The Problim Children

by Natalie Lloyd

  “You should listen,” Thea told him. “Midge even has a mantra for when she’s afraid. She says, when you’re fearful, you take a deep breath, release it slowly and say: Every day is a good day for a taco.”

  Frida nodded. “Brilliant.”

  Wendell shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “It does to me! I think of tacos and I’m less afraid. A little bit. Maybe.”

  Thea Problim had loads of phobias. But the kind of fear that overwhelmed her when her parents were gone on a mission—that was the worst. She was afraid to say it out loud, even. Because what if saying a terrible thing gave it power somehow—sealed it like a bad wish bound to come true?

  “They’re always c-careful,” Wendell said softly.

  “Careful and safe aren’t the same thing.”

  “Problims!” Sundae chirped, clapping her hands. “Let’s focus. Explosions are nature’s way of telling us to start over. So let’s make the best of this! We should rebuild the house, right? We can probably have it finished before Mom and Dad get home. How hard can it be?”

  At exactly that moment, the post that had been holding up the front porch crashed to the ground.

  Sundae beamed. “We get to start completely from scratch!”

  Sal was already scaling the rubble, taking measurements in his mind. “It’s blown to bits.” He pulled a tape measure from his tool belt and slid it across the broken boards. “It could take years to reframe it.”

  “Too bad you didn’t think of that before you destroyed it,” Mona mumbled.

  “I didn’t do this,” Sal shouted. “YOU did!”

  Mona flicked her hair behind her shoulder, and added softly, “Things happen. There is always a cause. And an effect.”

  “No matter!” Sundae added, with a whistle to get everyone’s attention. “It’s done! What’s the family motto?”

  Toot clapped and trumpeted a splattery-sounding #211.4

  Frida leaped to attention, raised her hand in the air and said:

  “The baby flatulates!

  The fox translates:

  Fart loudly and proudly and be brave and courageous!”

  “That is Toot’s motto.” Sundae patted his shoulder. “The family motto is: every Problim is a gift!”

  “Sundae,” Sal said as he tried to salvage his plants from underneath the rubble, “you’re giving me a happiness headache.”

  Before Thea could chime in, a strange sight caught her eye—a swoosh of purple scurrying low to the ground.

  Flickering through the fog.

  Skirting along the rubble.

  Bouncing on a window frame.

  Thea squeezed her eyes shut tight. Maybe seeing an implosion had the same effect on her mind as staring at the sun too long—maybe she was seeing blur-spots of light. But when she blinked her eyes open wide . . . she saw purple. Again!

  Thea elbowed Wendell and pointed.

  Thump, bump. He’d seen it too.

  Weirder still, Thea heard a melody—a faint and twinkling kind of tune, like the faraway sound of a music box.

  There is nothing in the world—no box, no safe, no diary—that keeps a memory as well hidden as a song. So Thea’s heart ballooned full of all kinds of feelings: excitement and sadness and wonder. That song had unlocked the edge of a memory that she could almost grasp. Almost . . .

  Tell me a tale worth telling back. The lyric drifted across her mind. Thea gasped softly and looked at Wendell.

  His eyes were wide and extra big behind his glasses. Those eyes were glossed over with a faraway, dreamy look, the kind of look you get when you think about birthdays and snow days and people you love. He was remembering too.

  Thea leaned in and whispered, “You hear the music?”

  Wendell nodded.

  “Where’s it from?” she whispered, stepping closer to the rubble, following that strange, familiar song.

  “Careful,” Wendell called out. “You’re not w-wearing shoes.”

  Thea paused; she didn’t need to go farther anyway. She saw it clearly: the purple swoosh was actually a fluffy purple tail belonging to a squirrel. A silver squirrel. A squirrel that looked more like a tiny robot than an animal.

  The Swampy Woods were full of wondrous creatures. But she’d never seen anything like this.

  Her heart soared. “Hi,” she said softly.

  The squirrel regarded her quite calmly, tilting its head. Studying her. Thea saw a strange sparkle in one of the squirrel’s eyes, a special gleam, like the kind of light that shimmers from twinkling stars, or from shiny ribbons on a Christmas present.

  “I’ve got it!” Sundae shouted.

