, as if struck. Slowly, a trail of blue smoke escaped from between her ruby lips.

  Gerald inhaled the smoke, then shut his mouth and smiled. The woman’s body seemed to slump. A tear ran down one cheek.

  “All of the music,” he said, licking his lips. “Until it’s gone from this world.”

  I woke with a start, surprised that it was still dark outside. I checked my clock. 6:18 a.m. Saturday. The rabbit was still sound asleep, snoring softly. The house was quiet.

  I went downstairs and made myself a cup of tea. Fran had given me the tea. Earlier in the week, she’d been humming an old tune at the checkout desk in the library; I started humming it now as I sipped my tea. What did it feel like to lose music? What would the world be like if this Corrupted actually succeeded? The thought mortified me.

  I went back upstairs, quietly dressing in a pair of shorts and a tank top. I grabbed my mp3 player and headphones and went outside, cranking up an ancient Tom Petty tune. Briar’s pick. I don’t know why, but the rabbit was a huge fan of Tom Petty and REO Speedwagon. I could imagine him sneaking into the attic at night, sifting through my parents’ old records and getting all excited.

  I made my way north, jogging down the sidewalk and losing myself in the music. I know, I know … what if a Corrupted was hunting me? But I needed to hear music for a little while. To be honest, the dream I’d just had scared me to de
ath. A world without music … and for what? Just so some Corrupted fiddler could get back at an old girlfriend? Didn’t he realize what he was doing?

  Maybe that was the problem. Maybe Corrupted didn’t know what they were doing. Maybe the Brothers Grimm hadn’t written that into their stories.

  When I reached the park, I pulled off my headphones, picking up speed as I hit the gravel trail that snaked between tall maple trees. Something small scurried into one of the thick bushes running along the right side of the path. Far off to my left was an open clearing and beyond that a small pond. There were only a few lights inside the park, old streetlamps that lit up the path with dull orange bulbs. The world was quiet. Peaceful.

  Silent.

  Back home, I showered and dressed, then lay back on bed. Humming that same tune Fran had hummed.

  I woke again to the sound of my phone ringing. I hadn’t dreamed at all, which was a welcome reprieve. Briar sat up, blinking hard at the sunlight coming in through the dark brown window shades.

  “Hello,” I mumbled before my finger even found the green “Talk” button on my phone.

  “Hey,” came Seth’s voice. “You up or what? It’s ten o’clock, for crying out loud.”

  “I’m up.” I ran my tongue along my teeth. “My mouth tastes bad. I need to brush my teeth.”

  “OK, totally gross. Thanks for that. Anywho, the reason I’m calling is because when I checked my email this morning, there was mention that The Peasants are putting on a farewell show tonight. They’re going to broadcast it on a website.”

  “The Peasants …” I shook my head, forcing my brain to reboot. “The Peasants! Wait, what do you mean they’re doing a farewell show?”

  “They’re done,” Seth said simply. “I dunno. Probably some fighting in the band or something stupid like that. So anywho, have a good Saturday.”

  “Wait!” I said. It couldn’t be a coincidence. I knew. Something from my dream that I couldn’t quite remember convinced me there was a connection. “What are you doing today?”

  He sighed. “Well, I was planning on sitting in my room and programming. Because I’m a nerd.”