The Grimm Chronicles, Vol. 2

by Ken Brosky

  “Not quite getting the point of the glove, Rachel!” Seth called out.

  “OK,” Chase said. “This time, I want you to really use your butt. We’re going to shut Seth up.”

  Crimson red flooded up my neck, burning my face. “Um …”

  “You’re going to push off with your back foot,” Chase explained. As you’re swinging. And keep the bat back a bit. Like this.” He held a phantom bat in his hands. We locked eyes and I suddenly could read his mind: he wanted to be standing behind me, helping me get into the perfect batting stance; I wanted him standing behind me, his strong hands wrapped around mine. But I could deal with just staring at those beautiful eyes.

  “Back foot,” Chase said, shaking away the thought.

  “Back foot,” I repeated, watching Clyde comically wind up before tossing the ball. It came fast, and I had to swing quicker. I used the strength in my right butt muscle to put a little more oomph into it. The ball connected with the bat just a little higher than the sweet spot, but the added force of my modified stance more than made up for it. The ball sailed over Rachel’s head, then over Seth’s head.

  “I did it!” I shouted, holding the bat up like a spear. I hopped up and down on home plate.

  Chase smiled. “Yeah, I kinda figured your butt could do it.”

  Later, back at Chase’s, we ordered pizza.

  I’ll admit: I gorged a bit. One of the pizzas was full of veggies and heavy on pizza sauce, my favorite combination. And Chase’s parents warmed up some apple cider, perfect for a cool autumn day.

  We congregated in the massive living room with Seth firmly in control of the movie selection. Clyde and Rachel had stocked up on breadsticks, using up a thousand or so napkins for the grease. Chase’s parents had moved the couch a bit and gotten a smaller coffee table so he could maneuver around the entire room with ease.

  “That was nice of them,” I pointed out when the two of us made our way into the kitchen for seconds.

  “It was.” He held out his plate for another slice of pepperoni pizza. “Is the rabbit around? I could leave him something by the door.”

  I shook my head. “He’s probably trying to find more information on the Order. I think he secretly enjoys going to the downtown library.”

  “He’s strange, to say the least.”

  “Who?” Rachel asked, walking into the kitchen. We watched her grab a soda from the fridge.

  “Oh, Sam from the fencing squad,” Chase answered.

  Rachel popped the top. “Oh, totally. He still collects LEGO toys. I bet he plays with them.”

  She walked back into the living room.

  “Man, this alternate life stuff is weird,” Chase said. “Kind of exciting, too.”

  “Yeah.” I rolled my eyes. “Then comes the running and screaming and sharp teeth and giant sea monsters.”

  From somewhere down the hall, Chase’s mom announced she was going upstairs to the office. “So you’re getting along with your parents now?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “We had a long talk. It was … really, really awkward.” He chuckled, taking a bite of his pizza. “But it was good. Good talk. Very good talk. We didn’t even shout at each other like we usually do. We just tried to listen.”

  “I’m glad,” I said. Looking down at him, I couldn’t help but feel good. It took a while to realize it, but he had such nice eyes—it wasn’t just the color, it was the way he could really look at you. The muscles around his eyes made his entire face so animated; when he was taking you seriously, you could totally tell it just by the way the top of his cheeks tightened.

  All he needed to do was to get rid of that ridiculous headband.

  “All right,” I said. “Let’s talk about the headband now. What’s the deal?”

  He took another bite of his pizza, mumbling an incoherent response.

  “What now?”

  “It’s just a Native American headband is all,” he said. “I’ve been reading a lot of those Native American books you recommended. Picked up a few non-fiction ones, too.”

  I crossed my arms. “And so you just decided one day to wear a headband?”

  “Yes. Fine. That’s right.” His eyes rolled, warning me he was getting frustrated.

  Good.

  “And so you think somehow this new style is going to change your life?”

  “What are you getting at?” he asked. “Do you want me to admit it? Fine. I’m wearing it because it’s different. I’m trying something different.”

