The Problim Children

by Natalie Lloyd

  “Preparation is everything,” Sundae said, and she headed for another room while Sal grudgingly polished the statue collection in the library.

  He attached a dust cloth to the long, grabbing stick he kept attached to his upper arm. But gah, the books. Those would take forever to dust. Wendell had already pulled each book from the shelf and hugged it, introduced himself, and then put it back as gently as if it were a sleeping dragon snapper. Sal decided that was the same as dusting.

  So he returned his attention to cleaning the statues; Theodora Problim, in particular. He gave the lantern a quick swipe with his dust rag and then moved on to the next room. He didn’t notice the way the sun hit the lantern just right, illuminating again a fine, rainbow line . . .

  Toot waddled around on the marble floors of the foyer. His plans for the day were to teach Ichabod how to fetch, then take a nap, then eat, then play with the pig again.

  Ichabod slowly waddled over with the yellow tennis ball Toot had tossed. Toot kissed the pig’s snout, then patted its head.

  Ichabod snorted suddenly and hopped backward.

  Toot turned around so quickly that he flopped down on the floor . . . just in time to see Carley-Rue O’Pinion sneak past the window.

  Using Ichabod for balance, Toot stood up again and popped a #6.27

  Mona came running into the room, ponytail swishing behind her. “Hello, Toot. I’ve built a human cannon, and you’re the perfect size for my test launch. Are you busy?”

  Her nose wrinkled. “Oh no.”

  Toot reached for her with grabby hands, and she pulled him into her arms. He pointed to the window, and she ran for the front door, opening it to look around. Carley-Rue’s crown sparkled in the sun.

  “Ooh,” Mona cooed happily. “It’s the Hot Dog Queen.”

  At the sight of Mona, Carley-Rue squealed. And ran.

  “Stay here, Toot.” Mona sat him down quickly and took off in a sprint after Carley-Rue.

  Toot grinned and clapped. Carley-Rue would never outrun Mona. And definitely never outplot her. Whatever Carley-Rue was doing, her evil plan had been thwarted.

  Then, from the foyer, Toot heard a voice say, “Come here, piggy, piggy . . .”

  He turned around in time to see Ichabod lunge for a Cheeto that Desdemona was holding. Once the pig was close enough, she snatched him and ran. Toot waddled after her as fast as he could, chin trembling, popping a series of distress farts all the way to the spiral stairs.

  Toot Problim was probably the bravest of all his brothers and sisters. Only time would tell, of course. But he never looked back, even when help didn’t come. He followed Desdemona up the stairs, tottering and crawling up, up, toward the attic . . . the room Sal told him to stay away from at all costs. Toot would protect Ichabod.

  Wendell and Thea sat crisscross on the floor of the library, poring over the purple book.

  Sal plopped down beside them. “Find anything helpful?”

  “Wendell might be onto something,” Thea said.

  “You’ve heard of the f-four elements?” Wendell explained. “Fire, water, earth, air?”

  “Of course,” Sal said.

  “So, this book says ancient civilizations th-thought there were actually three more. Seven total. The sun, the moon, and metal. Gold, in p-particular. Like treasure!”

  Sal shrugged. “Desdemona O’pinion doesn’t look like someone who gives a hoot about ancient civilizations. Or modern ones, even.”

  Wendell pushed his crooked glasses higher on his nose. “Here’s s-something interesting. Some civilizations believe that these elements are connected to the days of the week. That a person is naturally drawn to whatever element represents the day they were b-born on.”

  “That sounds pretty hokey,” Sal said. He pulled duct tape from his belt and reached over to repair the book’s spine.

  “And y-yet.” Wendell smiled, flipping gently through the pages of the book. “Saturday—your day—has to do with the earth. Someone connected to the earth can make it produce things, make it d-do things. Like you can. Until we moved here to Lost Cove, I thought fog m-monsters were common. But they aren’t.”

  Sal leaned closer. “But there are lots of other people born on a Saturday. So why couldn’t they do the same thing?”