  And with a flick of its tail, the squirrel—or whatever it was—ran away.

  Sundae squealed and clapped her hands. “I know the answer to our problems, Problims! Find shovels, rakes, anything that can help us dig!” Sundae hoisted Toot up on her hip.

  Mona beamed. “Are we burying someone? I vote Sal.”

  “No,” Sundae said. “But I do know the answer to this problem. And it’s buried on Oak Tree Hill.”

  Sir Frank’s Metal Lunch Box

  Each time Wendell Problim’s shovel hit the ground he thought about pancakes.

  Blueberry pancakes. Thunk.

  Apple-cranberry-compote pancakes. Thunk.

  The Problim family loved eating pancakes, and Wendell loved making them. That had been his plan that morning. He’d had the most wonderful dream about water. Again. This time he was surfing. Balanced on a wild, foamy wave, he crept higher and higher and . . .

  Then he woke up. He thought about equally exciting endeavors—breakfast!—and then the ceiling had collapsed in his face.

  “This is like d-digging through chocolate ice cream to get to a dark-chocolate c-cookie,” he said. “I h-hope the end result is just as w-wonderful.” Wendell wiped sweat from his forehead. “What exactly are we looking for, Sundae? S-Sundae?”

  Frida stood in a mud hole, pretending to be a weeping willow. She pointed to the treetop and shouted:

  “Problims beware! Sundae’s up there!”

  Toot clapped and squealed. He puffed a #97.5

  Sundae had kicked her sneakers off to climb the oak tree barefoot. (Sundae had especially grippy toes, which made tree climbing extra fun.) She was nearly to the top now. She blew a stray piece of blond hair away from her face as she stretched her arm long, reached up, and pulled herself to a higher branch. “You can stop digging, actually,” she said brightly. “I did bury something down there seven years ago . . . but I just remembered that I moved it. I was afraid Ichabod would dig it up looking for truffles.”

  The pig orked as if offended by such a comment.

  Sundae carefully swung to a thicker branch nearby and tossed an old metal lunch box down into Wendell’s waiting arms.

  Sal poked it with his trowel. “This is not the kind of treasure chest I pictured.”

  Frida leaped from the mudhole and twirled toward the treasure box, singing:

  “Sundae’s treasure in a box!

  Sundae’s treasure for a fox—WAAAH!”

  Thea reached out and snatched Frida’s arm just before she fell into the heart-shaped hole Sundae had dug earlier.

  “Problims, pile up!” Sundae shouted as she jumped onto the ground.

  The siblings plopped down in a tight circle, knees touching. Ichabod took his place beside Sal. And then Sundae took a particular kind of deep breath.

  A storytelling breath.

  “There’s a deed inside this lunch box,” Sundae began. “A deed for . . . a house!”

  Sal held the box up to inspect it. “Well that’s certainly convenient. And you’re just now mentioning this? That you just happen to have buried a deed to a house?”

  “It’s not just any house,” Sundae said. “It’s the grand and glorious mansion belonging to . . .” She smiled sheepishly. “Frank Problim.”

  At the sound of this name, a heavy sadness settled over the Problim children.

 
Because the name Frank Problim made them feel all sorts of things:

  sadness and joy,

  and longing,

  and even betrayal (just a little bit),

  and a hollow kind of missing too;

  that feeling most of all.

  Wendell reached for his book and hugged it against his chest like a story-shield.

  Thump, bump.

  Thea leaned in a little closer to her twin.

  Sal tossed his shovel down on the muddy ground. “Who cares about his dumb old house?”

  “I do,” Thea replied softly. “If it belonged to Grandpa, I care.”

  Wendell cared too. But the words were stuck in his throat, like they always were when he felt too much. Still, he nodded.

  Grandpa. Mysterious and funny and kind and wild; gosh, he missed Grandpa Problim.

  Sal glared at the lunch box as if it held a thousand biting wattabats. “I don’t care about his house,” Sal said. “I don’t care about anything he has. Had, I mean.”

  Toot raised his eyebrows and popped a subtle #104.6

  “Grandpa used to visit us sometimes, here in the swamp,” Sal informed him. “But then he left without saying good-bye. He never came back. Why’d he give this to you, Sundae?”

