A mighty tantrum he will throw!”
“I’ll come down and f-finish dinner,” Wendell said.
“Wendell, we should build our bunks here! In the Room of Constellations!”
“You c-can,” Wendell pushed his glasses up on his nose. “But I want to bunk in the l-library.”
“But . . . we always bunk in the same room.”
“Wendell! Thea!” Sundae called from down below. “Come on! Pancake party!”
Wendell chewed on his lip as he considered something. “Have you n-noticed we’re always Wendell-Thea? Like one p-person? Does that ever bother you at all?”
“No!” she answered quickly. “Why should it?”
“No reason,” he mumbled as he disappeared into the tunnel.
Thea spun slowly, taking in the starry walls of the hidden space place.
“Why did you bring us here?” she whispered as if the room would talk to her. Although that would have been super creepy if it had. Thankfully, it didn’t. The only response Thea heard was the chatter and clatter of her siblings trying to find food downstairs. She finally left to join them.
However, if she’d lingered and listened just a bit more closely, she might have heard the sound of a slow music box. In the tall magnolia tree beside the window, the purple-tailed squirrel waited. Its tail swished. The music played.
The tall oaks on Main Street shivered with excitement. And so did the house itself.
A brass rabbit on the library shelf twitched its mechanical ears.
A robotic phoenix in the corner of the sitting room lifted its wing, and its gold feathers dangled and jingled like bells.
Soon
Soon
Soon . . . ticked the big clock in the
downstairs room.
House Number Seven was waking up again, finally, after so many years asleep.
A Petition for Removal
For a week, nobody saw the Problim children. And folks in Lost Cove began to wonder if, maybe, the children really were Frank Problim’s kinfolk and maybe not as bad or dangerous as their grandfather had been. So Desdemona O’Pinion did her part to call each lady in the Mansion Owners Observation Society (MOOS, for short) and remind them of all the havoc the Problim family had caused so many years ago.
Then came Saturday morning.
The residents of Main Street in Lost Cove woke to fog.
Thick, hideous, soupy fog.
It was the most horribly exciting thing that had happened on Main Street in ages.
Mrs. Timberwhiff noticed it first, when she walked to get the morning paper that she never actually took out of the wrapper. Mist in the Cove normally settled over Main Street like a lovely layer of gossamer. They used the picture in brochures, even. To lure the right kind of new families to the neighborhood. But this fog was so thick it might be dangerous. Worst of all, it was ugly.
“I’ll call Desdemona about this,” Mrs. Timberwhiff huffed. Because if anybody could tell the weather what to do, it was certainly Desdemona O’Pinion, founder and president of MOOS.
Mrs. Timberwhiff wasn’t the only neighbor who called Desdemona that morning. Desdemona’s phone began buzzing and ringing nonstop, interrupting her morning meditation. She finally stomped out of the house wearing her pajamas and a blue fluffy bathrobe. She immediately began coughing, trying to swat the fog away as if it were a hefty billow of smoke.
From her front yard, she could see exactly where it came from—as if she’d had any doubt.
The fog was coming from Number Seven. Of course. Fog wrapped around that old Victorian trash heap like a cloudy scarf. By noon, only the tall tower—the one with the rickety porch wrapped around it—was visible. Plus, Desdemona could hear things inside the fog: hammering, laughing, something that sounded like a saw. Desdemona grabbed a pair of binoculars and crawled to the edge of one of the planks extended from the windows of her home. But no matter how hard she looked, she couldn’t see through the mist.
Bertha came running down the street. Bertha was seventy years old, and she had just run her seventh marathon. Desdemona knew there was no avoiding her. “Dezi! There you are!”
Desdemona flinched. She hated it when people called her Dezi, as if she were still ten years old.
“Dez! Dezi!”
“I hear you, Bertha,” she said with a forced smile.
“That wild fog! It’s coming from Number Seven, yeah? Everybody at the bakeries are talking about those kiddos.”
“Not for long,” Desdemona said.
Dorothy came riding up next in a golf cart. “Are y’all talking about the Problim children?”
“Yep!” Bertha said. “I’m here to tell you now, the Problims have always been . . . touched. Touched with some dark magic, I believe.”
