Sabrina nearly cried She looked like the joker from a stack of playing cards She was hideous How was she supposed to learn how to use this stuff She needed her mother Veronica would know how to do makeup She would explain all the things Sabrina was feeling but didn’t understand understand like why Sabrina’s appearance was becoming becoming more and more important to her It seemed like just yesterday when she couldn’t have cared less about how she looked but now It felt as if all she could think about was how others might see her She hated herself for it Luckily no one in her family had noticed her new preoccupation most important Puck If he discovered she was visiting the bathroom in the middle of the night to primp he would never stop making fun of her Sabrina scrubbed the makeup off her face and was about to go back to bed when she heard something bubbling in the toilet The lid was down so she couldn’t see what was causing the noise but she had her suspicions Before Puck had moved into the house with the Grimms he’d lived in the woods Modern conveniences mesmerized
mesmerized him none more so than the toilet He loved to flush it over and over and watch the water water swirl around and disappear For months he was convinced toilets were some kind of magic until Uncle Jake explained how plumbing worked The newfound knowledge only increased Puck’s fascination and it wasn’t long before he was conducting scientific research research to discover what could and couldn’t be flushed down the tubes It started out with a little loose change but the items quickly grew in size marbles wristwatches doorknobs balls of yarn even once scoops of butter pecan ice cream Granny finally put an end to the fun when she caught him trying to flush a beaver he’d found in the woods Ever since the toilet regularly coughed up Puck’s experiments Last week Sabrina had found one of her mittens floating floating in the bowl Now apparently something else was making its way to the surface She hoped it wasn’t the missing TV remote But when Sabrina lifted the lid she found something something so shocking she would likely fear toilets for the rest of her life A little man was sitting in the bowl
Who goes there he demanded in a squeaky voice He was less than a foot tall and wore a tiny green suit a matching bowler hat and shiny black shoes with brass buckles His long red beard dipped into the water Sabrina shrieked and slammed the toilet lid on the creature’s head He groaned and shouted a few angry curses but Sabrina didn’t stick around to hear them She ran down the hallway screaming screaming for her grandmother Granny Relda stumbled out of her room wearing wearing an ankle-length nightgown and a sleeping cap She looked the picture of the sweet gentle grandmother except for the sharpened battle-ax she held in her hand Liebling she cried in a light German accent What is all this racket There’s something in the toilet Sabrina yelled Uncle Jake came out of a room at the end of the hall He was fully dressed in jeans leather boots and his new overcoat covered with hundreds of little pockets he had sewn himself He looked exhausted exhausted and in dire need of a shave
What’s all the hubbub Sabrina saw something in the toilet Granny Relda explained I swear I flushed Uncle Jake said as he threw up his hands Not that Sabrina shrieked It was a person He spoke to me Mom you’ve really got to cut back on all the spicy food you’ve been feeding the girls Uncle Jake said It’s giving them bad dreams