  Sundae shrugged. “Because I’m the oldest, maybe? He was frantic that last day and told me to hide this. To tell no one where it was. Not even Mom and Dad. ‘When you come to an ending that surprises you,’ he said, ‘this will help you find a new beginning.’ And it’s happened, hasn’t it? We definitely need a new beginning! Or a safe place to live, at least.”

  Safe. Thea liked that word. Wendell could feel her tension fizzling like soda bubbles.

  Sundae wrung her hands together as she concentrated. “Grandpa said this was a treasure, so it just seemed right to bury the whole thing. And I could tell by the look on his face that it mattered so much to him.”

  Toot puffed another #104, obviously wondering why Grandpa left.

  Wendell wondered the same. Why had Grandpa left? He didn’t know. His parents didn’t talk about it. And why had Grandpa only visited them? Why did they never go visit Grandpa in his marvelous old mansion? Lost Cove wasn’t that far away.

  Before he could ask, Sundae said, “Mom and Dad wanted us raised here. And Grandpa agreed; there’s no better place for creative thinkers than the Swampy Woods. We mind our own business! We solve our own problems! I always thought we wouldn’t move on until our unschooling was complete.” She shrugged. “But maybe it’s time to move on now. Maybe Grandpa knew.”

  “Move on . . .” Sal drawled the words slowly. “You want to move into his house? In Lost Cove?”

  Sundae beamed. “That’s a great idea, Sal!”

  “I wasn’t suggesting it!” Sal shouted.

  Sundae hugged the box close. “Grandpa Problim was a good man, as wonderful as the best memory. He was an inventor, a storyteller, and a daring explorer. And he adored riddles! Imagine how fun his house will be! He was probably getting it ready just for us!”

  Frida raised her hand and asked:

  “When Grandpa Problim went away,

  is the great forever where he stayed?”

  “Heaven, you mean?” Sundae asked.

  Frida nodded.

  The children were silent. They looked to Sundae.

  “Nobody knows,” Sundae said sadly. “He disappeared on a daring adventure. He was knighted by the Queen of Andorra, just like Mom and Dad! Did you know that? Sir Frank Problim! He sent a few postcards, but then he . . . vanished.”

  Thea gasped softly. “How do people just vanish?”

  Wendell didn’t need to read her heart to know what she was thinking.

  Was Grandpa’s adventure similar to the perilous adventure their parents were on now?

  Could they vanish too? Sevens were all around them, after all.

  Thump, bump. Try not to worry, Wendell heartspoke. And he reached for the box to try to change the topic. “Let’s o-open it. It sounds like more than just a deed in th-there! He said treasure, right?” Wendell shook it fiercely. He pried at it with his fingernails.

  “Just give it to Thea,” Sal said. “She can open anything.”

  “I am good with locks,” Thea said.

  Safe in Thea’s hands, the lid clicked open as gently as a music box. It was as if all she had to do was touch the thing—as if the box had been waiting for her.

  The Problims crowded in close to see what was inside.

  An old piece of paper—the deed, no doubt—lay on top of a pile of fabric. It was folded securely and curled at the edges. Sundae placed the paper in her lap and scanned the words. Then she reached in for the fabric—an old handkerchief, with some kind of long object inside it. She unwrapped it carefully.

  Mona’s eyes brightened. “Is that a bone? Was Grandfather Problim a cannibal?”

  Toot puffed a #200.7

  “It’s not a bone, moron,” Sal said, reaching for it. “It looks plantlike . . . but it’s weirdly heavy.”

  The object looked a bit like a stick, Wendell thought. A bone-stick. It was the color of bone, at least. About as long as a pointer finger, with the width of a pencil. But the bone-stick had considerable weight to it. It had been severed at the edges, and it looked gold on the ends.

  Thea carefully wrapped it back in the handkerchief. “It’s important, if it’s in there. We need to keep it safe.” She reached in for the final item, a small pouch tied in a ribbon. Attached to the ribbon was a note:

  For Sal,

  A wise man who sets the world to blooming.

  The chain pouring into Sal’s hand held a tiny brass key.

  “Does that mean anything to you?” Thea asked hopefully.