  “But it isn’t you, Chase! You’re not Native American. You should wear what you want to wear.”

  “Well how about you?” he asked, waving his pizza crust at me.

  “What about me?” I gave him the stink eye.

  He shrank back a bit in his seat. “You’re wearing red.”

  “So?”

  “You hate red.”

  Words momentarily escaped me. I licked stray sauce off my lips. “How … how did you know that?”

  “Because your favorite color is violet. It’s what you wear. And if violet is out of the question, you go with blue. You like cool colors. That’s why you always pick the fencing helmet with the blue stripe on the back. You hate the red fencing helmet.”

  “Um …” I searched desperately for an argument.

  “Now you’re searching for an argument.”

  “What?! How did you know that?!”

  “Because I know you,” Chase said. “You’re the most mature girl I’ve ever met, but deep down you’ve still got a childish passion for competition. It’s what makes you so good at fencing. So.” He clasped his hands together. “Are you ready to take off that shirt?”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  He blushed. “That didn’t sound as dirty in my head. What I mean is, are you ready to change shirts?”

  I snorted. “Are you saying you have a violet blouse sitting in your closet?”

  “Something close enough. Wait here.”

  I watched him wheel into the adjoining hallway. I ate my pizza, thinking. It was hypocritical, of course—for me to tell him to dress the way he wanted, but to not dress the way I wanted simply because I was afraid of appearing on the Mean Girls’ web page.

  Gawd, everything would have been easier without that web page. And who were they, anyway? Why did they have the right to embarrass their fellow students?

  Chase returned without the headband. He was wearing his leather gauntlets instead, and as goofy as it looked, it seemed right on him.

  I just wish I could say the same thing about the sweatshirt he found for me.

  “It’s soooo huge!” I exclaimed, holding up the old sweatshirt with a college baseball team’s duck logo painted across the front. I didn’t recognize the college. Or the duck. “And it’s not violet, it’s purple! There’s a crucial difference.”

  “Well, it’s better than red,” he said.

  I put it on. It definitely wasn’t figure flattering. It smelled like Chase, in a good way: his musky deodorant mixed with a hint of his tangy cologne. I decided to stop arguing about it.

  “Hey guys, come on!” Seth called out from the living room. “I totally found a creepy horror movie with giant slugs and a weird guy with a mask and that Scientology actress and laser guns!”

  “We’re coming,” I said.

  Chase smiled, shaking his head. “Something tells me your rabbit friend would love that kind of movie.”

  “Oh, he and Seth have frighteningly similar tastes,” I said.

  We went back into the living room, where Clyde and Seth and Rachel had staked out positions on the couch in front of the TV. Chase wheeled up beside Clyde, giving him a nod. I took the floor.

  “Hey man,” Clyde said to Chase, “what’s in that room at the end of the hallway? Right past the bathroom. It smells like evil.”

  “It’s an armory,” Chase answered.

  Clyde stared at him a moment, then used one finger to pull down his sunglasses.

  “Elaborate” Seth ordered, momentarily f
orgetting about his half-eaten cheese pizza.

  “It’s nothing. It’s just my dad’s hobby.”

  “OK seriously dude, you can’t just say the word armory without giving us some details.”

  “Yeah, man,” said Clyde. “There’s probably something in there that we need to see.”

  “No, really. It’s just a collection of weapons my dad buys at hobby shows.”

  And just like that, Seth and Clyde were off. I half-expected them to leave behind a dust cloud like in cartoons.

  Chase sighed, turning his wheelchair.

  “I suppose I should go, too,” I said. “You coming, Rachel?”

  Rachel shook her head. “Weapons don’t excite me, lady.”

  Well, I thought—at least one of us was normal.

  I followed Chase down the hall, to the so-called “Armory.” The door was already open, as were Seth’s and Clyde’s mouths. They moved from one end of the dark room to the other, examining all of the artifacts hanging from the walls and sitting in tall glass cases.

