“Whoa!” Wendell cleared his throat and shoved his crooked glasses up higher on his nose. He pointed to a passage in the book. “So it says h-here that dowsing rods are also known as w-water witches!”
“That’s a witch that could lead the way!”
“To what?” Sal asked. “The river is dried up. There’s an ocean, but we’ll never find the treasure if he threw it in the ocean.”
“Widows do watch the water,” Thea said as she rubbed Ichabod’s soft ears. “I asked Ms. Dorrie what she watched, and that was her answer. But if you stand on our widow’s watch, you wouldn’t see anything except the front yard and street. And the fountain. Of course if you look to the right, you’d see the O’Pinion house.”
“Well, if the rest of the sticks are hidden in there, we’re really sunk,” Sal said, flopping down in one of the old chairs in the room. On a typical Thursday night back at the swamp, they might tell stories, then slide down the bannisters, then stay up late and make midnight pancakes.
But this day was not typical. Their mood today was more solemn. They all knew what Desdemona had in mind for them. Even though the town was coming around to the Problim family, Desdemona O’Pinion would have them split apart and scattered all across the globe.
“I do think V-Violet was right on about the r-rainbow,” Wendell said. “And Thea’s right about the Theodora statue shining the right way. But how do we test that? We don’t even know the season Grandpa wrote these clues.”
Toot farted. A #104.26
“The s-sun shines at different angles in different seasons,” Wendell told him. “So maybe it was p-pointing to a clue in the library when Grandpa wrote that clue. But there’s no way we can know.”
“And that’d take too long to figure out,” Sal said.
Frida walked across the floor on her hands, saying:
“We do not have seasons in which to seek.
We don’t have months.
We don’t have weeks.”
The sound of sneakers barreling across the hallway made them all turn in unison toward the large doorway. Sundae rushed in with a sad look on her face . . . and a small bundle in her arms.
Sundae shook her head. “My letters all came back. And the others I’ve tried to send, via the Andorran government . . . they were returned,” Sundae said. And everyone was nervous, even Sundae, who never faltered, who wasn’t afraid to look Desdemona O’Pinion in the eye. Thea waited for her sister to put a positive spin on this, but it didn’t happen.
“I have a confession,” Sundae said. “I am beginning to worry. I’ve tried letters. I’ve tried email, but Andorra decided to have a technology-free season, so that was a bust. I can’t even get through with a phone. But nobody fret! I do have one other plan in place that I’m sure will work!”
“We’re doomed,” Thea said, sinking down into the old couch. “As soon as I saw the three sevens back at the bungalow. I tried to tell you—”
“Stop.” Sundae held up a shaky hand. “Don’t say what you were going to say. Say something wonderful instead.”
Thea shook her head. “I can’t. Because I don’t feel it.”
“Then say it until you feel it,” Sundae told her.
Thea closed her eyes. She imagined three sevens fluttering around in the garden of her imagination, bright butterflies with sunny-colored wings. “Something wonderful,” she whispered.
Frida pulled an aluminum foil crown from her hair and placed it on Thea’s head. She whispered:
“Wonderful,
lovely,
bright and true.
Marvelous things can happen too.”
Ork-ork. Ichabod brushed against her leg.
“Something wonderful.” Sundae hugged the letters to her heart. “Let’s keep believing that, all right? Grandpa left something wonderful for us to find. And Mom and Dad will come home.” She grinned. “Problems solved.”
Wendell nodded. “W-wonderful.”
“Wonderful,” Sal mumbled, staring at the dust-covered statue of Theodora Problim.
While her siblings continued to plot into the evening, Thea and Ichabod sat together in the Room of Constellations.
Twenty-one days was nearly up. Three sevens were at hand. There was no proof of their Problimness in the mansion, only three random bone-sticks that might lead somewhere. In the beginning, Thea had only half believed that something might separate them. Weeks ago, the Problim children were happy swamp rats. Now they were potential orphans.