Desdemona groaned. “They’re not magic.”
But Bertha carried on. “I’m old enough to remember when Frank’s family lived here, you know. He had a bunch of siblings too. They lost one in the war, and some moved away. But ohhh, I remember. When Frank Problim and his wild bunch of siblings got together, strange things started happening. But when Frank only had one son—well—we thought all the strangeness was over.”
Desdemona tried to interject, but Bertha was on a roll. “And that was all before the Great Feud. Before Frank Problim went mad. And now, six children, dirty as swamp rats, come back to claim their granddaddy’s estate . . .”
“Seven,” Desdemona corrected with a shiver. “The oldest one said there were seven children. But they won’t be here long.”
Noah Wong arrived next, pushing a double stroller. One side held his baby sister, a toddler too busy napping to notice the fog. The other side contained the family’s Himalayan Adventuring Cat, licking her paws nonchalantly as she reclined. (Once Desdemona bought a Himalayan Adventuring Cat for Carley-Rue, every family in the neighborhood had to have one.) “Somebody told my mom that they’ve seen the one with the blades walking around at night.” Noah spoke low, as if he was afraid that Sal would overhear. “Isn’t that cool?”
“No, not cool,” Desdemona scolded. “All of you children are in danger as long as they’re here. In fact,” Desdemona said, her audience of terrified moms now primed, “if we get enough signatures on a petition for removal, the Society for the Protection of Unwanted Children would come see what’s going on. And find out if they really have guardians. And if they don’t, they could find safe homes for them. Far, far away from here.”
Everyone nodded enthusiastically. Of course Desdemona had come up with the perfect plan.
“Honestly, I’d forgotten all about the Problim family,” someone said. “What was the name of Frank’s son, Desdemona? Wasn’t he your age?”
“Major.” Desdemona seethed. “Major Problim.”
Oh yes, she would be happy to get that petition circulating. She’d start it this afternoon.
“Shh!” Bertha hissed. “Listen! Do y’all hear that?”
Mingled with the early morning breeze, a soft whistle floated down Main Street.
The crowd inched closer to one another, all straining their necks and standing on their toes watching toward the end of the lane. At last, the silhouette of a girl on a scooter emerged from the fog. The wheels made a poppity rolling sound over the cobblestones. The rider wore a pink dress and a black sweater. Her black hair rippled freely in the breeze. Her umbrella was folded into a basket on the front, alongside a Venus flytrap in a pink pot.
“That’s the pretty one,” Carley-Rue growled.
“Have you ever seen such a beautiful child?” Mrs. Timberwhiff cooed.
Desdemona and Carley-Rue both glared at her.
“Besides you, I mean!” she said. “You’re obviously the most beautiful child in the Cove, Carley-Rue!”
“The Problim girl doesn’t even have a crown,” Carley snarked.
“You know, they are just children,” Dorothy said. “There’s nothing to be afraid—”
Bertha jumped into the golf cart beside Dorothy and screamed, “Drive away. Now! Go! H
IT THE GAS, DOROTHY LOU!”
“Why?” Desdemona asked as the sisters sped away into the fog. “Where are you going?”
Noah Wong’s eyes shined with surprise. And then joy. Even as he sped his sister away from there, he couldn’t help but look back. Magic. That’s the only word he could think of—maybe the Problims really were capable of magic.
Because hundreds of spiders with shiny blue legs were scrambling down the cobblestone sidewalks. The clicking noise of their feet made it sound like they were tap dancing. Despite the screaming and running, the spiders never veered for the MOOS. They clickity-crawled in perfect unison . . . and disappeared through the foggy gate of House Number Seven.
“I’m starting the petition immediately!” Desdemona yelled.
Welcome Gifts
“Your fog garden is freaking out the neighbors,” Mona told Sal as she pushed her scooter through the gate. “It’s wonderful to see.” Fuzzy, blue-legged spiders came scampering through the gate behind her and crawled up into the trees.
“Good,” Sal said. He sat on the ground pulling the weeds that circled a yellow rosebush, with Ichabod beside him. “I’m sick of the neighbors looking through the gate. And for your information, if you hadn’t tried to blow up my old garden, we could have stayed where we were. With no neighbors to worry about.”
