Michael Buckley: Once upon a crime

Granny Relda reached into her handbag for her folded directions and reread them aloud. "It says we're supposed to tell a knock-knock joke to Andersen."

Canis grumbled. "What is a knock-knock joke?"

"You don't know what a knock-knock joke is?" Daphne cried.

"He doesn't do jokes," Hamstead said.

"Well, it goes like this. Knock knock."

Mr. Canis said nothing.

"You're supposed to say 'Who's there?'"

"Why?"

"You just do," the little girl said.

Mr. Canis took a deep, impatient breath. "Who's there?" Cows go. Again, Canis was confused.

"You're supposed to say, 'Cows go who?'" Granny explained. "Fine!" Canis snapped. "Cows go who?"

"No they don't," Daphne said. "Cows go moo."

Hamstead snorted with laughter and Granny giggled, but Canis flashed them both an angry look and they stopped.

"Well, let's give it a try," Granny said as she stepped in front of the statue. "Knock knock."

Unfortunately, nothing happened.

"Maybe we shout it?" Hamstead offered, and then started shouting the words as loud as he could. The rest joined him, causing the man on the nearby bench to mumble "freaks," get up, and stagger away.

"Well, this is real fun," Sabrina grumbled. "Anybody else got an idea before they send the crazy wagon to pick us up?"

"Where's Daphne?" Granny asked.

Sabrina glanced around but her sister was gone. "Daphne!" she shouted, feeling a nervous pain in her belly. She hadn't been paying attention when she should have been! Daphne was her responsibility.

"I do not smell the child," Mr. Canis said.

"She was standing right here!" Sabrina cried, struggling with her panic.

Suddenly, Granny smiled and set her hand on the statue. "I've got an idea. Knock knock," she said, and in a blink, she vanished. "I think we've found the front door," Mr. Hamstead said, placing his hand on the statue as well. Canis joined him, shifting Puck in his arms to free a hand. Together the men said the magic words and they disappeared, too, leaving Sabrina alone on the snowy street. She looked into the great writer's face, took a deep breath, and secretly prayed that the family had indeed found a way into Faerie.

Knowing my luck I'll end up in the belly of a monster that enjoys goofy kid's jokes, she thought.

She reluctantly took a deep breath, and whispered, "Knock knock."

And then the statue's head turned to her, gave a big smile, and boomed, "

Who's there?"

The world went fuzzy, as if Sabrina were looking at wavy lines on an old television. Just as quickly, her vision cleared and she found herself outside an old fashioned-looking restaurant. A neon sign above the door read THE GOLDEN EGG, and music and laughter could be heard from inside. Her family was nowhere in sight. Sabrina guessed they had gone inside to get out of the blistery cold. Before she could do the same, two chubby men appeared in the doorway. Each had big pink wings like Puck's, though the men were much older. One wore a burgundy tracksuit, the other a pin-striped two-piece. They shoved a short, naked man outside and he tumbled into the snow.

"How many times have we told you, Emperor? No shoes. No shirt. No service," the fairy in the tracksuit growled. "That means pants, too!"

"Yeah, this is a respectable establishment," the fairy in the pin-striped suit added. He had a face like a bulldog with hanging jowls and big bushy eyebrows.

"I'am fully dressed!" the Emperor cried. His voice was slurred and he smelled like liquor. "You are just too stupid to see my clothes."

"The boss has banned you until you learn to obey the dress code!" bulldog-face grunted. He and his partner turned and went back into the bar, leaving the naked man lying in the snow, where he stayed for a few moments until finally crawling to his feet and stomping away. Sabrina could still hear him cursing as he disappeared from sight.

"That just scarred me for life," Sabrina said. Then she pushed the tavern door open and went inside.

The Golden Egg was a large, wood-paneled supper club, with tables, a long oak bar, and a fireplace. It had tin ceilings and smelled like steak and potatoes. At the tables sat roughly two dozen people of all shapes and sizes: an ogre played cards with a centaur, a princess quietly talked with six dwarfs, and a couple of men who seemed to be part human and part crow were arguing about politics. More folks were hunkered over tall frothy mugs at the bar, served by a woman with skin the color of coffee. At the back of the room was an enormous man with yellow eyes, playing a grand piano.

Sabrina scanned the room and quickly spotted her friends and family standing near the bar. She hurried through the crowd, almost tripping over a hedgehog riding a chicken. Perhaps it was the heat from the fireplace, but the Golden Egg was making Sabrina slightly ill. She felt as if she had walked into the pages of a bedtime story.

"Uh, where are we?" she asked when she joined the others.

"You're in the Golden Egg, honey," the bartender said as she washed some glasses. She was a pear-shaped woman with an apron wrapped around her waist and big, fluttery eyelashes. Her warm smile helped Sabrina's stomach relax a little. "We don't serve minors but I suspect I could find a glass of soda pop or two."

"Do you own this place?" Hamstead said over the bar chatter.

"Nope, I just run the place for the boss. People call me Momma. Haven't seen you in here before. You new in town?"

"We're looking for the fairy kingdom," Granny Relda said.

Momma laughed. "You've found it, lady. What's left of it, anyway."

"That can't be," Granny Relda said.

Sabrina scanned the room again. The crowd was sparse, and mostly drunk. It certainly didn't look like a fairy kingdom.

"Hey!" a voice said from below. Sabrina glanced down at her feet and nearly screamed in fright. Looking back at her was a walking, talking gingerbread man no more than three inches high. "Watch where you're stepping, kid!"

Sabrina stared at the little baked good in horror. In the past three months she had talked to a lot of things that weren't supposed to be able to talk back. She was still not used to it and suspected she never would be. Her bellyache returned with a vengeance.

"What are you looking at?" the gingerbread man said to her. "Didn't anyone tell you it's rude to stare?"

For once, Sabrina fumbled for words.

"She's sorry," Daphne offered. "It's not every day you get to talk to a cookie, you know."

The gingerbread man's brown body suddenly turned red and his icing face crinkled in anger. "Hey! Cookies are round, buster. Do I look like I'm round?"

"Sorry," Daphne said. "I didn't mean-"

"That kind of ignorance is why gingerbread people are treated so badly all over the world," he said bitterly. "Just 'cause we all came out of the oven doesn't mean we're made from the same dough!"

Daphne ducked behind Sabrina.

"Relax! She didn't mean to offend you," Sabrina said, finally pulling herself together. As she turned to calm her sister, she felt something hard bounce off her head. She whipped around and found the gingerbread man pulling a gumdrop off his chest. There was one already missing-one she was sure was now lodged in her hair.

"Take that, you bakist!" the little man said.

"Did you just throw something at me?" Sabrina cried, quickly regaining her wits.

"Yeah! What are you going to do about it, meat person?" the little baked man taunted.

"Throw another gumdrop at me and you'll see what I'll do, dough boy," Sabrina hissed. Granny was trying to pull her away when the second gumdrop bounced off of Sabrina's nose.

"That's it!" she cried as she turned to the bartender. "Give me the biggest glass of milk you've got!"

The gingerbread man kicked Sabrina in the ankle. Despite his size, it hurt, and Sabrina reached down to grab him. The little man darted away and ran through the bar.