Dedication
FOR ANDY ASBURY,
not because he’s a problem child
(even though the Problims would love him).
But because he’s brave and funny and awesome.
(And because I love him too.)
Epigraph
Contents
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
1. Kaboom Day
2. Thursday’s Child
3. A Sudden Splash of Purple
4. Sir Frank’s Metal Lunch Box
5. Seven Miles Away (Is Far for a Squirrel)
6. Desdemona
7. Return of the Seven
8. Sir Frank’s Marvelous Mansion
9. A Petition for Removal
10. Welcome Gifts
11. Introductions
12. A Catapult (and a Witch . . . Maybe)
13. A Memory (and a Visit)
14. The Princess Astronaut Leaves the Tower
15. Friends Happen
16. Sundae on a Mission
17. A Riddle and a Squirrel
18. Birthday Smash Cake
19. Wednesday/Thursday
20. The Widow in the Woods
21. Midge Lodestar
22. The Fox Prevails
23. Elemental
24. The Wishing Captain
25. A Way In
26. Mr. Biv Shows the Way
27. Toot’s Watch
28. Major
29. De Léon
30. Wings Made of Better Worlds
Acknowledgments
Excerpt from The Problim Children #2: A Formidable Foe
About the Author
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
Prologue
Once upon a Wednesday, many years ago, a small boy made a brave decision.
Somewhere in the deep woods of the Carolinas, he ran, breathless. The brave boy’s heart never steadied until he reached the top of the cold rock hill. His sister waited for him there, and he flung his arms around her waist and hugged her tight. She motioned the rest of their siblings out from the cave where they’d been hiding.
She pushed the boy an arm’s length away and stared deep into his eyes. “You sure about this?” she asked.
The little boy nodded. “We hide it. And we don’t tell anybody about it, no matter what.”
They walked out to the cliff’s edge together, to stare down over the wild river below. Fog billowed like dragon’s breath across the wrinkled water.
Soon, a boat full of shadowed figures sailed through the mist. A long-haired man stood tall at the front of the boat, his jacket rippling in the wind. Cheese Breath, the boy had called him. He thought it was only the man’s breath that reeked when he promised the children glory and riches. But now he knew that man’s heart was rotten too. Cheese Breath was determined to find a treasure rumored to be better than silver or gold. He would destroy anything, or anyone, who stood in front of it.
The boy tucked his hand inside his big sister’s. Then the rest of his siblings took their places, locking muddy fingers until they stood together, side by side, in a firm line called family that could not be moved or shaken.
“Ready?” the oldest girl asked.
The children nodded, shivering in the cold.
The girl closed her eyes, and the sky woke up.
Silver swirled with black storm clouds. The ground shook and cracked. The mighty river curled its tongue, burying the boat in its depths.
Another boy watched from the woods that day, eyes wide. Heart racing. “Until the seven do return,” he mumbled the words of the old rhyme. He couldn’t believe what he’d just seen.
Maybe some legends are strange enough to be true.
Kaboom Day
Nobody in the town of Lost Cove ever stomped their muddy boots near the Swampy Woods. They knew those woods were dark and haunted (probably) and always covered in a strange fog. That fog has teeth, the locals said. That fog’ll snap at you! So everybody stayed out. And this was perfectly agreeable to the only family brave enough to live in such a wretched place. For many years, this abysmal swamp (full of mud-spiders, fanged fog, and wattabats) had been the private paradise of the Problim family.
But all good things—even if they are good in a terrible way—have a habit of coming to an end.
On the seventh day of the seventh month, Sal Problim stepped out of his family’s crumbly bungalow and took in his surroundings. Fog billowed around the rickety front porch. Bullfrogs hollered yerrrp from somewhere deep in the woods. Heavy-bellied rain clouds floating overhead kept the sunlight from sneaking through. Sal smiled and said, “Beautiful.”
And then a smell somewhat between rotten eggs and vomit singed his nose hairs.
Sal pulled the collar of his shirt over his nose. “Toot? Where are you?”