  “Don’t touch anything,” Chase said, wheeling left when he got inside the room. He flicked on the lights.

  “Armory” was practically an understatement. The room was pretty large, almost as large as the living room. It was full of weapons, most of them medieval. Some—a couple ancient shields, a couple swords—hung from the bare walls. Others, like a collection of six crossbows, sat in glass cases. There were three windows on the other end of the room, one of them newly replaced. It dawned on me that this was the room the dastardly Golden Dragon minions had tried breaking into.

  Talk about dodging a bullet there.

  “Oh holy crap!” Seth exclaimed. His eyes had reached the man and horse tucked into the far corner of the room, next to a glass case full of Japanese swords and other weapons I didn’t recognize. The man and horse were much more impressive, to say the least. The horse was stuffed, outfitted in terrifying black armor. The man was nothing more than armor, a knight with a decorative helmet complete with a terrifying visor shaped like an angry face. He held a shield in one hand and a jousting lance in the other, the tip of the lance grazing the ceiling.

  “Yeah, my dad’s still trying to figure out how to convince my mom to put this thing in the dining room,” Chase said. He blew out a puff of air. “You have no idea how mad my mom was when pieces of the armor started arriving by mail. Then came the stuffed horse. That was a war.”

  “It was a warhorse?” Clyde asked.

  “No … no! I mean it was a war between my parents. Over the horse.”

  “Which one was on the horse?” Seth asked.

  “No one.” Chase narrowed his eyes. “Are you two messing with me?”

  Seth and Clyde looked at each other, confused.

  “What are these?” I asked Chase, pointing to the tall glass case next to the knight. There were a variety of weapons in there, mostly from Japan—a katana, some throwing stars—but the bottom shelf had a fan, a weird fork, and a long strip of thin brown leather.

  “Defensive weapons,” Chase said, wheeling over. He pointed to the fan. “That’s actually used to defend yourself. Warriors used to open the fan, then close it over an enemy’s weapon. That,” he pointed to the fork-like thingy, “is called a sai. The trick is to catch a sword between the prongs.”

  “Totally from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” Seth pointed out.

  Chase looked up at me and nodded.

  “What about that?” I asked, pointing to the leather strip.

  “That’s some obscure weapon from Europe,” Chase said. “I dunno much more.”

  “Looks like a little whip,” Clyde said.

  “It’s kind of like that.” Chase opened the case and carefully pulled it out. On both ends were little fluffs of a brown, long-dead plant seed of some sort. “I guess these used to be little burrs,” Chase explained. “The kind that sticks to your jeans when you’re out in the woods. Whoever made this affixed them to either end of this thing, so it would catch on someone’s sleeve, kind of like Velcro. So when someone attacked you, all you had to do was whip this at his arm. It wrapped around your enemy’s arm and stuck long enough that you could incapacitate him.”

  “You lost me,” Seth said.

  Chase wheeled beside me. “Alice, hold out your arm.”

  I held out my arm. Chase whipped the leather strap at me. Its end wrapped around my wrist, tightening when Chase give it a strong tug. He pulled me close. I felt my heart nearly leap out of my rib cage as my hand flew out, pressing against his hard chest to keep me from landing in his lap.

  “See?” Chase said. He unwrapped the strap. “My dad calls it a strapper. It would work even better if the burrs at the end weren’t dead.”

  Seth smiled. “Looks like it’s also good at bringing in the ladies.”

  I let go of Chase’s chest, blushing.

  “Can I borrow that?” Clyde asked. “There’s a girl in my math class I like, man. I bet I could snag her with this next time she asks for a spare pencil.”

  “No.”

  “OK, then just answer me one question, and be entirely honest.” Clyde took off his sunglasses, eyeing Chase. “Is your father Batman?”

  Chase sighed, shaking his head.

  That night, I tossed and turned in the darkness. Somewhere outside, an owl called out periodically, and every time I felt my heart race. I couldn’t stop anticipating the next freaking hoot and it sent my anxiety into overdrive.