  “We thought about that!” Thea answered. “They probably can do it, at least a little bit. But do you remember how Mama always said we were a perfect seven? The scroll Grandpa left in the squirrel read where seven seek, a treasure waits. Not just one person—but all of us. And he told us to always remember our birthday rhyme! So maybe we are able to do . . . special things because we’re together?”

  “C-consider this,” Wendell said. “Who can open any lock?”

  Sal pointed to Thea as she raised her hand.

  “Metal!” Wendell said, pointing to the book. “Metal is the element for someone born on a Th-Thursday.”

  “And Wendell’s element,” Sal murmured as he flipped through the pages. “Water?”

  “Apparently.” Wendell shrugged. And shivered. “Which is strange, because I dream about water all the time. Sometimes in a g-good way! And sometimes I dream that the house is f-flooding or that we’re stuck in a r-raging river or something . . .”

  “Fine,” Sal said. “But why does Desdemona O’Pinion care?”

  “She cares,” Thea explained, “because together, we can do anything. Maybe even find a treasure. I think she knows exactly what Grandpa hid. And she knows we can find it.”

  “Wait!” Sal turned the page to a full-color illustration. “I’ve seen this before. Follow me!”

  Sal found a tall ladder and carried it to the foyer. He climbed to the only window he’d never gotten around to removing the boards from—the circular, pie-piece window. He pulled his crowbar from his sleeve and began to pry the nails loose.

  The first board fell off, and a bright beam of light reached through the glass.

  “Purple,” she said, blinking at the purple pie-shaped wedge of window Sal had uncovered. On the window was a symbol that caught her eye: an ocean wave.

  “Whoa!” she and Wendell declared at the same time, staring down at the book. That same symbol was illustrated on the page.

  “This window looks like a stained-glass pizza full of those same symbols,” Sal said, jumping back to the ground and racing toward them.

  The sun drifted across the floor, into the library, all the way to Theodora Problim’s statue. But this time, it did not end there. It shone against her newly polished mirrored lantern and bounced off the far wall, creating a zigzag rainbow beam of light to the chandelier and out the window.

  The rainbow path bounced off the purple-tailed squirrel, which sat in a tree outside.

  Mr. Biv will show the way.

  Few things were more frustrating to Sal than being so close to an answer—dancing all around it—and still not knowing what to do.

  “Look!” Thea yelled as she noticed the rainbow pathway. She ran to the window and pushed it open to lean outside. She needed to see the Porch of Certain Death from underneath. Sal leaned over beside her, his tools pressing into his arms as he did.

  “We’ve looked up there,” Sal said. “Wendell and I climbed up and rappelled down this house.”

  “Where widows watch,” Thea said. Not what the widows watch. Where they watch. On the Porch of Certain Death!”

  “Problims, pile up!” Thea yelled, shoving away from the window.

  Footsteps bounded down the stairs.

  “The treasure is on the Porch of Certain Death!” Thea yelled as her siblings ran into the room.

  Sal scratched his head. “It’s a bunch of rotten boards and rails. The only things up there are Beethoven and Leroy—the gargoyles Wendell and I decorated for the birthday party.”

  Wendell thought for a moment. “The clue says that the treasure is inside the monster’s beak! I didn’t l-look at them very closely. Treasures are all different sizes, right? What if it’s inside one of them?”

 
; “So we need to climb up there and explode some statues?” Sal said.

  Wendell shook his head excitedly. And then they all cheered. Climbing! Explosions! That sounded like a perfect Problim day!

  And then . . . they all fell silent. Because they smelled a #1.28 A distress fart.

  The odor was coming from somewhere up above them. Far above them. From the general direction of the Porch of Certain Death.

  Toot’s Watch

  Sundae leaned out the window, stretching so far that Frida grabbed on to her ankles so she wouldn’t fall out. Sundae swiveled around, looking up at the porch. The boards heaved and splintered slowly as a baby crawled over the top. “Oh no! Tooty-kins! TOOT! What are you doing up there?”

  “Toot’s up there?” Sal squeezed out beside her. “How did he get up into the attic?”

  Sundae didn’t answer. She was too busy running for the stairs to get to him. “He’s on the Porch of Certain Death, Sal! He’ll fall right through!”

  Sal and Frida followed her.

