"Grimm, you usually handle the running and crying part."
Sabrina looked down the steep hill. It was covered in snow. "If only we had a sled," she mumbled.
Puck's eyes lit up. He turned around and got down on his hands and knees.
"What are you doing?" Sabrina asked.
"Climb on my back," Puck insisted. "I've got an idea."
Sabrina was all too familiar with Puck's "ideas." They usually ended in a trip to the emergency room, but with the monster lumbering up the rocky hillside behind them, there were few options.
Sabrina sat on the boy's back with a leg on each side of him. "OK, what now?"
"Grab my tusk."
"Grab your what?"
Puck turned his head toward her. His face had transformed into that of a walrus. He had two long tusks protruding from his mouth and a mustache of bristly, thick hair. His nose had shrunk into his oily black face and his eyes were large and brown. Sabrina cringed, but reached around with her good arm and grabbed firmly onto one of his tusks.
"Please don't do this," she whimpered. "This is such a bad idea."
"The only bad ideas are the ones never tried," Puck said as his body began to puff up. Layers of blubber inflated under Sabrina. Puck's shirt disappeared, replaced by a super-slippery skin. "Keep your hands and feet inside the ride until we come to a complete stop," he shouted.
"Here we go!"
Puck leaped forward just as the beast reached the top of the hill. The boy's slick walrus body rocketed down the steep slope toward town. Sabrina held on for dear life.
They zipped between trees and bounced over jutting rocks. Sabrina turned back, confident the monster wouldn't follow them on this desperate flight, only to see it plowing down the hill after them, knocking over trees as if they weren't even there. "JABBERWOCKY!" it screamed.
Puck the walrus raced down the bank of a frozen stream, ramping off a rocky outcropping and soaring into the air. The children fell for what seemed like forever, then hit the ground hard, narrowly missing the spiky branches of an oak tree.
Sabrina turned again to mark the monster's progress. It too used the rocky ramp and sailed into the air. Flapping its wings, it soared higher and higher; then a strong wind knocked it off course and it slammed hard against the mountainside. Moments later, Sabrina lost sight of it completely, though she could still hear it braying in the distance.
"I think we lost it! We're safe!" she cried, just as the ground leveled off. Unfortunately, Puck's slippery body was still zipping along as a four-lane highway of speeding cars appeared in front of them. Unable to stop, Puck skidded into the traffic, spinning several times as he tried to avoid a pickup truck. The startled driver slammed on his breaks. Tires squealed and bumpers crunched. Shrill horns filled the air, but the children still couldn't stop. On the other side of the road was another steep hill. They whipped down it, heading right for a ramshackle old barn. Its doors were wide open, and they slid right in, crashing at last into the far wall of an empty stable.
"Let's do it again!" Puck said, laughing so hard he rolled over on his fat, blubbery side. Giggling, he transformed back into his true form--an annoying eleven-year-old boy.
Sabrina held her sore arm and gazed around at the barn. A few bales of hay sat in the corner and an old plow lay rusting on the ground. Several windows high on the wall were wide open, allowing the snowstorm to blow inside. It was a great place to hide, if they didn't freeze to death in the process.
"Grimm, you look like you fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch," Puck said when his giggling was finished. Sabrina's head hurt too much for her to come up with a snarky comeback. She was exhausted and her arm felt as if it were ready to fall off. Puck must have sensed how desperate she felt, or maybe he just heard her teeth chattering, because he did something so un-Pucklike, Sabrina couldn't believe it. He got up, sat down behind her, and let his enormous fairy wings sprout from his back. Then he wrapped them around her to keep the bitter cold away. It was the first truly nice thing the so-called Trickster King had ever done for her. Instinctively she wanted to tease him for this rare moment of compassion, but she bit her tongue. Knowing Puck, he'd storm off and she'd die an ice cube.
"What was that thing?" Sabrina asked.
"It's called a Jabberwocky," Puck said. "Two tons of teeth, tail, and terror. From what I've heard, they're impossible to kill. But don't worry, Grimm; it's gone. It had its share of the Trickster King for one day."