  “If you would just shut up,” I kept whispering, “then I could fall asleep.”

  Yeah … that was the solution. I just needed that stupid owl to shut up and I’d fall asleep, getting a few precious hours of rest before school.

  I got out of bed and turned on the little lamp on my desk. I blinked a few times in the light, looking around. “Briar?” I called out in a whisper. His usual sleeping place under the window was empty.

  “Briar!” I called out again in a low voice.

  There came a noise from the closet. I held my breath, staring at the closed door, trying not to let Ryan Gosling distract me.

  “Briar?” I asked.

  There came another noise, as if one of the blankets from the top shelf had fallen. I got out of bed and opened the top drawer of the desk, reaching my hand inside. My fingers searched for the magic pen.

  Then searched again.

  Then again.

  “What the heck,” I hissed, leaning over. I gasped.

  The drawer was empty.

  There came another soft thump.

  “I’m dreaming,” I whispered. I had to be. I always put my magic pen in the top drawer. And there was more that was supposed to be in there, too: pencils, note cards, paper clips, a weird Juniper seed, a few gold coins with dragons …

  I stepped cautiously toward the closet, testing the carpet as if unsure of its stability. What if I wasn’t dreaming? What if Agnim had come inside and somehow stolen the pen?

  The closet door opened a crack. My hand went for my desk chair, fully ready to throw it at whatever might be inside.

  “Hello,” I called, a little louder this time.

  Outside, the owl hooted again.

  The door opened further. I rolled the chair in front of me like a shield.

  There, sitting on the floor in front of my dresser, were my five favorite stuffed animals. Elephant the elephant, Tigger the tiger, Hippie the hippo, Leo the lion, and Mike the bear. I have no idea why I named the bear “Mike.”

  Nor could I fathom why they were sitting in my closet instead of under my bed.

  Nor was I entirely sure which of them had opened the door.

  “OK,” I said, fingers clutching the back of my desk chair. “Now I know this is a dream.”

  “Dream.”

  “Dream.”

  “Dream.”

  “Dream?”

  “Dream!”

  I blinked. What was happening? Were my old childhood toys seriously talking? My toes dug into the soft carpeting. This felt too real to
be an ordinary dream. And this was too weird and nonsensical to be a hero’s dream.

  The owl outside hooted again. There came another sound from directly behind me and I spun around, arms extended. My laptop had opened up on its own, the music player maximized so I could see the name of the song that had just started:

  Greensleeves.

  Yes, that melodic old English folk song that just about everyone has as a ringer on their phones. It was playing loud, and the smooth notes momentarily stunned me.

  The closet door slammed shut

  I spun around, swallowing a breath. All five stuffed animals were closer now, sitting on the floor right next to the window.

  “Who did that?” I asked them, then immediately regretted it. Get a hold of yourself, Alice!

  The music kept playing, kicking up into a full orchestra. Something about the haunting violins made my entire body shiver. Whatever was happening, it needed to stop. And the first thing to do was put my frightening stuffed animals back into the closet.

  I scooped them all up, half-expecting Tigger the tiger to bite me. I opened the closet door, throwing them inside before anything else could jump out at me from the darkness.

  I closed the door. The music stopped.

  Outside, the owl hooted again.

  “Shut up!” I shouted at the window. “And go away!”

  “Alice?”

  I spun toward my bedroom door. It was my mom’s voice, I was sure of it. But that was impossible. That meant this was real. Everything happening was real.

  “Alice?”

  A knock.

  I licked my lips. “I’m … I’m OK,” I said in a wavering voice.

  The door opened. I felt my body automatically square up into a defensive stance. My lungs clung to the air they already had, not willing to take in another breath.

  Mom poked her head in. She had her white curlers in her hair and some sort of white cream on her forehead. “If you’re OK, then why are you yelling?”

  “There’s … there’s a scary owl outside.”