For my mother,
Wilma Cuvelier
"Get off the streets!" Sabrina cried. "There's a monster coming!"
"Do you people want to get squashed?" Daphne shouted, but New York City pedestrians were used to ignoring screaming lunatics. Daphne turned to Granny Relda with a panicked face. "They won't listen!"
Granny Relda took the girls by the hand. "They will. Run, children!"
The girls shared a nervous glance as they raced down the sidewalk, pushing through the crowd and calling out warnings. Soon, the family came to an intersection and stopped in their tracks. They weren't on the quiet streets of Ferryport Landing anymore; this was the big city. If they tried to cross against the light, a speeding truck or taxi would flatten them for sure. While they waited anxiously, Sabrina took a quick look back, just in time to see the collapse of the entire front of the building they had just fled. A huge leg stepped through the rubble and dust. With a dreadful crash, the gigantic creature freed itself of the store. It lifted one of its enormous, pointed shoes and kicked a taxicab out of the way, sending it slamming into a light pole and then skidding across the intersection, where it crashed into a newspaper delivery truck. The people on the sidewalk let out a collective scream.
"They're paying attention now," Sabrina muttered.
Panicked pedestrians turned en masse and rushed toward Sabrina and her family. Many people were looking back as they ran; a young woman knocked Daphne to the ground in her panic. If the monster didn't kill the Grimms, Sabrina realized, her family would be trampled to death in the sudden riot.
The monster turned its massive head left and right. Its lantern eyes scanned the streets until they fixed on Sabrina.
"I'll get you, my pretty," the monster roared.