Ichabod, the family’s pet pig, waddled out the front door of the bungalow squealing ork-ork-ork! Riding astride the swine was a toddler wearing a striped onesie and Velcro bow tie. Wafting around this smallest Problim was his own unique fog . . . of stink. Toot Problim’s farts were so varied and precise that the Problim children had assigned each one a number for categorization purposes.
As the pig bounded toward Sal, Toot bounced on its back, puffing a series of warning farts. All #4s.1
Sal’s nose wrinkled. “You should get an award for that one. It’s stanktastic. What’s got you worried?”
But then Sal remembered what day it was. Sunday. Her day. The day his oldest sister forced all her siblings to take a bath. “Tooty-kins,” called a sunshiny voice from inside. “Your turn!”
“It’s okay, kid,” Sal said with a shiver. “I’ll launch you into the woods!” Sal swooped up his baby brother and bounded down the steps, headed for the human catapult his siblings kept in the yard. As Sal ran, the tools hanging from his sleeves made a rustling, metallic sound. A small rake, a shovel, razor-sharp shears, and trowels all clinked, scraped, and tinged as he moved.
But Toot shook his head and pointed to the ground.
“Oh!” Sal jumped as a cool, slimy tangle of ivy brushed past his ankle. More ivy, green tendrils—long and thin as spaghetti noodles—crept through the fog and toward the front porch. The plant was moving fast. He’d never seen it do this before, and that frustrated him. At thirteen, Sal—Saturday’s child—thrived on hard work and was an astute gardener. He specialized in strange, exotic, and smelly plants. But this was an anomaly.
“Weird,” Sal said as long vines of Wrangling Ivy slithered up the porch steps. If Sal had engineered the planting just right—and he always did—the Wrangling Ivy would eventually grow a hundred feet long. It would be able to trap a human and pull him or her zigzaggedly across the garden. He sighed with longing as he imagined the ivy catching his siblings someday.
Catching. Not creeping—which is what the ivy was doing now.
Up the porch.
Up the house.
Slithering through the upstairs window.
“What are you doing?” Sal shouted.
The plant didn’t answer, of course.
But Sundae Problim did. She burst through the halfway-open door wearing a yellow smiley-face T-shirt, faded denim shorts, and her usual sparkly smile. “Problims, pile up!” she shouted. “Let’s play a game called ‘CLEAN THE HOUSE SPOTLESS’!”
And, with that, the house blew up.
BOOOOOOM!
The noise was so loud and sharp that it sounded as if someone had whacked the sky with an ax. Suddenly and quite efficiently, the entire bungalow began to fold inward like a deck of cards . . . a deck of cards with lots of glass and nails holding it together. Ivy snapped around Sal’s ankle and yanked him to the groun
d just as a shard of glass sailed past his face. More ivy snapped down around each Problim—boy, toddler, pig, Sundae—and yanked them in a quick streak across the garden, toward the shelter of the trees.
Toot squealed happily.
Sundae screamed with joy.
Ichabod orked!
Sal watched debris flying overhead—furniture legs, a pie pan, the lava lamp he’d just gotten from the dump—dang it—plus one wild-haired sister: Thea Problim. Her black curls billowed as she clawed the air. Their home, plus Sal’s beautiful garden, was now a rubble pile.
Toot clapped solemnly as if he’d just watched an interesting play. He straightened his bow tie and puffed a #17.2 He followed with another #4.
“What a riot!” Sundae shouted as she bounced up and brushed off her shorts.
A quivering voice drifted down from the trees above them where Wrangling Ivy held Thea Problim upside down by her ankle. “This is probably a good time to mention that something terrible is going to happen.”
Thursday’s Child
The world looks weirdly awesome upside down, Thea Problim decided. For seven seconds, she allowed herself to imagine a flip-flopped world—where people rode bicycles, square-danced, and wrestled alligators in the sky. Gosh, that’d be beautiful! But this—this mess all around her—was not beautiful. Sure, on most days, rubble piles were fabulous. But today, Thea knew it was the beginning of something rotten.