  “I’ll go down below in case he falls, so I can catch him!” Wendell yelled, thundering down the stairs. “S-stay there, Thea! So we’ll have someone in the middle.”

  “Don’t crawl, Toot!” Thea yelled from the window. “Just STOP!” But Toot was focused on something, crawling faster over the boards. She could hear the boards popping, even under her baby brother’s slight weight. She realized he wasn’t alone up there when she heard something ork-orking anxiously.

  So Thea did not hesitate.

  She stood on the window seat. She reached for the rope Wendell used to rappel from that old house. She felt gravity pulling her toward the ground. But her fear of falling from a high place was replaced by the greatest fear of all: seeing one of her siblings hurt. Fear wasn’t holding her back now. It was giving her the push she needed to go.

  Or maybe it wasn’t fear pushing her. Maybe it was love. Maybe her love for Toot was big enough to squish out her fear of anything else.

  Thea wrapped the rope around her waist and climbed out the window. She pressed her feet against the side of the house as she’d seen her brothers do, and climbed upward as fast as she could. Maybe she had finally conquered her fear of heights for good!

  . . . And then she made the mistake of looking down. This looked exactly like the scene in her dreams. Falling, falling with no one beside her, and no one to hold on to her. Dizziness overwhelmed her. The edges of her vision became fuzzy.

  Her feet slid.

  She gripped the rope tightly as her body smacked against the wall.

  The boards of the Porch of Certain Death wheezed above her as Toot moved across them.

  “Stop crawling, Toot!” she yelled.

  Her feet were making bicycle circles in the air. Maybe this moment was the terrible-awful thing she knew was bound to happen. Her baby brother—and Ichabod—were about to fall through the Porch of Certain Death. She was dangling from a rope. Her parents were missing. The Society for the Protection of Unwanted Children would be coming for them, and soon. She was alone. Gripping the rope, Thea tried to think of some quote from Midge Lodestar’s show that would give her courage. But then:

  Thump, bump. I believe in you.

  Her eyes blinked open and looked down again. Wendell was standing below, watching her, with his hand over his heart.

  Thump, bump.

  “I can’t be fearless,” she whispered.

  You’re better than fearless, Wendell thought. You’re brave. Keep climbing! You don’t have far to go.

  Thursday’s child has far to go. What if “far to go” didn’t mean she was always trying to catch up with everyone else?

  What if it meant she could go anywhere she wanted? What if it meant she was limitless?

  “Thursday’s child . . . ,” she said, gripping the rope, “is brave and courageous.” Her feet found the wall again. “Every day is a good day for a taco!”

  That was the best part of having such a huge family: you were loved by all those crazy hearts. And you’re never alone when you’re loved. For them, she would be brave. She was brave. And she scampered up the side of the Problim mansion even faster than a robo-squirrel. “Toot! Hold on! I’m on my way!”

  She set her eyes on the widow’s watch, on her baby brother crawling there and the pig trembling on the edge. Her arms burned as she pulled on the rope.

  “Thea?” Sundae yelled for her. She was still tiptoeing across the support beams in the attic. “Is that you?”

  “Don’t walk out here!” Thea said. “It’ll crumble under your weight! I’ve almost got him.”

  Suddenly Sal and Frida appeared on the roof, standing on the gable. Sal was lassoing a long rope of Wrangling Ivy, his eyes on Toot, who was just out of reach.

  “I’ve got Toot!” Thea called.

  Frida shouted:

  “Yes, yes!

  We see!

  The baby’s fine!

  Fear not, dear sister!

  We’ll get the swine!”

  Wendell’s voice rose from the ground again. He shouted, “Thea Problim! I b-believe in you!”

  “I believe in me too,” she whispered.

  One hand in front of the other, Thea finally climbed up beside the Porch of Certain Death. Toot reached out his arms, and she snatched him close, hugging him tightly. Sal and his Wrangling Ivy retrieved the trembling Ichabod . . . just as the board the pig had been trembling on cracked loose from the house and crashed to the ground.

  “Move, Wendell!” Thea yelled.

  Fortunately, her twin had enough sense on his own to do just that.