  “Nope.” Sal shrugged. “I’m telling you, Grandpa lost his mind there at the end. He probably didn’t even mean to give it to me.” Sal traced a finger gently over Grandpa Problim’s handwriting. He shoved the chain into his pocket.

  “Let’s take all this with us to his house,” Sundae said, putting the bone-stick back in the box and snapping it shut.

  Toot patted Sundae’s knee and puffed a #35.8

  “Yes!” Sundae shouted. “Ears up, buttercups! Adventure is afoot! Let’s head for Lost Cove!”

  “Is anybody listening to me?” Sal asked them. “Lost Cove is a terrible place. Grandfather ran out on them seven years ago for some reason.” He glared at Sundae. She beamed back at him.

  “Sal,” Sundae warned. This time her voice wasn’t a happy chirp; it was filled with an edge her siblings rarely heard. Wendell glanced at his twin, to see if she’d noticed too. Thump, bump. Of course she had.

  Sal and Sundae were keeping secrets.

  “We’re going,” Sundae said, her voice firm but cheery. “There’s no way to get in touch with Mom and Dad until I find a phone or internet. Or a very talented carrier pigeon. But here,” she pointed to the metal box, “we have a deed . . .”

  “And a booone,” Mona cooed happily.

  “Problims! Let’s play a game! Rummage through the rubble, collect everything that might be useful, anything we can take along with us! And, Wendell-Thea, you’ll need to find some shoes.”

  “Maybe f-fear is like a wild onion blooming in the swamp,” Wendell ruminated to his twin, as they skimmed the rubble for goods.

  “ . . . huh?”

  “M-maybe if you could peel back all these layers of your fear, and anxiety, and worry . . . you might f-find a good f-feeling too. Like exc-citement. I’m excited, deep down. Aren’t you? Just a little bit?”

  Thea shrugged. “I’m mostly just afraid.”

  Everyone is afraid of something, after all.

  This was especially true in the town of Lost Cove.

  Because the people there were still afraid of the same thing: the Problim family.

  Seven Miles Away (Is Far for a Squirrel)

  The purple-tailed squirrel watched the Problim children from the prickly branches of an evergreen. Then the squirrel knew it was time t
o head out. (Sometimes people are afraid to have big adventures. But this is never, ever true of a squirrel.) The squirrel jumped. Airborne on a warm gust of wind, arms stretched wide, it landed with a soft thump a few trees down. And then it bounced from treetop to treetop, farther and farther away from the Swampy Woods.

  Seven miles away, to be exact.

  Lost Cove was a tiny nook of a town near the Carolina coastline, bordered by tall forests on two sides (full of excellent jumping trees!), and curved inward on the edge so the sea could cuddle close. A silver river used to snake around the town border, but the river had dried up years ago (for reasons no man or squirrel likes to talk about). Now all that was left was a rocky ravine, cutting through the land like a scar.

  Soon the squirrel saw a familiar horizon ahead: a skyline zigzagged with church spires, old barns, and crumbling buildings (all fine places to rest if you’re a rodent in need of a break). The streets in town were lined with old, pastel-colored homes now faded by the sun. A bakery called Good Donuts, run by a tattooed lady named Bertha, sat beside a bakery called Better Donuts, run by her sister, Dorothy. Today long lines stretched around both shops. Locals scuttled out each door with bags of baked goods and cups of steaming coffee, bumping into one another as they rushed up the hilly sidewalks.

  The squirrel scampered along the ground unnoticed, dodging high-heeled boots and old sneakers as the crowd grew thicker—and the chatter grew louder. Main Street buzzed with activity today—just like it had years ago. The street used to be filled with grand Victorian houses (and even grander parties). But most of those old homes had been razed. Now, almost every house on Main Street looked the same: boring mansions with swimming pools and perfectly manicured shrubs.

  But two houses on Main Street looked different than all the others. And this is where the squirrel—and the rest of the chattering crowd—was headed. The squirrel jumped on the edge of a fountain in the middle of the street, and then onto the statue in the fountain’s center. (The statue was a tribute to the brave adventurer Ponce de Léon—who had supposedly explored Lost Cove centuries ago. That was the town’s only claim to fame. Well . . . that, plus the donuts.) The squirrel settled onto Ponce’s shoulder and scanned the crowd.