Everything is changing. Those words kept falling over Thea’s heart like a picnic blanket on a muddy field.
“I saw three sevens in the stars!” she shouted to her siblings. “And this morning, I saw three more of them!”
Sal groaned. “Not this again.”
“Is this a new game?” Sundae squealed, ignoring her sister. Despite the fact that they’d all just been in an explosion, Sundae’s voice sounded like wind chimes on a warm summer day. “Sal! Tooty-kins! Did you two kaboom the house? Tell me how to play!”
Sal wiped the dust out of his eyes. “Why would I kaboom the house and destroy my garden? And our human catapult?”
Sundae clapped her hands together, sending tiny puffs of dust around her face. “What a fun adventure!” She skipped back toward the rubble. “Problims! Pile up!”
“Fine. Don’t listen to me,” Thea sighed, dangling from above, watching her siblings run off. “Nobody ever does. Wait, Sal! Talk to your plant! Make it put me down! I need to find Wendell and tell him we’re doomed.”
Before Sal could respond, the ivy around Thea unspooled, sending her spiraling face-first into the mud. He scrambled to help her up. At nearly twelve, Thea was only two years younger than Sal but several inches taller. She looked over Sal’s shoulder and realized—for the first time—that their entire home really was a scrap pile of wood.
Three sevens, she thought.
What if something terrible happened to Wendell?
Thea ran for the rubble pile, hurdling chunks of roof, pots and pans, and pieces of furniture. Toot rode the pig beside her, a stick extended before him like a joust.
“Wendell!” Thea called. “Where are you?” Panic squeezed her heart.
Thump, bump. Thea sighed with relief.
Wendell was alive, at least, wherever he was. For as long as she could remember, Thea had heard the echo of her twin’s heartbeat after her own. Heartspeak, they called it. He’d been her best friend since the days they were born—seven pounds each, seven minutes apart. Wendell on a Wednesday. Thea on a Thursday.
Thea scampered squirrel-fast across the rubble, toward the corner of the house where she thought their bedroom used to be. She pressed her hand against her pounding chest.
I’m coming, she heartspoke. Twins for the win!
Thump, bump.
It’s okay, she felt him say. I’m cool.
A scrawny arm shot up from the debris waving an old, gray T-shirt like a flag, along with the muffled voice of Wendell. “Am I d-dreaming?”
Thea felt seven trillion times stronger than usual as she hurled a patch of roof out of the way, Sal and Sundae close behind to help. Strands of Wrangling Ivy had twined together in a canopy covering Wendell. He pushed through the vines, grabbed Thea’s arm, and climbed out.
“I was so afraid,” Thea said, throwing her arms around him.
“You’re always af-fraid,” Wendell said, his voice muffled against her shirt.
Thea pushed her brother at arm’s length so she could assess his appearance. Wendell’s glasses were twisted sideways on his face, which was typically how he wore them anyway. He had the same dark hair and dark eyes as his twin. But he also had a distinct reddish-purple birthmark on the right side of his face. The mark spread from underneath his eye to the middle of his cheek. He held a book in his arms like a teddy bear, cuddled tightly against his chest. He looked around . . . puzzled. And he simply said, “W-wow. Looks like we’re homeless now. What’s for breakfast?”
Before Thea could answer, Sal rushed past her, running for the leaning tower of chimney. “Hold on, Frida!”
A small, scrawny girl in jeans, suspenders, and a striped hoodie—complete with fox ears—gripped the brick pile. She wore an orange backpack strapped to her shoulders and a radiant smile on her face. She cheered as her siblings raced toward her. She shouted proudly:
“The fox survives!
The fox prevails!
Has anybody seen my tail?”
Thea reached for her little sister and pulled her into her arms for a hug.
“We might have to make you a new tail,” Thea said, kissing the top of Frida’s head. “Now let’s find Mona.”