“Things happen.” Mona kneeled down beside him. “And anyway, I did some thinking on my morning promenade. I think Wendell and Thea are right. I think we should get to know the neighbors better.” She smiled menacingly.
Sal shook his head. “The circus spiders will help us figure out why they’re so afraid of us.”
“Circus spiders are too slow. Let’s go play with the neighbors.”
“Sundae doesn’t like the way you play with people.”
“Sundae isn’t here.”
“She is, actually,” Sal confirmed. “She’s building tiny, portable homes for the homeless in the backyard.”
The kitchen door opened, and Wendell and Thea scampered outside.
“Our sp-spiders!” Wendell shouted. “They’re home!”
Thea kneeled and cupped a spider in her hand. She tapped its fuzzy head and smiled. “We’re so sorry about the explosion, friend.”
The twins had spent weeks training the spiders to do new tricks: acrobatics, one-legged web walking, fifteen-spider pileups—it would have been a spectacular show!
“Maybe we’ll plan another spider circus someday,” Thea said. “When we’re friends with the neighbors, they can come watch.”
“B-brilliant!” Wendell agreed. His polka-dot bow tie matched Thea’s cardigan. When they were little, the twins had liked dressing matchy-matchy. These days, Thea had a harder time convincing Wendell it was a good idea.
“Good morning, M-Mona!” Wendell smiled. “How’s Fiona?”
Mona looked down at her darling flytrap. “The flies here aren’t juicy enough. We miss the swamp.”
“I d-don’t!” Wendell said, spinning around. “Look at this garden! It’s spect-tacular! I knew it would be. As soon as I saw this place, I thought: I cannot w-wait for Saturday!” On Saturday, Sal’s day, the world bloomed. It bloomed in the rain or through the snow.
Sal’s fog created a lovely dome over the plants. Underneath that dome, Sal had transformed the scraggly grounds of the Problim mansion into a fine garden almost overnight. Only a few days on Main Street, and thorny rosebushes were prickled with color. Mugwort and thistle mingled with ivy and catnip. Smelly herbs grew in the middle of the garden. Moss dangled from the trees, blowing ghostly in the morning breeze, making the whole place look creepy-beautiful. Which was the best kind of beautiful, as far as the Problim children were concerned.
“What’s this contraption thing?” Thea asked. Then she froze. “Wait . . . did you build this or did Mona?”
“Don’t worry.” Sal smiled. “Wendell helped me build it. And it’s the reason for the fog. Behold my recycling-hydroponic garden. With a bit of humidity, it makes its own water and fog.”
“Amazing,” Thea said. Wendell had always loved water the way Sal loved land. Back in the swamp, Wendell had been the best swimmer. He could outswim an alligator; she’d seen it. “Twins for the win.”
Thump, bump.
Sal nodded. “And thanks to the fog, the neighbors aren’t peeking their nosy heads in the gate to spy on us.”
Thea glanced at Wendell. He nodded at her. “Wendell and I think it’s time to meet the neighbors.”
“So I made c-cookies,” Wendell said. He proudly opened the box to reveal skull-shaped chocolate chip cookies, with red-icing hearts for eyes.
Thea smiled. “Won’t the neighbors love them?” She returned her attention to Sal. “Midge Lodestar, my life coach, says you can overcome your fear of meeting people by offering them gifts. And maybe if they liked us—if we were their friends—they wouldn’t make us leave. I mean . . . we haven’t found Problim proof, right?” She added quietly, “And Sundae still hasn’t heard back from Mom and Dad.”
Sal shook his head. “Midge Lodestar gives terrible advice. And besides—have you noticed they’re not giving you gifts? They don’t like us. They want to be left alone.”
“Everybody needs friends! At first, we thought we’d give them circus spiders . . . ,” Thea reasoned. (Mona’s eyes glistened at this idea, but none of her siblings noticed.) “But the spiders have a job to do. So we made cookies instead.”
“Which neighbors are you going to see? We have loads.” Mona opened the cookie box and nodded at Wendell’s creations. “I’d like to play with them all. . . .”
“L-Loads?” Wendell asked. “We’ll need more cookies.”