Something wonderful . . . she kept reminding herself.
Something wonderful . . .
Maybe that’s what it takes to find a treasure, she thought. Just the bold, nearly silly belief that you actually can. Maybe true treasure hunters in the world weren’t just good at reading maps or piecing together a crazy grandpa’s crazier clues.
Maybe it had to do with believing the impossible, with seeing the world heart-first.
And Thea Problim was part of a legacy of people who saw more than what was there. “It is what it is,” she’d heard people say with resignation. But the Problim children had never believed that statement. For them, a problem was just a challenge. Things weren’t always as they seemed. Any situation has the potential to be better.
Something wonderful . . .
“Please come home.” Thea pointed a flashlight toward the ceiling and smiled at the sight. Someone—Grandfather?—had painted all those constellations of sparkling, silver stars. It had taken hours, probably. She pushed open the old window in the room, hoping to see the real stars that might have inspired him long ago. Although she was less afraid of heights now, her fear wasn’t totally gone. She took a shaky step back.
Storm clouds rumbled, low and deep over the city. The lights from homes in the Cove sparkled. The church bell chimed, signaling another day’s end. Those were good ways to mark time, Thea decided: stars and church bells and the colors of evening, rising above the shadow mountains. The call of a lark and the last wink of a setting sun. Those were good markers because they always came back; they continued. Good-bye was a terrible way to end a day. Because good-bye meant “The End.”
Thea moved a little closer to the open window. She knew that lots of girls might stand in that same spot and imagine they were princesses, looking out over their starry kingdoms. But Thea imagined she was a brave knight, a dazzling sword fighter with a horse named Moonbeam. She’d tame dragons and ride their backs. She’d find her parents—and whatever they were doing—and help keep them safe. She would bring them home.
“Thea?” Wendell whispered from the secret passage doorway.
Her heart settled at the sound of him approaching.
“Don’t the houses look pretty at n-night?” Wendell asked. He jumped up in the window seat and held out his hand.
She hesitated.
“Allergic to gravity,” she reminded him. “It’s always bringing me down!”
Wendell rolled his eyes. His hand remained extended. Something about her brother would always make her feel a little bit braver than she knew she could be.
“I can’t,” she told him. “You might not be able to keep me from falling.”
“T-trust me?” he asked.
Tentatively she climbed into the seat. A flimsy screen separated them from the night, the kind of screen with bug guts smooshed in the squares. But past the screen and the bug wings, their eyes adjusted to the darkness. And they could see for miles. She saw a dark patch she knew to be the Bagshaw Forest, where she’d explored last night. Where she’d met a new friend. That had been something wonderful, hadn’t it? Maybe wonderful wasn’t so far away . . .
A dark cloud peeled away from the sky, revealing the steady light of a wishing star. Wendell quoted, “Wishing star, I wish them home. . . .” He looked longingly at the night.
“Back to the place where they belong,” Thea added. And then she sighed. “We sound like Frida.”
“Didn’t Grandpa tell us a story about a w-wishing star?” Wendell asked.
&n
bsp; Thea squeezed her eyes shut and searched through her memories. “Yes! We were sitting together on the front porch of the bungalow. We were so tiny then, little enough to fall asleep on his shoulders. And he pointed to the brightest star. It was docked in the waves of one of those glory-glory sunsets. You know the kind I mean—where the clouds look like waves, rippled with pink and gold and darkest blue?”
Wendell nodded. “He told us that the wishing star was actually a b-boat.”
“Right! And that boat held a captain. And he said that the captain sailed the sky—always. Just fishing for wishing.”
Wendell smiled.
“Do you wish we could go back home?” Wendell asked. “Back to the Swampy Woods?”
“I loved it there,” Thea said. “But no, that’s not my wish. I want us all to stay together, always, exactly the way we are. I want us to have a thousand adventures. Together.”
Wendell sighed. They listened to the crickets chirp for a while. And then Thea added, “And sometimes . . .” She twisted her fingers together. “Maybe on our own. That’s nice too.”