“Oh, isn’t this sooo much fun?” Sundae cooed as she skipped up behind them. “It’s like a wonderful game of hide-and-seek!”
“You found me then.” The wind carried Mona’s voice from the woods. Just the sound of it made the hair on Thea’s neck go prickly stiff. Mona’s voice was as lovely as the rest of her; made for storytelling and song-sharing. But Mona’s family knew her voice was full of secrets. And plots. And evil, really.
“That explosion was marvelous,” Mona said as she flicked open a black umbrella to shield her pet Venus flytrap from fluttering scraps of debris. The pink flowerpot was nestled over Mona’s heart, in a baby sling that the family had originally bought for Toot. Even Sal, who loved plants, was creeped out by the flytrap’s frozen grin.
Mona smirked and looked at Sal. “Good job.”
“Why does everybody think it’s me?” Sal shouted. “Why would I kaboom the house and ruin my own garden?”
“Because you ruin everything,” Mona said.
Thea jumped between her siblings. “Please, guys! It scares me when you two—”
“You blew up my garden.” Sal glared at Mona.
Mona smiled sweetly. She fluttered her eyelashes. “Everything happens for a reason.”
“That’s the spirit, Mona!” Sundae cooed.
Sal pushed past Thea so he could yell in Mona’s face. And then Mona was shouting at him and Toot was riding the pig in circles (farting squirty-sounding #40s3) and Frida was climbing one of the tall trees, mumbling:
“Adventure on a whim;
Fox on a limb!”
Sundae was spinning in circles, singing a ridiculous song about joy and love while the ruins smoked behind her. Wendell sat, legs crossed, on the ground, reading his muddy book.
“Wendell,” Thea whispered, flopping down beside him. “Everybody’s acting so normal. But we have a serious predicament.”
Thump, bump. He shrugged. “It was just the house.”
“It’s not just the house . . . ,” Thea said.
But maybe that was part of it, she thought as she looked over the debris. Now their home was a heap of boards. A billow of smoke. How was that possible, Thea wondered. That one minute you could have a home, and the next minute your home was simply a swamp-heap of kaboom dust? She liked rubble, of course. The Problim children had kaboomed plenty of things in the past. But this time was different. This was their home. And
now it was . . .
Smooshed.
Squished.
Gone.
Everything was changing.
And this was only the beginning.
“We’re just h-homeless.” Wendell shrugged.
Homeless, Thea realized. What a lonely sounding word. And what if they couldn’t get in touch with their parents now? For the Problim family, few things were really emergency worthy. Sundae took care of them while their parents were gone on work adventures, and they all took care of one another and were unschooled together. But now the Help Phone was buried somewhere beneath the rubble.
And where would they sleep? Camping was fun for a while, but the wattabats liked to bite this time of year.
“It’s not the house,” she said, leaning closer to him. “I’m afraid something has happened . . . to Mom and Dad. I’m seeing sevens, Wendell. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell everyone. We haven’t heard from Mom and Dad in seven weeks—not by mail or email or phone or anything—and sevens are popping up everywhere!”
Thump, bump. Wendell closed the book in his lap and gave his sister his full attention now.
Because when you are a Problim and sevens start piling up, trouble’s headed in your direction.
A Sudden Splash of Purple
“And another seven appeared last night. You fell asleep with your shoes on and kicked them off the top bunk. I was sleeping on the floor. And one hit my head here, see?” Thea pointed to a tiny purple bruise above her eyebrow. “It’s a seven shape!”
“I’m s-sorry.” Wendell realized he was only wearing one red sneaker. “You’re sleeping on the floor again? Really, Thea? The bottom bunk isn’t low enough to the ground?”
“I prefer sleeping on the floor. Midge Lodestar says the best way to overcome a fear of heights is by keeping your head on the ground.”
Frida the Fox turned a cartwheel, plopping down beside them in the mud. “Who is Midge Lodestar?”
“My life coach,” Thea said happily.
Wendell shook his head. “She’s a DJ on the country classics channel on Dad’s old radio. Thea listens every night.”
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