“Don’t worry.” Mona smiled, taking the box from her brother. “I’ll go get the rest.”
Sal rolled his eyes and returned to trimming the hedges that were trying to suffocate a lovely little bonsai tree. “I can’t stop you from going out to meet the weirdos, but take my advice: Cove people are superstitious nuts.”
Thea narrowed her eyes. “Sal . . . do you know something you aren’t telling us?”
“I know tons of things that I never tell anybody.” He laid his shears down. He reached to snap a thorny vine from the ground. “Just don’t be surprised if the neighbors don’t like you.”
Sal’s advice felt like a punch in the heart to Thea. Why would people hate someone they didn’t even know?
Wendell patted her shoulder. “It’s o-okay. We can at least try.”
“Thea-Wendell! Here you go!” Mona said, running into the garden again. She smiled sweetly as she passed the cookies. “Have fun.”
“Want to c-come along, Mona?”
“I considered it.” Mona glanced up at the old Victorian behind her. Brimming with opportunities. Hiding places. Secrets. She smiled. “But I’m going to explore the house. Alone.”
Introductions
Mrs. Wong flung open her front door at the sound of the buzzer. She was terrified. And elated.
Terrified because three of the demon children were on the doorstep, holding a box that contained God-knows-what. A dead bird? A beating heart? There were all sorts of rumors!
Elated because she couldn’t wait to tell the rest of the girls in MOOS that the Problim children had actually come to her house. She never had anything exciting to share. Now excitement rested on her doorstep.
“Hello there,” Thea said, lifting the box. “I’m Thea Problim!”
Wendell opened his mouth to say hello, but Thea talked for him. “These are my brothers Wendell and Toot.”
Toot nodded once, gentlemanly. He’d picked a pink bow tie for the visits.
A boy Thea’s age came running up behind his mom and shouted, “Is it true about the spiders?”
Mrs. Wong cupped her hand around her son’s mouth. “What do you need?”
Wendell couldn’t make eye contact with Mrs. Wong anymore. He was too excited to be in close proximity to another living, breathing human child that wasn’t related to him. Wendell
opened his mouth to speak, but Thea beat him to it.
“I’m Thea! This is my twin, Wendell. It’s nice to meet you!”
“I’m Noah,” he mumbled. But Thea was good with mumbles. Noah’s mom kept her hand on his shoulder so she could pull him back in case the Problim children attacked.
“We live in the funny old house over there, the one with the pretty fog all around it.”
“Wicked awesome!” Noah shouted.
“And we brought you gourmet cookies!” Thea said.
Mrs. Wong clutched the doorframe. “We don’t eat cookies.”
Thea nodded reassuringly. “You might eat these! They’re gluten-free and peanut-free. Our big sister is allergic to both. Wendell made sure no peanuts were harmed in the making of these treats!”
Noah’s eyes were sparkling. But his mother remained firm in her decision.
“Absolutely. No. Cookies!”
Noah yanked his mom’s hand away from his mouth long enough to shout, “I LOVE COOKIES!”
Mrs. Wong shoved Noah inside and stomped out onto the stoop, slamming the door behind her. “No, thank you. You should go.”
Wendell opened the box to show her the gooey, delicious skull-shaped cookies inside. Mrs. Wong’s face froze in a picture of perfect fear. Her jaw twitched. She lifted a shaking hand to her mouth, as if she was trying to contain vomitus spew.
Thea felt her brother stiffen beside her. He started to speak to Mrs. Wong, when Thea became instantly defensive. “Listen here, lady! My brother is a baking wizard. If you don’t like delicious desserts, well, that’s a sad way to live. But it’s your choice. There’s no need to be so dramatic.”
Mrs. Wong answered with a scream. Her shriek was so loud that Toot covered his ears and farted a 217.13 The slamming door blew Thea’s hair into her face.
“Oh, boo.” Thea sighed. “Wendell, look. Mona put some circus spiders in here.”
Wendell rolled his eyes and helped Thea lift the spiders gently from the box. She deposited one in each front pocket of her polka-dot cardigan. Usually the spiders preferred to travel on Thea’s shoelaces, but they’d just been screamed at. So she wanted them close to her heart, where they would feel cozy and loved.
The Problim Children Page 5
