Michael Buckley - Once upon a crime

The waiting room was crowded with some of the strangest people Sabrina had ever seen. They wore what could only be called holiday-themed costumes, from every holiday imaginable-patriotic uniforms with sparklers, bright emerald suits covered in shamrocks, turkey costumes, cupid outfits-there was even a guy wearing a big paper top hat and a pair of glasses that read HAPPY NEW YEAR.'

The family approached an empty desk at the far end of the room. A little sign on top read TIM CRATCHIT. Next to it was a silver bell with another sign that read RING BELL FOR SERVICE. Granny tapped it lightly, sending a chiming sound into the air.

"I'll be right out!" a voice shouted from behind a closed door near the desk. The voice was followed by a mechanical sound, like an engine, and another noise, like something heavy had crashed into a box of fine china. Moments later, a kid with a round face and freckles appeared in the doorway on a motorized chair. He seemed to have no control over the machine and he repeatedly slammed it into the doorframe. After several minutes of labored backing up, and then failed efforts to roll forward, he finally got the chair through the narrow doorway. Unfortunately, his problems didn't stop there. Once he entered the room, he slammed the chair into the desk and sent it crashing to the floor.

"Blast it!" the kid shouted in a thick English accent. He tried to pull the desk upright and nearly tipped himself onto the floor in the process. Exhausted just from watching him, Sabrina stepped in and lifted the desk upright. Once the boy was comfortably situated, the waiting room crowd rushed forward, jostling the investigators to the back of the line. Everyone began arguing at once.

"I have to be somewhere in fifteen minutes," said the man wearing New Year's glasses. He took a small plastic horn out of his mouth and gave it an angry toot.

"Well, I was here first," a giant complained as he pushed himself to the front. He was covered in leaves and pinecones and smelled like a forest.

Tim Cratchit whistled loudly and the crowd grew silent. "Are any of you paying customers?"

"C'mon, Tim!" an enormous man in a bunny suit said. "We've been waiting all day."

"And you'll wait all night!" Tim cried. "You buggers show up anytime you please. Mr. Scrooge is a busy man and hasn't the time to waste on a bunch of penniless layabouts."

"Uh, we've got money," Granny said.

Tim's eyes searched for her in the crowd and then he smiled. "Are you alive?" Sabrina and Daphne eyed each other. "Last time I checked," Sabrina said.

"Well, I can't just take your word for it," Tim said as he accidentally pushed a button that sent the chair slamming into the desk again. "We're very busy here and we only have time for paying and living customers."

His words caused the crowd to erupt in protest.

"You want proof that we're alive?" Mr. Canis asked as he and the others approached the desk. "How do we do that?"

The boy reached over to Sabrina and Daphne and gave them both painful pinches on the arm. They yelped angrily and Daphne kicked the boy's chair.

"OK, I'm satisfied. Now, are you here for the boss's financial expertise or are you interested in his supernatural skills?"

"I'm not really sure," Granny said. "We want to ask him a few questions."

"Well, have a seat and I'll see if he can fit you in," Tim said as he began the laborious effort of turning his mechanical chair around and steering it back through the door from which he had come. When he disappeared through it, there were more loud crashes and then shouts from another, angry voice.

"Tim Cratchit! Do you have any idea how much a box of crystal balls costs these days? I didn't buy you that mechanical chair so you could race through the store trashing everything."

"Sorry, boss," Tim shouted. "You've got customers… and they're breathers!"

Suddenly, the door flew open and a thin, wiry old man in a black suit hurried into the room. His hair was bushy and white and stood up in all directions, almost as if he had been repeatedly scared out of his wits.

"So, who was next?" he said with a broad smile.

Everyone in the waiting room said, "Me!"

"Only the living people, people!" Scrooge bellowed.

"That would be us," Granny said, taking the opportunity to usher the girls and Mr. Canis forward.

"Excellent," the old man said as he gestured for the group to follow him into the back. They had to wait for Tim to get out of the doorway, but once this was accomplished, they found themselves in a room decorated in ruby and midnight-blue tapestries with fluffy pillows scattered on the floor. Incense burned in a small pot on a shelf. In the middle of the room was a round table surrounded by six high-backed chairs. The old man invited everyone to sit down and then did so himself.

"I apologize for that mob scene. I hired Tim to keep them out but I think the boy is in over his head," he continued. "Ghosts can be quite a handful."

"Ghosts!" Sabrina said with a laugh.

If the man heard the doubt in her voice he ignored it. "They're like mice. I can't get rid of them. Ever since that business with the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future, all the spirits in the astral plane feel it's their duty to come and show me how I've ruined the holidays of everyone I know. I'll admit, I was a pain at Christmastime, but since then I've been haunted by the Ghosts of Easter, Passover, Thanksgiving, Yom Kippur, the anniversary of the Boxer Rebellion, Bastille Day, Lincoln's Birthday; anything you can think of! The whole thing has gotten ridiculous. How many Arbor Days could I have ruined? Not to mention Kwanzaa, Secretary's Day, and the anniversary of the Woodstock concert. It got so bad I was fired from my job at the bank. It's really difficult to approve home loans with the Ghost of Earth Day Future walking around turning off all the office computers to save energy."

Scrooge bent under the table and came up with a calculator and a crystal ball. "OK, let's get down to business. We do two things here: finances and phantoms. What's it going to be?"

Granny reached into her handbag and removed the business card Sabrina had found in her mother's wallet. Scrooge took it, flipped it over, and then smiled.

"Ah, Veronica," he said, wistfully. "Where did you get this?"

"She's my mom," Daphne said.

The man grinned. "Your mother is a saint. She helped me get the lease on this store when I decided to go into business for myself. She's lovely. Just lovely! What can I do for you?"

"We're investigating King Oberon's death and we were hoping you might-"

"Of course!" Scrooge said, cutting off Granny Relda. "Everybody grab hands and close your eyes."

"Mr. Scrooge, I'm a bit confused. We aren't here to talk to spirits," the old woman said.

"Oh."

"We were hoping you might be able to give us some information. Anything you might know about who would've wanted to kill the king."

Scrooge laughed. "Well, you don't need a psychic for that. Everyone wanted to kill the king. I wanted to kill the king. He was a jerk!"

"-azoid," Daphne finished.

"He was arrogant, stupid, meddling," Scrooge cried. "He'd send his goons down here to collect his tax-extortion money if you ask me. Most of us thought he was a royal pain in the-"

"You weren't at the meeting yesterday," Mr. Canis interrupted.

"No, I gave up on all that nonsense when the real Faerie fell," Scrooge said.

"Yes, we keep hearing about Faerie," Sabrina said.

"Faerie was a great idea, a neighborhood of Everafters. It used to be downtown but people started moving in and Everafters kept getting moved out. Pretty soon, we were way out in Jersey City, New Jersey. Well, I wasn't going to tolerate that! An Everafter has got to have standards. Before I knew it we were pushed out of Jersey, too. Eventually, someone suggested the park. No one lives there but the squirrels. They had a witch set up the Golden Egg. Oberon said we'd buy land and start anew, but it never happened.