Wendell nodded. His mouth quirked into the shadow of a grin. Wendell stuck out his fist. “Th-thump?” he asked softly.
“Bump,” she said with a smile as she bumped her hand against his. “I wish Mom and Dad would just come home.”
And she imagined the wish floating up and up, to the place where the captain of the wishing boat fished it from the skies.
“They will,” he assured her.
“We’re going to find the rest of the sticks,” she said. “And figure out where they lead.”
“I believe it. I believe in you too. Look at y-you! Up here in the w-window seat!”
“I feel brave when you’re around.” Thea shrugged.
“S-same here.”
Thump, bump.
A Way In
Later that day, Violet O’Pinion was still thinking about her new friends. She hadn’t had a chance to sneak and see them again—yet—but she kept them close to her heart. Violet sketched the Problim riddle into her favorite notebook, the one she usually reserved for drawing plants and butterflies and monuments around the world.
Mr. Biv will show the way,
Where widows watch is where he stays.
Nestled there inside the beast,
Is the first clue for which you seek . . .
She was listening to music too. Fun, wacky music that reminded her of the Problim children. She bopped her head and made more notes about the clues. She thought about treasure hunting and some kind of beast and other glorious things she’d never seen from her tower room. Biscuit hopped up in Violet’s lap and licked her chin. Violet paused long enough to scratch Biscuit’s fluffy ears and kiss her forehead.
So she did not hear the door open.
She didn’t notice anyone was in the room until she saw her aunt Desdemona’s shadow filling up her desk.
Violet slapped down her hand on the notebook, but it was too late. She only ripped off the corner of the page as Desdemona stole it away. Biscuit pounced up on the desk and growled, baring a row of tiny teeth.
“Interesting, this,” Desdemona said.
“It’s nothing,” Violet told her. “I was writing a story—”
“Sweet girls like you don’t lie, Violet.” Desdemona scanned the page, and it was as if each line she read pulled the smile across her face wider. Wolfish, almost.
“You are being cruel,” Violet whispered. She’d never talked back to her aunt before. But then, she barely spoke to her aunt at all.
Desdemona looked up over the page. She cocked her head to the side. “Excuse me?”
“You’re so mean to the Problims. They aren’t hurting you. They only need a place to live, and their parents are—”
“And how do you know all this? Did you leave your room, as you were specifically instructed never to do?”
Violet clamped her mouth shut.
Desdemona smiled. “I believe you did. And I think they told you all about the little treasure hunt they’re having in that grand old house. Tell you what, Miss Viii-olet.” Desdemona ripped the page from the book. “I’ll keep this. And in exchange, I won’t tell your father you’ve been sneaking out to spend time with the dangerous neighbors.”
“They’re not dangerous!”
Desdemona tossed the notebook back on Violet’s desk. “They are, Violet. And they were far too trusting. If they truly are Problims, they should know that Problims and O’Pinions have troubles. And those troubles go back farther than any of you could understand.”
“Which means they’re pointless,” Violet said. “And it’s time to get over it!”
“There is a treasure in that house, Violet. If not a treasure, there is a map there. Or a key or a legend or something that will lead to it. Frank Problim—that old rat—he took something from the town safe years ago. And that something was marvelous. A treasure that would make us wealthy beyond our wildest dreams. And not just wealthy . . . if it’s what I think it is, it could change everything.”
Violet had never seen such a dangerous gleam in her aunt’s eyes.
Desdemona held up the ripped page. “Can’t you feel it? Can’t you see that you want it too?”
Violet shook her head. “I only wanted to help them find it. I only want a friend.”
“Tsk.” Desdemona walked back to the stairs, her shadow stretching long behind her. “That’s unfortunate. Because once they know you gave me this, well . . . they won’t want to be your friends.”
A tear trembled in Violet’s eyes.
