A/N: Thank you to those of you who reviewed the first chapter. Please review even if you completely hate this story.
When Sabrina asked her grandmother if the girl they found outside in a pit could stay in the Grimm house, Relda was pleasantly surprised; a few days ago, or earlier the same morning for that matter, Sabrina would have strongly opposed having yet another Everafter living in their house. Relda decided that her granddaughter was definitely making progress on getting past her prejudice against the Everafters. She was so proud of her.
Of course she could stay as long as she wanted to.
When Jake was informed of this, he was not pleased, but he refrained from voicing his opinions on the matter. In the past it had only made the rest of the family angry with him, and he knew that this time was not likely to be any different. This time, he simply offered to let her sleep in his room.
"But, Jake, where will you sleep?" one of the family members asked.
"I'm going to stay in town for a few days or weeks, maybe longer," he replied.
"Uh, Jake," Daphne began questioningly, "town is five minutes away."
"She's right," Maria Susanna Butterflypoo spoke up, "you don't have to give up your room for me. I'm sure Sabrina wouldn't mind if I—"
Luckily, Jake was prepared for this. He used the cheesiest excuse he could manage under the circumstances, "Staying there means I'm five minutes closer to Briar. I'm glad to go."
Mr. Canis was almost sorry that he could not make a similar excuse, but he realized that it was probably a better idea if he stuck around to try and protect them from the newest lunatic that had been invited into the house. It had never worked before, but he did still feel that he should try. The trouble was that plotlines always seemed to make him useless. He considered just letting the Wolf eat the girl now while he was still allowed in the story instead of letting her cause trouble. The Wolf then reminded Mr. Canis that "you are what you eat" and he decided against eating Maria Susanna Butterflypoo.
The phone rang. Relda answered it and listened to the person on the other end for a few minutes. "Sure, I'll be right over," she told the caller. She hung up the phone. "Girls, Mr. Canis and I are going over to a friend's house to help them recover a stolen object so that we will be conveniently absent from the house."
"Do we have a mystery, Granny?" Daphne asked excitedly.
"I'm pretty sure I know what's going on, so we should get back soon. Will you all be alright for an hour or so?"
"Can I come anyway?" Daphne asked. "I want to figure it out too."
"Of course you can, Daphne," her grandmother replied, making things much easier for the author by leaving only three characters for which to write actions and speech.
"Sabrina, do you want to come too?"
Sabrina declined, partly because she wasn't in the mood for a pre-solved mystery and partly because being left behind meant she could make a normal dinner for herself, but mostly because if she left the house it would defeat the plot of the chapter.
The mystery-solving team headed out the door and to the car. The ancient car backfired loudly, as usual. They drove in the direction of the nameless friend's house, leaving a gigantic hole in the ozone layer as they did.
Maria Susanna heard the backfire. "Did something blow up?" she asked, her voice full of hope and excitement.
"No, it was just the car backfiring like it always does," Sabrina explained.
"Oh, good," Maria Susanna said in a voice that was so falsely cheery and so falsely full of relief that a deaf person would have heard the lack of sincerity in her words. Sabrina took this to mean that their car was amusing and that Maria Susanna was glad her family was not killed.
"Hey, I'm about to make dinner, do you want something to eat?" Sabrina asked her friend.
"Sounds good, I'm starving."
They walked into the kitchen. Sabrina got out a pot and put it on the lit stovetop with water to boil inside of it.
They stared at the pot. They stared at the water in the pot. The water was still just plain, non-boiling water in the pot. They stared at the flames under the pot. They stopped staring at them for fear of retinal damage. They reverted to staring at the pot and the water. They should have known better—a watched pot never boils.
The girls' stomachs rumbled in unison.
"This is taking forever!"
"Yeah."
Sabrina glared at the water, willing it to just hurry up and boil already. This didn't do anything to make the water boil. Maria Susanna noticed this and decided to take action. "Okay, no more waiting," she said determinedly.
Sabrina was about to protest that there wasn't an option but to wait unless they weren't going to eat dinner, but Maria Susanna held her hands toward the pot and sent a glowing, sparkly magic power at the pot. The water immediately came to a boil.
Needless to say, Sabrina was very impressed with this. "Ohmigosh! Maria Susanna, that is so awesome!"
"I know, right? Oh, by the way, call me Mary Sue, everyone else does."
Because of Mary Sue's seemingly unlimited magic powers, the rest of the dinner preparation was very speedy.
As was usual for him, Puck walked into the kitchen right as the food was ready. "Good, you made dinner," he said as he sat down at the table.
"Get your own, Puck," Sabrina said.
Puck hadn't really been expecting to have someone else serve him a plate already filled with food, but now that Sabrina had made that comment, he decided it might be a good idea and told Sabrina so. This was quite upsetting to Sabrina because she had meant for the boy to go make his own food, not that he was expected to serve himself.
"The only thing I'm going to serve you is a knuckle sandwich," she threatened.
Puck was about to respond to this but was interrupted by being handed a plate of food by Mary Sue. Instead of making a witty comeback to the knuckle sandwich comment, he just said, "at least someone knows how to treat a king."
Mary Sue rolled her eyes, but Puck didn't notice it because he was already too busy shoving food into his mouth. A short time into the meal, Sabrina and Puck realized that it was time to begin the hourly ritual trading of insults again which meant that by the end of dinner they were both thoroughly insulted.
The three pre-teens continued to sit at the dinner table. Mary Sue attempted to begin a normal conversation, but she failed because it was time for Sabrina and Puck to insult each other again. Mary Sue became quite bored with their behavior. At first it had been amusing to hear them, but after not too long they began to simply repeat the same phrases they had been using the previous hour, and then they started using terms that were more like random adjectives than insulting terms.
"Plaid-wearer!"
"Stinkpot!"
Luckily, this was when Relda, Daphne, and Mr. Canis returned. They had been gone a bit longer than they had originally anticipated because the mystery was not as pre-solved as they thought it was, and they had also decided that Mary Sue should be enrolled in Ferryport Landing Middle School along with Sabrina and Puck.
Minutes after their return, Sabrina was complaining about Puck's latest insult to Daphne. "Do you know what he said!" she cried, "He called me a plaid-wearer!"
Daphne hesitated. She examined Sabrina's shirt. There was no denying that it was indeed a plaid shirt. She bit her lip nervously, but determined that something had to be said, and then she looked into Sabrina's eyes and asked, "Sabrina, have you considered that it might be the truth?"
Sabrina looked as shocked as if her younger sister had slapped her. She looked around the room at the others, who seemed to be agreeing with Daphne's question with their silence. She screamed in frustration. "I hate you all! I'm going to bed—right now!" After this declaration she stomped up the stairs and went into her room where she could be free from the accusing eyes of her family and permanent house-guests.
