Read Online The Grimm Chronicles, Vol. 2 by Ken Brosky, Isabella Fontaine, Dagny Holt, Chris Smith, Lioudmila Perry - Free Book Online Page B

specific, inside the park was a sculpture of a giant spoon with a giant cherry, a sculpture so fantastic that Briar declared it “A great place to eat our sandwiches.” And while Briar wouldn’t be able to enjoy his meal in public, he’d solved that problem easily enough by nearly eating the entire bag of marshmallows on the trip up.
    “This is a good sandwich,” Seth said. We were sitting on the fresh-cut grass using the cooler as a table. I’d packed a turkey-and-Swiss sandwich for myself and a turkey-ham-Swiss-mustard-onion sandwich for Seth. Somewhere during the car ride, when he’d taken a break from the marshmallows, Briar had eaten his ham-tomato-cookie sandwich.
    “My sandwich could have used mustard,” I said. Over by the giant spoon, a handful of kids were running around like crazy, along with more than a few teenagers. They were playing tag. Not the kind of tag Briar and I played, where I was expected to pretend Briar was a Corrupted and had to tap him with a stick—no, these kids were just playing tag for fun . I envied them.
    “How was your date?” Seth asked, breaking me from my daydream.
    I shrugged. “He’s definitely a track guy.”
    He raised an eyebrow. A snicker came from the invisible rabbit.
    “I guess he might be OK,” I said. “I don’t want to judge too much from one date. And maybe he has a point about the library being kind of nerdy. I mean, I am a senior now. I should at least try to be cool, right?”
    “Coolness is overrated,” Seth muttered, taking a monster bite of his sandwich. “You think Joey Harrington is going to be cool after he graduates? Pfft! More likely he’s gonna be in jail.”
    I laughed. “Maybe you’re right.”
    “Don’t settle,” Seth said. “And don’t make excuses for Ted.”
    “OK.” I shook my head. “It’s so easy to forget that.”
    “So do you like doing this?” Seth asked. “I mean, the whole saving the world thing?”
    I shrugged, picking at the potato chips. “I’m pretty sure I have to, regardless.”
    “Yeah but how long are you going to do it? Are you still going to college to be a nurse or whatever?”
    “I’d like to be a nurse.” I took a bite of my sandwich, thinking. This wasn’t something that had been crossing my mind as much as it should. Everyone was talking about what they were going to do next year. Everyone in school was planning for tests and entrance exams and entrance essays.
    “But how?” Seth asked. “I mean, these dreams just come out of nowhere, don’t they?”
    “Yeah …”
    He shook his head, taking another bite of his sandwich. “Well, you can always count on me to help. All I want in exchange is the opportunity to chase the giant rabbit with a vacuum cleaner.”
    Beside us, there came the unmistakable sound of a snort.
    Seth smiled. “I’m only kidding. No vacuums. Why is Briar invisible? Can’t he just, like, show himself to certain people?”
    “Yes …”
    “I would rather be safe than sorry,” came Briar’s voice. “Slip-ups in public can have disastrous and … peculiar consequences.”
    I smiled. “Especially if you accidentally show yourself to a kid. You’d scar him for life.”
    “Hey Briar, guess what?”
    “What?”
    “Chicken butt.” Seth smiled at me.
    “I … er … um.”
    “Guess why?”
    “Why? I don’t even know—”
    “Chicken thigh.”
    “Alice, what is he talking about? Why is he mentioning parts of a chicken?”
    Seth chuckled. “But seriously, I’ll help you guys whenever you need me. You know, maybe there aren’t that many Corrupted left anyway. Maybe you can stop them all and then you can still get your nursing degree.”
    “Maybe.” I stared at my half-eaten sandwich, hardly convinced.
    “Or maybe you and me and Trish can still go to college together and you can just fight some Corrupted on the weekend.”
    I took a sip of my orange juice, trying not to get my hopes up. There were still so many names not crossed out in the Grimms’ Fairy