“Go back to your books and maps and dreaming, Violet,” Desdemona said, a menacing softness in her voice. “There’s nothing outside this world you need to be part of. Nothing a girl like you will ever need to see.”
As the door shut, Violet gulped deep breaths of purified air—all she’d ever get to breathe. Biscuit barked twice at the door, growled a last time, and then pounced back into Violet’s lap. Violet held Biscuit close; her tears matted the dog’s fur. But Biscuit didn’t mind. Dogs never do. That’s what fur is for, Biscuit would have said, if she had a voice. She didn’t, of course. But until the Problims had come into her life, Biscuit was the only one who’d looked at Violet like she wasn’t a freak. She’d looked at her like she loved her.
“I love you too,” she sniffled.
Violet stood and looked at the maps on her walls. England. An African desert. Coastlines and causeways and mountains with jagged, toothlike edges.
She noticed her own shadow, so small there against the wall of maps. And she wondered if that was as close as she’d ever get to the places she longed to go.
Desdemona hadn’t even considered Violet would be so helpful in cracking the search for the Problim treasure. Had she known, she would have sent the child sooner. Violet! Calm, quiet, obedient Violet had snuck out of the house. And infiltrated the enemy home.
And uncovered this marvelous riddle. Where had the children found it? Not that it mattered now. What mattered was that she had it.
Desdemona walked into her office and turned on the lamp, holding the paper underneath as if she’d find some sort of invisible markings on it. She’d never been good with riddles. And that old geezer had loved them so. She’d never known a man named Mr. Biv. And where widows watch? How many widows were in town? And what would they watch? Where would the widows watch whatever widows watch? Should she check the retirement home? This was entirely too complicated and time-consuming for her. She needed to get back inside that house.
Sometimes, Desdemona decided, when you want a thing . . . when you really want a thing . . . you must be ruthless to get it.
But how to get them out?
Even Mrs. Timberwhiff was warming to the Problim children. She’d started that petition—at Desdemona’s insistence—but had put it away after the frilly-silly birthday party that Sundae Problim decided to throw. Granted, the neighbors still thought the Problims were odd. Total freaks. But Desdemona could tell they were warming
to them. Even the donut sisters! Just the other day, Bertha had jogged past the house eating one of those terrifying organic skull-shaped cookies the kids baked.
No, the neighbors would be of no help.
Desdemona looked down at the paper again, and she noticed Violet’s drawings up and down the sides. She’d drawn the Problim family—and Violet had drawn them well. Sundae was small and smiley. The rest looked like dark-haired vampires.
Except . . . the pig. That stupid, smelly pig.
(Actually, Desdemona thought, the pig didn’t seem to stink that much. But in general, pigs were terrible creatures.)
She’d seen them all with the pig at various times. She’d seen the baby fall asleep at the birthday party, hugging the pig like it was a sweet, fluffy teddy bear.
Ichabod, they called it.
“To solve this problem,” she assured herself, “I must be ruthless.”
And she hatched a plan to get the Problims out of the house. Out of the house and into a dangerous situation that the Society for the Protection of Unwanted Children would actually see. The Problim children seemed parentless. They were wild delinquents, trying to take care of each other without having real schooling.
The Society needed to see that. Once they did, they’d ship the Problims off to other families—far, far away from Lost Cove. And then, finally, the Problim family would be gone for good.
Mr. Biv Shows the Way
“I don’t know why you care if the house is clean,” Sal said to Sundae as he grudgingly carried a basket of cleaning supplies down the spiral stairs. “We’re going to lose it anyway to that troll next door if we don’t leave. I think it’s time we jump ship. Go hide in the swamp until Mom and Dad get back.”
“Nice try,” Sundae said. “You still have to clean it.”
“Have you heard from Mom and Dad?” Sal asked.
“Not yet. But I will. I have a backup plan that’s foolproof. Plan Feline, I call it.”
“We’re out of time, Sundae! We have a day left. One day! Whatever Plan Feline is, it needs to happen now.”
The Problim Children Page 13