Michael Buckley - The Unusual Suspects

"I've been doing some thinking and I believe that joining forces might be a great idea, but under a couple of conditions," he said, rushing to join the group.

"What conditions?" Sabrina said.

"I handle all the dangerous work," the chubby boy said, puffing up his chest like a tough guy.

The children looked at one another and fought off a laugh.

"Fine," Sabrina said. "I think we should have a look in the tunnels right away."

"I agree, but there's a problem," Wendell said, wiping his nose again. "They changed the locks on the boiler room door."

Sabrina reached into her backpack and tossed the boy an Eat Me cake and a Drink Me juice box.

"What are these?" he asked.

"The key to the new lock."

"You want to do it now?" Daphne cried. "Ms. White will notice I'm gone and come looking for me."

"We'll worry about that later," said her sister. "Lunchtime is too busy and the bad guys will probably be watching after school. We'll wait until the bell rings for class and once the hall is empty, we'll get started."

Soon enough, the bell rang, and the kids filed into their classes. Sabrina, Daphne, Puck, and Wendell milled around, trying to appear as if they were on their way to class without actually going anywhere.

Once they were alone in the hall, the children took out their Drink Me boxes and inserted the handy straws attached to the sides.

"How much do we drink?" Daphne asked, sniffing at the box.

"I don't know," Sabrina said. "I guess until it starts working."

Puck took a long slurp and when he was finished he opened his mouth and belched. "It's fruity," he exclaimed. Suddenly, to a sound like that of a squeaky balloon losing its air, his body shrank to half its size. Even his clothes, the Eat Me cake, and the juice box got tiny.

"Drink more," Daphne insisted. "You aren't small enough to get under the door."

"And hurry up," Sabrina said, scanning the hallway. The last thing she wanted was a teacher or student to see this craziness.

Puck took another sip and shrank even further. Soon, he was no taller than a quarter standing on its end. Sabrina bent down and examined the tiny boy.

"You have no idea how tempted I am to squish you," she said.

"And you have no idea how big your nose hairs are," he squeaked. Sabrina covered her face with her hand.

"Our turn," Daphne said. The three other children took big sips out of their boxes and in no time they were all shrinking, too. The liquid did taste fruity, like pineapples and cherry pie at the same time. A cool tingle ran down Sabrina's throat, into her belly, and then into her legs and arms. The sensation wasn't unlike having a good stretch after a wonderful night's sleep. When she finished the box, she was the same size as Puck.

"Let's get in there before we wind up on the bottom of someone's shoe," said the tiny Wendell. He marched over to the door and looked back. "I'll go first, in case there's something waiting for us on the other side."

He yanked out his hanky, blew hard on it, then shoved it back into his pocket. Then he walked underneath the door without even having to bend over. Daphne took Sabrina's hand and together they followed Wendell, with Puck bringing up the rear.

"I should be doing the dangerous stuff," he grumbled.

Once the group was on the other side, the children had a chance to look around. A bucket full of mops sat in the corner, boxes of trash bags and rolls of toilet paper filled a nearby shelf, and an ancient coal furnace rested in the center of the room. Not far off, a brand-new electric furnace clicked and popped as it pushed warm air throughout the vents of the school. But what was bewildering was how gigantic everything was. The mops looked as tall as the Empire State Building in midtown New York City and Sabrina suspected if one of the rolls of toilet paper were to fall off the shelf and on to them, they'd be crushed to death.

"Look at that table," Daphne cried, pointing at a nearby desk. "It's huge."

Sabrina nodded in agreement.

"Look at that chair," Daphne said. "It's huge!"

Sabrina agreed.

"Look at that button!" Daphne said, running over to a monstrous white button that had fallen off of someone's shirt. She tried to lift it, but it was too heavy for her in her shrunken state. "It's huge!"

"We need to find you another word," Sabrina muttered.

"Hey! I'm seven! I don't know a lot of words," the little girl said.

"All right, piggy," Puck said to Wendell. "Where's the entrance to the tunnel?"

"We need to eat the cakes and get big," the boy detective said. "The lever that opens the entrance is in the old furnace."

The children reached in their pockets for their Eat Me cakes when suddenly, the boiler room door opened.

"Someone's coming!" Sabrina shouted. The door closed and a man walked over to the coal furnace. He opened a small trapdoor on its side and reached in. Sabrina guessed he had pushed the lever because a hum filled the room, and the coal furnace began to slide across the floor. That's when Sabrina noticed it was Principal Hamelin.

The principal waited patiently, and when the coal furnace had slid away, he descended a flight of stairs hidden underneath the machine.

The children rushed to the center of the room.

"That was your dad," Sabrina said to Wendell.

"What is he doing?" he said.

"We have to follow him," Daphne insisted.

"We can't! If we eat the cakes and get big, he's sure to spot us, but at this size we'll never make it down those steps," her sister argued.

"No worries, girls. I have a brilliant plan," Puck said, proudly. He spun around on his heels and transformed into an elephant, albeit a tiny elephant. He let out a mighty roar and charged off into the far corner of the room.

"Puck, we don't have time for your stupidity," Sabrina shouted after him, but the boy-elephant did not respond. Soon, she could hear the scraping of metal on the floor. When elephant Puck returned he was pushing a dustpan with his massive head, all the way to the edge of the steps. When the pan was on the edge of the top step, the elephant morphed back into the boy.

"Get in," he said, beaming with pride.

Sabrina looked at the dustpan hanging precariously over the edge. "No way," she said. "We'll kill ourselves in that thing."

Daphne was already climbing inside and had found a spot in the corner to sit down. "We survived Granny's driving," she said. "We'll survive this, too."

"You'll be fine," Puck assured Sabrina. "You'll probably need someone to feed you for the rest of your life, but you'll make it. Stop being a baby and get in."

Sabrina looked at Wendell. He shrugged and the two of them climbed into the dustpan.

"You all need to stay in the back of this thing," Puck explained. "Oh, and one more thing…"

"What?" Sabrina cried. She didn't like the tone of his voice.

"Buckle up, kiddies," Puck shouted as he walked to the front of the pan and leaped into the air. His body came down hard on the end of the pan and the back tilted high in the air, sending the whole thing rocketing down the steps before Sabrina could even scream. Each step it cleared just made the dustpan increase its speed, until finally they crashed at the bottom of the stairs.

After Sabrina checked everyone for broken bones, she punched Puck in the arm.

"Hey, I got us here, didn't I?" he complained as he rubbed his sore shoulder.

The children climbed out of the dustpan, calmed themselves, and headed down a long, cavernous hall carved out of stone. Along the rocky path were pickaxes and dusty shovels, old buckets and miles and miles of rope.

What are they up to down here?Sabrina wondered, as everyone marched through the tunnel. The journey wouldn't have taken long if they were their usual size, but the length of a normal step now required a dozen.