  Thea sighed. Toot was a stinky bundle of snuggles whose arms were almost choking Thea. She nearly cried in relief.

  Sal yelled from above her, “You can just rappel down the house now, if you feel okay doing that. Rope’s secure. Wendell installed it.”

  Thea nodded. She was about to go, when she noticed the googly-eyed gargoyle, Leroy. The one Sal and Wendell had decorated for the party. One of the eyes slid sideways to reveal a strange shine. Thea’s heart fizzed with hope.

  “Love you, stink pot,” she said, kissing the baby on the head and passing Toot through the window to Sundae.

  Sundae smiled. “Well, how’s that for a fun afternoon, Tooty-kins?”

  Thea used her body’s momentum to swing back toward the porch, where she scaled the wall sideways toward Leroy. The gargoyle still had on the googly-eyed glasses from the party. She grabbed its neck with one arm and pulled them off. But there was nothing beneath; the sparkle she’d seen was just in the stone itself.

  Look again, she could hear her mother whispering. Look heart-first.

  There was more there than what she was seeing. She could feel it. There inside the monster’s beak . . .

  There was nothing in that gargoyle’s mouth, so she shimmied to the other side.

  “What are you doing?” Sal called.

  There! She saw something sparkle, shiny as a wishing penny. She wiped the caked dirt and mud away from the gargoyle’s mouth and dislodged a small silver tube. And there was something else behind it, something long and twiggy and wrapped in velvet.

  Toot squealed from the window. Ichabod orked safely beside him.

  “We got it together,” she said to Toot. “You found the treasure, Toot! Or . . . whatever this is.”

  He smiled proudly and popped a celebratory #115.29 And he reached for her.

  “You want to ride down with me?”

  Toot applauded.

  She reached for him and held on tight. Together, they rappelled down to the grassy world below.

  This time Thea didn’t look up or down, she looked all around her.

  Toot giggled as Thea pointed out the mountains in the distance. They saw fog rising from the Bagshaw Forest. She’d been in there, she realized. And she couldn’t wait to explore more of it.

  Thursday’s child could do that. Thursday’s child could go anywhere.

  Adventure had snagged her heart, and now she’d never s
ettle for less. She would always be afraid of something. But she would always be courageous too. A warm wind blew gently over her forehead, and she laughed, imagining it was a fuzzy-mustache kiss from Grandpa Problim. Make your life the best story you’ll ever tell. He would be so proud of her.

  My bold adventurers—that’s what he always called Problim children. My daring dreamers.

  Thea and Toot touched down to the ground, into the waiting arms of their siblings.

  And just as they locked tight in a hug, Toot tooted a terrified #6.30

  Desdemona O’Pinion, the mayor, and seven men and women in wrinkly black suits came marching around the house.

  Sal’s voice trembled. “See those badges they’re wearing?” he whispered. “That’s the Society for the Protection of Unwanted Children.”

  The mayor was arguing at every step. “Give the parents another day or two! Who came up with this twenty-one-day rule anyway? The children aren’t hurting anyone.”

  “They’re a danger to the neighborhood and quite obviously to themselves. Look up there!” Desdemona pointed to where the widow’s watch used to be . . . but she seemed surprised to see it crumbled to the grass. She was even more shocked to see the Problim family all together, safe on the ground.

  “You’re behind this,” Sal said, standing in front of his family. “You put Ichabod on the walk so Toot would crawl out after him!”

  Desdemona ignored him. “As you can see from the state of things, this is no home for children. Especially these children. They’re drifters. They’re poor. They have no money, no propriety, no manners . . .”

  “Excuse you,” Sundae said exasperatedly.

  Toot puffed a #47.31

  “See,” Desdemona said proudly. Her voice rose steadily. “They’re liars, orphans. They have no parents. Look at the knives on that boy’s arms!”

  “They’re gardening tools!” Sal shouted. He pulled off his faithful pruning shears and demonstrated.

  Desdemona snarled. “They’ve been parading as a rich old man’s kinfolk so they can have his house, but it’s not theirs to have anymore. It’s day twenty-one, and they’re as orphaned as they were on the day they came. They are unwanted.”